Monday Morning Coffee with Mark

Cheerful Giving

March 21, 2022 Mark Roberts Season 2 Episode 12
Monday Morning Coffee with Mark
Cheerful Giving
Show Notes Transcript

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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.

Speaker 1:

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

Speaker 2:

Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to the Monday morning coffee podcast for Monday, March the 21st. I do have a great cup of coffee in my hands at, as I'm looking over my notes from the sermon yesterday and getting ready to think a little bit about our Bible reading and first Corinthians for the week, all of this coming together, as we try to carry the spiritual momentum of a Sunday into Monday and beyond ready for that let's get started. So let's talk a little bit about yesterday's sermon. I talked about giving, but particularly I had a huge emphasis on giving cheerfully and what that means and how we bring that emotion into our worship and how giving activates that really is about cheerful giving. And I wanna just add a couple of notes to the, that it's one of the great things about the podcast. You just can't say everything in the pulpit, we'd be there forever. And so here's a couple things maybe to think a little bit further about our giving and as you consider how to do that and how to purpose in your heart and how to bring that right attitude. Let me just ask a, an important question here from our parents. What about your kids? Are your kids giving now pre pandemic? We passed the collection plate and that was a huge, huge time for little kiddos. That's kind of the only time that they really got to do something in worship that they could figure out is they get a little bit older. They can start to sing, start to follow the sermon, but when they're really little, they just can't really participate at whole level at a much of a level in worship. But when the plate comes by, mama gives me that quarter and I can put that quarter in the plate. That's a big deal for kids. And I'm wondering about that and the ton of funny stories about kids not wanting to put the quarter in the plate and what they say when they put the quarter in the plate and I love all kind of stuff. But what I'm asking is are your kids giving because we're not passing the plates anymore. We're not doing that anymore because of the pandemic. We started not, uh, doing a collection plate kind of thing for one thing, we weren't even in the building. So it makes it hard to pass the plates, but then even as we come back, we're still using Zelle and that's great. That's just, that's just wonderful. There's a lot of really great things about that. And a lot of people don't do a checking account anymore. So that facilitates a lot of people in their giving. I get it. That's important, but what about our kids? What are they doing? And there may be kids that are giving in the two boxes that are stationed in the back of the auditorium. And I just don't see that because I have my back to those boxes. I'm greeting folks talking, especially with vis and so forth. They're not paying attention to that. I don't need to be paying attention to that. So, so maybe a bunch of a bunch of kids are hitting those boxes with that quarter. I, I don't know. I just wonder if maybe that's a part of our worship that kind of has gotten them maybe a little bit forgotten in the middle of the pandemic and all that was going on with that. We probably, weren't thinking a whole lot about whether Johnny or Susie is putting their quarter in the plate, but we wanna teach our kids to give, and we wanna teach our kids to give cheerfully and that mom and dad are glad to do that. And mom and dad are doing that and you can do that. And so parents, we need to find a way to help our children learn about that. We want to teach our children to give giving is such an underrated act of worship. I don't think I ever preach about giving, which isn't really very often. I talked about that yesterday. Some too, that I, I don't think I ever talk about giving without having to say that this is probably the, the most underrated part of our, our worship. It, it just kind of gets shuttled off into a corner. I think we do a great job here of separating that from the Lord supper, which is easier than ever to do because we aren't passing plates that were stored on the same place in the same table as the Lord supper. So probably ending that confusion that kids have all always had that giving is the third act of the third element of the Lord supper. But I just want us to make sure that we're still thinking about our children in training them to give. And then the other thought that I would have, and that I, I really wanted to say this yesterday and just really couldn't get to this and just not gonna be room for this is to just talk about that. What makes giving such a special part of our worship is because this is an act of worship where we get to be like, God, that's, that's really important because godliness being like God Christ likeness is at the essence of who we are. That is the goal of Christianity is to become like Christ. It is the change of self centeredness to being God centered. I want to be like, Jesus, I want to be like the master. And there may not be any way that I can be more like Christ than when I give. That is a huge part of the character of heart in the heart of God. He gave his son, John three 16, Jesus just comes and gives himself on our behalf. And when I give, I get the chance to do that, to be like Christ, to be like, God, sometimes people will say, all you want is my money. And that is so wrong. That is absolutely wrong. The Lord wants a whole lot more than your money. You are really underselling Christianity. No, God doesn't just want your money. He wants you. He wants all of you. And that begins when we decide that we're gonna change ourselves to become more like God's son. And when our heart is in that place. And I see, Hey, look at this, I'm getting to be like Christ. I am, I am like Christ. I am giving that just ought to fill that worship. That act of worship up with so much joy. I'm so excited that I get to do this. I get to be like, Jesus. That's who I wanna be like, that's what I want to do. And I'm doing it. I am giving what a joy that really is. So I hope that idea will empower you as you continue to give on the first day of the week as we are instructed. And I hope that you'll share some of that joy with your kids and do some teaching and training about that. Well, those instructions come from Corinthians and yep. We are reading in Paul's epi to the Corinthian brethren, get your Bibles open first Corinthians chapter five. Let's do some daily Bible reading It's Monday and we're reading first Corinthians chapter five, the entire chapter for today. This is a turn in our reading in Corinthians. Paul moves from the discussion of division in the first four chapters and even some about their attitudes toward him and the arrogance that underlines so much of what's going on in Quran to talk about a manifestation of that arrogance five, two, you are arrogant. They are arrogant about a sexual sin going on in their very match. And that problem of imorality really will extend all the way through chapter six. We'll continue to talk about that as we work along during the week, I'm so glad to have the podcast to help thread some of this together because it's easy for the Corinthian message to get fragmented into various topical buckets. The, this is on sexuality and church discipline. This is ongoing to court. This is the, and, and there are some connections that we want to make sure that we see. And we do get out of first Corinthians five, some important information about sexual ethics and their importance among the church and in the church. And then of course, this is a chapter that we lean on heavily to understand about church discipline. The problem is verse one, there is sexual imorality among you, a kind, not even tolerated among the pagans. And there is a lot of speculation of course, about what precisely Paul is talking about. He does not enumerate that they know what's going on. There's a fair amount of Corinthians where it's kind of like listening to half of a phone conversation. And we would really like to know exactly what's being said on the other end of the line, they know what's happening. Paul knows what's happening. We're not precisely sure. It seems like that this is a case of incest for a man, has his father's wife. The terms here seem to be related to maybe a stepmother, not his actual mother, but we're not entirely sure about all of that. Uh, let's see if we can work along a little further with some of the other wrinkley kinds of passages here. Paul says that I want him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh for Corinthians five in verse five. And I wish I knew more about that. Does that mean that this man is going to be delivered to death? Well, how does that help? This is, that's not very remedial. That's certainly not gonna help him. He's not in any position to go see the Lord right now. And there doesn't seem to be anything about how he to be struck dead about this. Some have wondered if this is slow, physical suffering and sometimes suffering does cause us to awake to our need of repentance and to return to the Lord, some have thought that this is Romans one, God gives up on someone. And I kinda like that that God gives this person up to the way of sin, which is hard. And so self defeating there probably is something to that. Maybe he just means to remove this person from the kingdom of Christ and put him in the kingdom of Satan. All of that is to say that church discipline is extremely important, and we don't even understand all of the ramifications and spiritual implications of what that does in the presence of God or what the devil sees when we are doing that. This is very much spiritual warfare, and it has very deep ramifications for what's going on in this battle between good and evil. I think sometimes that is really underplayed and not understood. And we need to think more about that because the church is to take care of those who are not going to repent of sin. That's what's going on here. This man is UN repent. He's in open sin yet. He is still part of the Corinthian congregation. They need to do something about that. They can't continue to celebrate that. They can't continue to overlook that they need to take action about his horrible conduct. And Paul gets to that when he says in verse nine, I wrote to you in my letter, not to associate with sexually imoral people, I don't mean the imoral people of this world. You'd have to go out of the world. I'm writing to you not to associate verse 11 with anyone who bears the name of brother. If he's guilty of sexual imorality church, discipline is basically social ostracism. That's what he's talking about. And I would not, as I'm trying to bring that to the culture of 21st century America, I would not get up and leave a restaurant. If I saw someone coming in across the room that the church had withdrawn from, I don't think think my presence there implies in any way that I'm condoning that individual and his activity and his wrongdoing that he won't repent of. But I would not. If the church has withdrawn from somebody, invite them into my home to, you know, watch a football game or watch the NCAA, uh, March mad, that would imply I think you're okay. Um, come into my home and let's all just have a good time. Like everything is fine. Know everything is not fine. This brother is in terrible sin. And despite everything that we have tried to do to get him to repent, he refuses to repent. And so now the church takes very strong action to try to shock this brother into waking up and saying, oh my, I need to turn back to God and do what's right now. Clearly I can't answer every question about church discipline. And there are a million of those. I can't answer all of those in a podcast where we're dealing with daily Bible reading. I think the key issues that stand out here, the big ideas is that this is about grant open sin. That is not repented of. Sometimes people try to hold back or push back against church discipline by saying, well, we're all sinners. And of course that is, that is certainly true, but we're not all in flagrant open sin that everybody knows about. And then when someone says, Hey, what about that conduct? We're like, ah, I'm not repenting of that. That this is a certain kind of sin that's going on openly among the brethren. And then I think, secondly, this is clearly something that is happening with someone who wants to be part of the congregation. In this context, this is a person who is in the midst of the Corinthian church. This is not somebody who has left the church. Doesn't wanna have anything to do with the identified with the church. That's a different situation. And then I, I think thirdly, what needs to be really, really emphasized is this is congregational action. This is congregational action. Verse four, when you are assembled verse two removed from among you verse 12, is it not those inside verse 13, purge the evil person from among you? Sometimes I hear people say, maybe they've had a difficult situation in their family and say, we're gonna withdraw from this person. Well, I don't know what passage you would appeal to for that. Where's the procedure for an individual to withdraw from another individual for Corine five is talking about congregational action, and we need to make sure that we leave it in that realm. There are some things that we do as the church that individuals cannot do. There are things individuals can do that the church cannot. We need to remember and respect that out of first Corinthians five. That's our reading for today. And I think maybe the thing to think about in this is it just shows that the church has boundaries. It's not, uh, an Lu society of everybody and anybody. It has boundaries and Christ draws those boundaries. And we have to respect that. See you tomorrow. We'll continue to read in Corinthians. Welcome to Tuesday. We're reading today. First Corinthians 6 1 2 11 here, Paul keys off the comment in verse 12 about judging others. Verse 12 of chapter five. Yesterday's reading God, judges those outside. Now six two. If the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Paul, as he's writing here says, since I'm talking about judging, let me just say a word or two about judging you folks are failing to do the kind of judging you need to do this man. Chapter five needs to be judged in his sinful conduct. And by the way, why are you going to court with trivial and mundane cases that cause the church to be slandered in the community? A lot of those people can't even get along with themselves. What I don't wanna be any part of that Christianity thing. Look at those folks they're in court suing each other. And so Paul says in first Corinthians six in our reading today that that is outrageous and cannot be done and must not be done. And there are a couple of passages here that are gonna cause you to scratch your head. What about saints judging the world there? Couple of passages where there's some conversation about that, but never, never really anything specific. And then Paul says, do not know that we are to judge angels. And again, we're scratching our heads. What do you mean by that? And I think what we have to say about that is while we do not understand the specifics of all of that, we accept the text as true without knowing all of its details. I'll give you one other note here. I think this is pretty straightforward reading today in verse eight, he says you yourselves wrong and defraud even your own brothers. And then verse nine, he says, you not know that the unrighteous, the term unrighteous here in verse nine is connected to verse eight. The idea of doing wrong, do not know that the wrongs, the ones who do wrong, won't inherit the kingdom of God. So we have tendency to read nine, 10, and 11 and apply that to the world. You people out in the world who are doing all these terrible things, sexually IM moral adult version, homosexuality, and these ingredient, all the other that I'm reading way too fast. Um, all those folks, Hey, come to the kingdom of God. You could be washed. You could be sanctified. You could be justified verse 11. And that is right. That is right. You can do that, but that's not actually the application that Paul is making here. Paul is saying you yourselves verse eight, uh, wrong and do wrong. Don't you know, people who do wrong like you do when you Sue your brother, you folks can't be in the kingdom of God. If you act like that, this is directed to the saints at Corinth. And it is warning against self-deception and pretending that I am so right with God, when I am misbehaving in such a terrible way, suing my brother or sister in Christ. Now, finally, then I'm certain that somebody's asking, well, does this mean I could never take a brother to law? And I don't think that Paul is forbidding all going to law. What he is forbidding is going to court without trying to work it out first, a woman, for example, could Sue her husband for divorce in court. Even if he is a Christian, she could Sue him for divorce, for sexual morality. And Jesus talks about that in Matthew 19. So, and that, that is literally what you do. You Sue for divorce. And Paul uses legal means when it is to his aid. And we see that, for example, in acts chapter 23 and, uh, act chapter 24, he appeals to Caesar acts 16, Paul whips out his Roman citizenship and says, you know, I don't really feel like getting beat up today. How about that? So Paul can use legal means, but what he is saying here is that we are not gonna take a trivial case to court when brethren ought to be able to work this out, because it's gonna cause the church to be looked down upon by the community. And that would be our standard. Those are the kind of things that we would look to. I don't think if a brother is being wronged and after every effort, uh, to work that out, he's gone to that individual and, and tried and tried and tried and maybe involved other brethren involved. The elders still can't get anywhere. Still can, you know, get any traction with any of this kind of thing. It may be necessary to seek legal redress, to recover damages, something like that. Hopefully that would never happen because we're brothers and we don't go to court. That's the message in our Bible, reading today for Corinthians six, one to 11, see tomorrow, we'll finish up this chapter and transition to some ideas about sex and sexual imorality. Paul's not afraid to talk about that. We shouldn't be either it's Wednesday and we're reading in first Corine six versus 12 to 20. And if you will look at your pink Bible reading schedule, you will note, it says that we are reading first Corinthians six, 12 to 23. Well, good luck with that. If you can find verse 21, 22 and 23, you should, I don't know, publish those or something. You're gonna make a lot of money with these three unknown verses that nobody's ever read before. That is a typo in the Bible reading schedule. Wow. If we can find this guy who has made some typing errors in typing the Bible reading schedule, we'll get after him for sure. Cuz today is not 12 to 23. It's 12 to 20. It's the rest of first Corinthians six. And here Paul rejoins the idea from chapter five of sexual imorality being celebrated. I think really first Corinthians six, one to 11. What we read yesterday is kind of a, parentes kind of a little tangent while I'm talking about judging, Hey, Hey, can you do some judging and quit going to court? And then he returns to the ideas about sexual imorality and how serious that is and how serious God takes that. It seems that some people are defending sexual. Imorality all things are lawful for me. Verse 12, I could just do anything I want because I am a Christian and, and, and having sex with someone. Why, why that's just like eating foods for the stomach stomach's for food. The body is for sex. And Paul says, absolutely not. When you use your bodies in that way, 15, you make them members of a prostitute. You are members of the body of Christ. You can't join Christ to a prostitute that's unthinkable. And of course I preached about Quran two weeks ago, talking about how common that was. And it was very, very common temple. Prostitution is, is not even in any way, looked down upon in the new Testament world. And Corinth was a center for that. There was a lot of that going on. We know that up on the hill, the aro Corinth, there was a big temple there and there were lots and lots of prostitutes. There's some accounts in the second century, BC it's about 200 years before Paul was there, that there were even a thousand temple prostitutes up there. Now that's well before Paul's time, but it was still going on in Paul's day. And that is just not looked down upon at all. So Paul really has to work with this idea that fornication sexuality is just a natural urges, just like eating. Paul says, there's no comparison there. The body is not made for M morality. It was made to serve God. And when we sin in this way, we sin against our body. And that that creating a bodily union with a prostitute is just different than any other kind of sin. It joins us to that one in that unique way. All of that is to say that the sexual relationship is really special and it is not to be misused. It is not to be prostituted. If I can make a pun off of what Paul is dealing with here, particularly because verse 19, your body is the temple of the holy spirit within you, whom you have from God, you are not your own. And I, I am thinking more and more about the personal and dwelling of the holy spirit. And Paul makes that appeal here to the special relationship that we have God with God, because we have the spirit of God dwelling within us. And, and I don't understand everything about that. And I don't know everything about that. And I could sure go into a long list of things that that doesn't mean it does mean I'm afraid too often. I've gone into the list of things. It doesn't mean without talking about what it does mean. So I'm, I'm just gonna talk about that here. It does mean that I can't be involved in this kind of sin. That's an outrage. If you ask about the tone and temperature of today's reading, Paul is outraged that anybody would justify fornication. Anybody would justify sexual imorality Hey, you know, I've got a body and this is what you do in your body. Paul says, absolutely not. Your body is a temple. You see all those temples all around, you Corinthians your body's a temple and you can't join your body. You can't join Christ. A prostitute. You have the holy spirit living. Those temples are empty. Those temples are empty. Your temple is not. You have the holy spirit dwelling within you. What a powerful argument that makes. And that brings Paul to talk more about the sexual relationship. First Corinthians six, our reading today talks about the wrong use of that. Now in chapter seven, Paul says, let's talk more about that. Let's talk about the right use of the sexual relationship. See tomorrow we'll read first Corinthians seven, Welcome to Thursday. And Thursday's reading Corinthians seven versus one to nine. This begins Paul's great discussion of marriage. And he begins that by saying it is good for a man verse one, not to have sexual relations with a woman. He just said that the body is not made for sexual imorality that's chapter six that we read yesterday, but because of the temptation to sexual imorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman, her own husband, the sexual relationship is made for the marriage relationship. And Paul wants to make sure that it stays there. It is good. It is right. It is blessed by God. It was created by God. And I think we really do ourselves, a disservice and particularly our young people at is service. When all we can ever say about the sexual relationship is don't. We need to talk more about how good and right it is in marriage. God is for sex. He is for sex in the right place. That is a point I just don't think we can make nearly enough. And so some in Corinth clearly are deciding to if there is something absolutely wrong about the sexual relationship, I just shouldn't be involved in that in any place, in any way. And Paul says, that's gonna cause all kinds of problems. That's gonna cause temptation. That's gonna cause temptation to satisfy the sexual desire in the wrong place and in the wrong way. So make sure that you're taking care of each other in marriage. He talks about here and for Corinthians seven. And then he goes on to talk about that. Marriage is good. Verse eight and nine. Now he will say, it's good to remain single, but all of that needs to be read against the backdrop of what Paul is working with and living with particularly verse 26, maybe make a note out in the margin. Verse 26 says, I think in view of the present distress, it is good for a person to remain as he is. This is a time of persecution. And so if you're not married, mm not maybe the best time to get married. It's one thing for them to say, Hey, if you don't deny Christ, I'm gonna chop off your head. Then if they say, if you don't deny Christ, we're gonna chop off your wife's head. That's a incredible pressure. That is incredible pressure. And Paul says, I would spare you that if you're single, how about just staying single right now? But again, if you desire to marry marriage is, is good. And given by God, nothing should be read here. In first Christians seven to act like somehow marriage is a lesser state or marriage. Shouldn't be desired. Marriage is not good. No marriage is blessed of God. And it is the right place for the sexual relationship, which is created by God and which is honored and blessed by God. Don't let first Corinthians seven, which is dealing with some very specific questions that they wrote. Verse one and in a very specific, uh, circumstance and time, a time of persecution, don't let that override all that the Bible has to say, particularly, I'm thinking about Genesis chapter two when God presents Adam with Eve and it's good. And it, God is the one that created her for him. And they are joined together and they are naked and they're not ashamed. Or I'm thinking about Hebrews 13, four, the marriage bed is undefiled and should be held in honor. Don't let a narrow slice of scripture somehow dictate to you or to all of us. What we're going to think about marriage. That would be a terrible misuse of our Bible reading today. First Corine 7 1 9, our Bible reading for Thursday. See you tomorrow. We're gonna end the week by reading a little bit more of first Corinthians seven, see you tomorrow. Hey, it is Friday, congratulate yourself. You made it through another week. Get another sip of that coffee and say, Hey, I think I'm gonna get there. Yep. We most certainly are today. We're gonna read 10 more verses of first Corinthians seven. Let me just say a couple of things here. As we get deeper into all that Paul has to say about marriage and some of the things that are made of that and how all of that works. Let me just say first and foremost, this is not a class in marriage, divorce and remarriage. This is a podcast about a daily Bible reading. It's designed to help you in your Devo of time with God in your quiet time with God to get the text, make some sense of the text, being prayer and be about your day. So I can't answer every question about everything. And in fact, even if it was a class on marriage force from remarriage, I couldn't answer every question about everything, but it is clear as we're looking at first Corinthians seven, that there's some very civic circumstances happening here. Particularly there would be some folks who used to be pagans. Now they become Christians. Their spouse has not become a Christian and a natural question that would flow from that would be, where am I now? What is the state of my marriage? Should I just bail on that? My husband is still going to the temple of Apollo. My wife is still going up to the temple of Alfred. I can I be married to somebody like that? What happens next? Maybe I need to get out of this marriage. And so some of this is, like I said earlier, kinda like a phone conversation. We're hearing half of it. And I would really, really like to what they wrote first 15, 7 1 concerning the matters about which you wrote, Hey, could we hear the other half of the conversation? That would be not kind of nice, but I think we can supply without too much difficulty. Some of those questions should a Saint married to a non-Christian sever that relationship. Am I defiled by that relationship? Are the children illegitimate as a result of this is a mixed marriage. If I can use that terminology, um, am I guilty of sin? If that non-Christian bails on this relationship and does being a Christian mean that I should dissolve any marriage that I had prior to my conversion to Christ and the instructions here are pretty straightforward. The believer is not to depart from the believer versus 12 and 13, the marriage and the children are both legitimate verse 14. And if the believer decides to depart you, you gotta let him go. You can't stop him. You have no control over that. So that is the basis for our reading today. And yes, there will be a lot of questions that come from that primarily what is being talked about where Paul says in first 15, seven and verse 15, that if that believer separates, let it be. So in such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved or not bound or not under. The term for, there is not the term that Paul uses for marriage. It's not the term that he usually uses for the marriage bond. And it is a term that seems to mean you were never under that kind of. There is lots of discussion about that. I think in this setting, in this context, the best way to, to understand that is to understand that this is, this is the special obligation that a spouse feels to bring their non-Christian spouse to Christ. And so if this spouse is leaving, how am I ever going to convert him? How am I ever going to bring her to Jesus? Maybe I should stop being a Christian for a while, let things cool off. There would be a lot through the mind of a Christian and their unbeliev saying their unbelieving spouse is saying, this is nuts. We used to go to the temple together. We used to party together. We used to do all these things together. Now you won't do any of that. I'm outta here. So maybe I should give it up for a little while to try to bring that one to Christ. I think Paul is saying, don't do that. Don't do that. You're not under that kind of obligation to see to it that your spouse is converted. Then beginning in verse 17, we really kind of seem to get what looks like, kind of a digresion. But I think these are kind of more general statements of what Paul believes Christians should be and do. And then he begins to make some specific applications to marriage. And what Paul is going to say here is that we, we need to live contentedly in the station of life that we are in. Christianity's not about a social revolution. It's not about changing the established order of everything we do the best we can, where we are with what we have. That's a good guiding principle. As we move forward into first Corinthians chapter seven, I hope that'll be helpful to you. Like I said, this is not a class on marriage, divorce, remarriage, and I can't deal with and field every question or deal with every contingency. And people always have really important questions. I don't mean to make fun of those questions. Sometimes the questions get really, really complex and it's like the Gorian nod and, and people reel off. I get emails sometimes from folks with questions like that, who are listening to the podcast or, or who tune in and, and, and listen to, uh, the preaching here at Westside and, and they lay out these impossibly difficult circumstances and then they wanna know what to do. And I, I think maybe the thing to be said about that is first Corinthians seventies to be kept in its context. And part of its context is this setting this circumstance. And then I think a big part of that, that we need to talk about is you need to be careful about your marriage, or you can just get that thing. So fouled up and so twisted around that. It becomes really difficult to know what you can and cannot do. That's not a good place that anybody wants to be in. You don't wanna be in that kind of circumstance. Maybe we need to be talking about that a lot more with our young people instead of acting like, oh, if you get in this really squirrly situation, we'll just find us a preacher who will adjudicate that that's that is that's pretty thin ice to be on. You don't wanna be in that kind of circumstance. How about instead we build strong marriages where we don't have to try to figure out who can divorce, who and what, where, and who can remarry and oh, stop, stop. Let's not be doing that instead. Let's build strong marriages. That's probably the front half of first Corinthians seven, our reading on Thursday. And then we won't be in the reading that we had today in versus 20 word. Paul is having to talk some about, yes, there are, there are going to be some separations from time to time in marriage. So I hope that'll help you and, and, and maybe ease your mind and, and, and maybe more than anything, put the emphasis in the right place for us. So there you go. Thanks for reading the Bible with me today. Thanks for reading the Bible with me all this week. If you love the Monday morning coffee podcast, we would love for you to subscribe, follow rate, give a review on iTunes or whatever app that you're listening on. If you don't like it, well, you should send us an email or talk to me or communicate, uh, with me somehow and say, Hey, I think we need more of this. Or I think we need less of this, or this would be more helpful. Give us some feed back constructive. Feedback's always welcome. We'd love to have that, but if you like it help others find this show and that will help them maybe in their daily Bible reading. I think a lot of people wanna read the Bible, but sometimes it's a little hard to track all of this stuff. I think this year with Paul plan really, really helps us think about where Paul was and, and who he's writing to. And they are in their context. It it's just, we're only in March, but I am loving it. And it's been very powerful for me in my life. So until Monday, I hope your coffee is delightful. I hope your Friday is blessed and is the start of a great weekend. I hope that you'll be with us in worship on Sunday, and I will see you on Monday morning as we do Bible reading with a cup of coffee. Thanks for listening this week.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to the west side church of Christ podcast. Monday morning coffee with Mark. For more information about west side, you can connect with us through our website, just christians.com and our Facebook page. Our music is from upbeat dot I that's upbeat with two P'S, U P B E a T, where creators can get free music. Please share our podcast with us. And we look to seeing you again with a cup of coffee, of course, on next Monday,