Back to School Sunday - A Conversation for Parents, Students and Friends

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.

Mark.

Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to the Monday morning coffee podcast for Monday, August the 15th. I'm mark and I have my Bible open and I'm ready to talk with you about yesterday's marvelous day at west side. Incredible day. Wanna talk with you about daily Bible reading in Romans we're finally arriving at the pinnacle of the book of Romans, and I'm doing all of that while I'm holding an amazing cup of coffee in my hands. I have coffee today from Ethiopia. This is from novel coffee roasters, their local roaster, uh, roaster re I should say, here in Dallas, this is from the day Benson farms in Ethiopia. And I am sure that I am not saying that correctly, but this comes from the heart of Ethiopia from the very center, the Saddam area. And I'm probably not saying that right. Either my good friend David Holder, who goes to Ethiopia, a preach would probably be able to correct me about all of that, but it's just wonderful, wonderful coffee. And I know sometimes people say, you talk about coffee too much. And people say things like that because they want to see me cry. But I, I find it amazing that this incredible, delicious, wonderful coffee from the other side of the world can come and be in my cup for really not very much money at all. And I just revel in simple things. Maybe I'm a simple guy, but there are simple things that make life better in a really good cup of coffee is one of those. It makes Monday a little bit better. And I hope that maybe if you're in the Folgers or Maxwell house side of things, that you're enjoying a really good cup of Folgers or Maxwell house, but maybe sometime you might think about visiting a local coffee shop and getting some coffee beans and have them ground for you. And then maybe try a little bit of that Ethiopia. And you might just find your Monday goes a little bit better with a little bit better coffee. So there's the coffee word for today? How about we think about yesterday, yesterday was back to school Sunday. Let's go get a little of that spiritual momentum and plug it in to our Monday morning, grab that cup of coffee or diet Dr. Pepper or Coke zero or sweet tea or whatever it is that you're starting today with let's get started. Yesterday was one of my favorite Sundays of the year. It was back to school Sunday at west side. I love it. Love it, love it. In the 9:00 AM hour, we had a special prayer service. I think we just need more of those just asking God to bless our students and parents and teachers and administrators in this entire school year. And then in the 10 41 of our shepherds rusty. And I sat down and we just talked about school and parenting and grandparenting and being a friend to kids, aunts and uncles can plug in right there and talked to the students from the word of God about what they can do to honor and glorify God and what parents can do to help their kids do that in this new school year. Some kids are already in school and of course, a lot of schools will get going this week. I just wanna say a couple of things about that. Right? Quick, first and foremost, I just don't remember that kind of spiritual emphasis on going to school and being a student when I was a kid, I don't remember that at all. Of course, school is so important to kids. It dominates their time. It's kind of the center of what they're doing and who they are for about nine months. And, and even when they're out of school, they're still thinking about school. It it's just a huge part of their lives, private, public homeschool. It's a thing to kids. And I just don't remember much talk about how to do that to the glory of God or that I, I should serve the Lord at school or that the Bible has some impact on how I behave and how I act at school. And so I'm really delighted to see west side put that kind of emphasis on students being what God wants them to be in the school environment. Maybe, maybe that lack of emphasis that I grew up with is the reason you heard things like young people being told you're the church of tomorrow because cuz we weren't being the church of today. We weren't tasked with being God's people right now. We weren't thinking in spiritual terms as a 12 year old and, and, and I get it. That's a hard thing sometimes to get a 12 year old to do, but you gotta start somewhere. And I think we made a good start of that yesterday and I hope parents will pick those threads up. That leads me to the second thing that I wanna say. And that is, there was so much proverb yesterday and so much Ecclesiastes. These are wisdom books. They are written to young people. They are for young people to help them navigate life's difficulties in the very best way. And if that's not a great description of what school is all about, I don't know what it is. Uh, kids need that and they need to see that the Bible plugs into their life and they need to see that they can serve the Lord right now where they are. That's not something you're gonna start doing later. We're gonna, I don't know, flip a switch when you're 21 and suddenly you become this amazing servant of the Lord know Samuel and Joseph and Daniel serve the Lord as young people. You can serve the Lord as a young person right now where you are in school and Proverbs and Eccles will help you do that. Go get some of that. Parents, grandparents, friends, sit down in the Bible with your student and help them navigate school in a way that honors and glorifies God. And I think yesterday went a long way towards doing that. I'm always super excited about back to school Sunday. It's just one of the bestest things that we do at west side. Bestest is not a word, but it should be and I'm campaigning for it. So let's have a bestest school year ever. And I hope that yesterday we'll get our students off to a great start in exactly that direction, serving the Lord right where they are. And that said, we're ready then to open the book of Romans. Let's think about daily Bible reading for Monday today, Monday chapter 13 of Romans, Romans 13 versus eight to 14. Let's do it. Not a lot in our reading today. At least volume wise, eight to 14 is just not a very long reading. And that may be helpful as you get kids ready for their first day of school. And lots of crazy things are going on. It begins though with maybe a passage that we could trip over, oh, no one, anything verse eight says except to love each other for the one who loves, who loves another has fulfilled law. Does that mean that we can never incur debts? No, it does not mean that. In fact, in Fleeman, Paul will talk about financial debts that have been incurred. That's not where he's going with this. He's playing out of verse seven, pay that we read, read verse seven last week on Friday, paid all what's owed to them. Taxes to whom taxes or due revenue to whom revenue is owed. Respect to whom respect is owed honored, whom honor is owed, but there is one debt that we can never pay that we will never fill up. And that is the debt of love. We need to take care of our financial obligations as we go along, but we need to realize there's even greater obligations and that is to love and to treat other people in the right kind of way. All of this, I think reminds us of Jesus' summation of the law to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. And there's maybe a brief summary there of the commandments in verse nine. But look again at verse 10, love does no wrong to a neighbor. Love is the fulfilling of the law. So that is where Paul is. As he moves to the pinnacle of Romans, where there will need to be a lot of love for others. Then he says, you know, the time verse 11, that's not a reference to the return of Jesus, but that we just know the conditions of the age. We know what's going on around us. We are wise to what we are seeing around us. That's an excellent passage for today. Sometimes I think we're not very wise to what is happening all around us. Maybe mostly we're just anxious and worried and ringing our hands, but we're not thinking about the implications for what's going on in our culture for our Christianity. And for example, how best to evangelize in our Christian in our non-Christian culture. I talked about that two weeks ago when I talked about the parable of the, so I wanna talk more about that in some future sermons, as we deal with some of the studies and surveys and polls that are coming out that talk about where people are in their thinking, we need to update our thinking about the culture. We need to know the times we need to know what's going on so that we're not asleep. And I especially like then verse 14, don't make any plans for sinning. Don't make any plans for sinning. Christians are never gonna be in that situation where we've kinda worked out how to do this bad thing, but oh, I, I probably will never do that. No, make no provision for the flesh. Don't work out how to do things that are contrary to what God says. That's where Paul is. As he finishes Romans 13 and gets ready to talk about the entire reason he wrote this whole EPIs. That's Romans 14. We'll start reading it tomorrow. I'll see you on Tuesday. Welcome to Tuesday. Tuesday's reading is Romans 14 versus one to 12. And I have been saying for quite some time and have said a couple of times already on the podcast here, that this is the climax of the book of Romans and you won't have any difficulty seeing that at all because we have read the entire book of Romans through the lens of division. When the book is read as some kind of dissertation of out salvation, it really gets difficult to figure out some pieces of the book of Romans, particularly nine, 10, and 11, what Paul is doing there, but especially what Paul is doing in this extensive section about conscience and matters of Liberty that begins in chapter 14 and actually extends all the way into chapter 15. I kind of chap a little bit, get a little cha sometimes when people talk about Romans 14 and they don't mention Romans 15 one to 13, which is actually a huge part of what we're dealing with here. We'll try to put all that together. But as we read in this and, and we're working through this starting today, you're gonna very quickly see, Hey, this is it. This is what he was setting up. This is maybe the major divisive issue going on at the church at Rome, that Paul needs to get healed up before he arrives. And they're going to help him on his way on his missionary trip to Spain. At least that was Paul's hope when he was writing this. There'll be some intervening factors as we will see when we resume the narrative in the book of acts. But that's what Paul's thinking about. As he writes to the church at Rome, they're dividing and they're choosing up sides over how to deal with some issues that don't matter to the Lord at all. And that's a huge key idea for us to start with right here. Whatever's being talked about here should not be taken to mean that we can just tolerate anything and everything. I see that from time to time, people use this passage to try to act like you can have wildly differing P practices on essential and critical matters to the faith, the Virgin birth of Jesus miracles, marriage divorce, and re marriage questions practices on baptism, whether baptism is even essential to salvation. Hey, just sweep it all into Romans 14 and will just hold hands and pretend those things don't matter. Cuz Paul says let's all just get along. It seems for some people, the only criteria for whether or not something fits into Romans 14 is whether it's controversial. If it is shove it into Romans 14 yet clearly any reading of this text, particularly against the backdrop of Galatians reveals that Paul is dealing with something very, very different than what he talked about in Galatians in Galatians. Paul is screaming. There are a million exclamation points there. We talked about that at some great length, cuz people are adding things to the gospel. So there are some issues for Paul that are not negotiable. We are not going to pretend that everything is just fine. When somebody adds circumcision as a sixth step to the plan of salvation, we're going to have to work that out. And the only way Paul says to the Galatians to work that out is to be free in Christ. And to know that you cannot add Galatians one, eight and nine to the gospel, don't do that. Paul won't tolerate that. But here in Romans 14 and into chapter 15, I'm gonna beat that drum a lot. I think as we read along here, you're gonna see that Paul is very content for everybody to just practice what they think is best when in regard to these matters. So this can't be the same kind of stuff that Paul was talking about in Galatians. There's just no way it won't work. Paul is obviously talking about matters that God does not care about. God is indifferent about these things. There are things that God cares very deeply about leadership in the church and even the details of worship. People try to pretend that God doesn't care about stuff like that. And that's crazy. Go back and read the old Testament. God very carefully lays down extraordinary detail about how to worship him and when people don't worship him. According to those detailed regulations, the Lord can let people know in a hurry that that won't fly. Ask Nate Abbott of IU in Leviticus 10. And if you think that's just old Testament, try first Corinthians. Paul does not say you'll have kind of a different take on the Lord supper, but everybody just do whatever they want. No Paul writes and says, I'm not, not praising you about this and I want you to stop it. I want you to fix it. Don't do that anymore. But there certainly are matters that God doesn't care about. For example, what mode of transportation we use when we go into all of the world, preaching the gospel. There's no indication that God has any plan about that or is any determination. This has got to be how that's done. I think there are lots of things that fit into that category. What color tie I wear on Sunday and in Romans 14, what you eat fits into that category. Maybe as we're reading in Romans 14, we just need to think a lot more about what does fit into that category. Cuz I'm afraid sometimes while some religious groups maybe are on the far extreme of shoving everything into Romans 14, they can't see any way to ever have to have a serious doctrinal discussion. Maybe sometimes we're on the other end, everything matters. We have to be exact clones of one another in every respect about everything you have to do exactly the same as I do on every single matter. And that won't work outta Romans 14 and 15. Paul says you folks over there are gonna really handle this dietary kosher stuff differently than these folks over here. And that's okay. That's okay. Paul makes no attempt here to convert one group to the other group's position. In fact, as we work along here, what the issue at hand is seems to be holy days and food matters. And both of those are relating to Jewish practices. There are things that Jews abstain from when they could not be certain that the food had properly been prepared. According to Kosho regulations. I'm thinking about Daniel, the first chapter where Daniel says, Hey, I'm not doing that. I can't be doing that. And Augustine tells that there was a, a lot of issues with that. This would be a couple of hundred years later after the new Testament, this is still working because food and wine had been used in an idol offering. And so Christians were like, mm, I don't know about that. Not sure I can be doing that. And so Paul has to deal with what you eat and he deals with some things about days. We're gonna get a little bit of that in here too. And that probably has to do with fasting days. So that really does make the whole discussion about food, food that you'll eat. And when you won't eat, when you will fast, let me say one other thing here. And that pertains to the weak and the strong. When I talk about somebody who's weak, then I usually am talking about someone who is a new Christian. They don't know a lot. They're not able to withstand temptation. They're not knowledgeable. Maybe they're not very committed. That's not what Paul means in Romans 14 at all, dedication here is not the question. In fact, the weak Christian in Romans 14 is too dedicated. He is overly scrupulous, very active, very zealous, and is binding what God has not bound. I won't eat this and you'd better not eat it either. That's the problem in Romans the 14th chapter, Andy into chapter 15 and Paul clearly identifies himself with the strong in chapter 15 and verse one. We who are strong, have an obligation to bear with the weak. And so Paul identifies with those who have the Liberty to eat this meat. They know it doesn't matter. It it's okay. The fact that it's not kosher prepared or that it's been on an idol alter doesn't matter, eat up, enjoy not a thing. However, it could be a problem if it's gonna cause your brother a problem. And that's where we are in Romans chapter 14, we have to be concerned with others. Let's read Romans 14 versus one to 12. You'll see exactly what I'm talking about. You'll know exactly where Paul is on this. It'll lay out very neatly. And I think without much difficulty as you see this being the central issue that is dividing the Roman church. And the sad thing is these kinds of matters have continued to divide brethren because we're not respecting the principle of Romans 14. We're not concerned enough with others. Butchered, Romans 14, one to 12. I'll see you tomorrow on Wednesday for more discussion of this tomorrow, we'll begin in chapter 13, go read Romans 14, one to 12 and you'll see, we've gotta care about others. Even if it's not a matter of sin. That's today's reading it's Wednesday and we're finishing Romans the 14 chapter today. But before we get into Romans 14, let's get a preview of tonight's lesson. Noah diesel camp is coming to be with us in our summer series. And he's going to be talking with us about false standards. Tell us more about that, Noah.

Hi, I'm Noah diesel camp and I'll be with you tonight. Preaching on false standards. Satan likes to use false standards of truth to try to trip us up. So tonight we're gonna look at some of those false standards and we're gonna spend time challenging ourselves to consider whether or not we have accepted these false standards of truth. Of course, these false standards raise the question. What's the real standard. And we're gonna look at that tonight as well. I'm really looking forward to being with you all tonight.

Thank you Noah. I know that lesson will be tremendously helpful and very timely as we look at Romans the 14th chapter notice as you get your Bible out and we're doing our daily Bible reading that both verse one and verse 12 strongly imply that brethren are gonna need to receive each other, despite some very serious disagreements in how to handle these dietary matters. How to ma how to handle these food restrictions. Paul now turns his attention in our reading today, Romans of the 14th chapter versus 13 to 23 and addresses the strong. He says, therefore, verse 13, let us not pass judgment on one another. And the tenses here indicate ongoing action. And Paul says, you are judging. And I want you to stop that. Stop this judging because that's gonna cause people to stumble. What does he mean by stumble here? Some translations use the term offense and that has led to brethren misusing this principle in saying you offended me. You told that joke about my favorite football team and that got my feelings hurt. That's what that boils down to is you, you hurt my feelings. You said you didn't like the tie that I was wearing. You didn't shake my hand. My feelings are hurt. You have offended me Romans 14, 13. Absolutely not. That is not what Paul means in Romans 14 and verse 13 and brother need to be careful. Of course we need to treat folks right, but we need to not wear our feelings on our sleeve and run around, trying to be offended about everything and anything. And then pull out a passage out of context to try to justify our, uh, our wrinkled up feelings being made to stumble in Romans 14, 13 means made to sin. That's what it means here. It means to cause to sin. Someone looks at my bow tie on Wednesday and says, that offends me well, is it making you sin? If not, then you ought to be quiet about that. As Christians, we are not subject to everyone's whims and we need to be careful that we don't allow brother dogmatic or sister cranky to rule everyone that happens sometimes among brethren, the loudest voice wins and the person who's shouting about everything and anything gets to rule the church particularly. And unfortunately, if a church is in a business meeting arrangement, God forbid, maybe the thing to be mindful about all of that is if you're going to play the Romans 1413 card, that means you are labeled as weak. Yes, that's who you are. You're the weak brother. All the people who have ever tried that, that I have ever known would have said in a heartbeat. Don't uh, you're, you're offending me now and you call me weak. I'm not weak. I'm the strongest brother here because I abstain from everything. And I'm demanding that everybody else abstain from everything and use the same translation as me and do the same as I'd oh, please. That's a complete and terrible misuse of Romans 14. And it shows that we don't understand at all what's going on here. The weak brother is the over scrupulous brother. Paul says now to the strong brother, we're just gonna have to try to put up with those brethren as best we can, because God doesn't want us to violate our conscience. That's what's going on here. Verse 15. If your brother is greed by what you eat, we lead that brother into that idle temple. He sees me eating that meat. He has a lot of pains of conscience about that. I shouldn't do that. I've never done that. This is wrong to do that. He doesn't have knowledge about it. He doesn't know the things that I know. He goes ahead and violates his conscience. I caused him to stumble to sin, to violate his conscience. And we don't wanna let food something that is good co be an opportunity for evil and for temptation. And we certainly don't want to cause our brother to sin verse 21. If you've got some scruples verse 22, the faith that you had, faith here is not the faith. It's my own personal set of beliefs. Then if I've got some feelings about this matter, just be quiet about that. Keep it to yourself. Bless it is the one. Who's no reason to pass judgment on himself and what he approves go down the idle temple, eat that meat. Be happy about it, but don't stand on a soap box in the middle of the assembly and demand that everybody do like you do because there's some people verse 23, who aren't going to understand what you understand and they're gonna do that and they're gonna do it with doubt. And if they do that verse 23, they're condemned because their eating is not from faith. Now, sometimes people ask me for a modern day application of these principles and I'm glad to provide one. What if, what if we converted a brother from seventh day Adventism, all of his life, he's always had the Sabbath. Saturday. Sunday is not the Sabbath. It's not the Christian Sabbath. Please don't call it that. That's not biblical terminology. It's confusing. The Sabbath is Saturday. Here's a fella who grew up all of his life. We don't do anything on the Sabbath day. We especially don't work on the Sabbath. That's the day we go to church. This is all he's ever known. He gets taught the gospel. Now he's coming to church on Sunday, but you know what? On sun on Saturday. Oh, I, oh, I should. I mow my grass. I, I don't know. I, I, I don't, that doesn't feel right. Maybe what he knows in his head, hasn't worked its way to his heart. What should I do about that? Should I go over there and say, Hey, why don't you come over and help me work on my Jeep today. I need a lot of work done. And of course it's Saturday. We can work on Saturday. What's wrong with you brother? Don't you know about the freedom we have in Christ. Get over here. What are you? Don't don't really believe the gospel and that you've been freed from the old law. Should I, should I do that? Should I shame him into violating his conscience? He comes over reluctantly. He feels bad. The whole day we're working on it goes home. Doesn't know where he stands with the Lord. No, no, God forbid he's gonna grow. He needs to grow, but embarrassing him, shaming him, making fun of him, ridiculing him into doing something that violates his conscience is a clear violation of Romans, the 14 chapter and the material that will continue to read tomorrow in chapter 15, we're not going to do that. And at the same time, we're not gonna let that brother stand up in the middle of the assembly and tell everybody who cut their grass yesterday or went to their job or worked on their Jeep or whatever they did on Saturday. Hey, y'all are a bunch of terrible centers. We have to take the day off on the Sabbath. Don't you know, you have to honor the Sabbath. No, no. He can't bind his conscience on the rest of us. And we're not gonna shame him into doing something that violates his conscience as he grows in his faith. I think there's a lot of things that would fit into Romans chapter 14. And as we pursue unity, that's what the book of Romans is about. Remember, we can respect one another, even as we come to some different conclusions about some matters. And even as you do differently about some things than I'm going to do, I can respect that you have a different upbringing, different, different scruples, different background. You are going to treat an issue differently than I'm gonna treat that matter. And that is okay. That's what Romans 14 is saying. Notice again, Paul never says, Hey, you strong brothers go over there and you fix this matter. You tell those weak brothern day, get on the bandwagon and get this thing figured out. Nope. Paul is content for this issue to go on indefinitely. Weak brothers can continue to observe kosher dietary law for as long as they want. If they don't ever come around on that matter, Paul doesn't care. It'll be okay, God doesn't care. But they again cannot bind that on those strong brothers. The church is gonna have unity when we don't try to make everybody do what I do instead we need to ask, does this issue matter to God? And just because somebody comes along and says, well, I don't think it does. Oh, okay. Make your case. Let's get in the Bible and study. Let's see what the Bible says. Somebody comes along and says, I don't think instrumental music in worship is a big deal. I don't think that's sinful and wrong. Okay. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about it. But don't just automatically categorize that as a Romans 14 matter. Let's see what's going on because I am. Yes, I am holding everybody to that standard. Should I do that? Let's study. What are these issues in Romans 14? What else is said about worship cetera, et cetera, et cetera. This is not a podcast about instrumental music. Just trying to make that relevant, trying to help people see how we make application of these principles today. But I just can't emphasize enough. The church is never gonna be United. If you have to do everything the same way, believe everything. The same as I believe or vice versa. If you are impressing your moral SCR, pulls and conscience upon everyone else. And Romans 14 helps us see the way to unity. If we'd practice what Paul's preaching here tomorrow more of this, it doesn't end in 1423 tomorrow, Romans 15, one to seven. I'll see you on Thursday. It is Thursday. And today we're reading Romans 15, one to seven here's Paul's summary. And this really helps us make use of these principles. We who are strong, have an obligation verse one to bear with the failings of the week and not to please ourselves. There you go. Don't do what you wanna do. What you're comfortable with. We need to put up with each other and help each other. Let each of us first two, please his neighbor to build him up. How can we Edify one another? That is the literal meaning of the word edification to build up. And it's about building others up, not ourselves. And so then Paul documents, the principle of giving self up for others by, by appealing to Jesus verse three Christ didn't please himself. He gave himself up for us. And in fact, that's the whole principle of scripture. There's an aside here in verse four on how Christians understand scripture. And then Paul has a prayer in verses five and six for unity. Look at all the unity language live in harmony, verse five with one another, that together, verse six, you may with one voice glorify God, verse seven, welcome one another one another together. One another harmony. Think about how racial harmony between Jew and Gentile would lead to the glorification of God. And so many evangelistic opportunities in the city of Rome. Think about how if Christians will get along, that will empower us to talk about the gospel and how it brings healing. Not division to people as they come to Jesus Christ. That's the power of Romans 15, one to seven. And Paul will complete that in our reading tomorrow versus eight to 13, with some wonderful, wonderful quotes out of the old Testament that will help us see that this has always been God's will. This has always been what God wants. I'll see you tomorrow, Friday, Romans 15, eight to 13. See you. Then when you read these verses today, Romans 15, eight to 13 is our reading for Friday. When you read these verses today, you, you are going to say, this is it. This is why he whole, he wrote the whole book of Romans because there's this huge emphasis on the Jews and the Gentiles coming together. This is the high point of the book. I tell you, verse eight Christ became a servant to the circumcised. Now verse nine, that Gentiles might glorify God. And now there's a list of passages showing that God has always meant to have Jews and Gentiles in the kingdom as one family, verse nine, I praise you among the Gentiles. First 10 rejoice Gentiles, verse 11, praise the Lord Gentiles and let all, all people's extol him. Isaiah says verse 12, the root of Jesse will rule the Gentiles and give the Gentiles hope. May the God of hope. Verse 13, fill you a joy in peace, joy and peace in believing by the power of the holy spirit. You may abound. You may abound in hope when Christians get along. When we cross economic social racial barriers, because we love Jesus and we love each other. What happens? There's joy, there's peace and there's hope. And we abound in those things. Wow. Those are the very things that our whole society is completely running out of joy, peace and hope, and Christ gives it freely to his people when we get along unity. It's so very important. I must I've said this before, and I'm gonna say it again. I grew up thinking unity was a bad word. All I ever heard about was false kinds of unity and the wrong kinds of unity and the unity that comes when we, we don't make the distinctions that God makes about matters of significance and importance. And we just pretend nothing matters. And we just hold hands and sing kumbaya and all of that kind of business. And, and, and we don't wanna have any part of that. That's false unity. We, we, we're not going for that. That's not what Paul's going for here. And, and, and, and I don't think anybody's gonna misunderstand as we read along here in Romans that Paul would ever want that kind of fake union, but unity, isn't a bad word. Jesus prayed for it. In John 17, he says in John 13, that it's the mark of his disciples. And Paul wrote this whole book laid down all this doctrine, all this alls and everyone's, and you're in the same boat. And everybody's the same to get to this place where he says these things don't matter. These things can't cleave the church, just under, stop it, stop it. You over there, eat you over there, not eating, don't eat whatever, but get along, respect your own conscience. And let's praise God together. That's what God wants. And that's what God has prophesied Romans 15, eight to 13 says this is tremendous material made God bless it in our hearts that we would have this kind of joy and peace and hope that we would have bound by the power of the holy spirit in these things, because we have true Christian unity. That's what Romans 14, 15, 1 to 13 is all about. And we'll finish that chapter because Paul talks about these Gentiles and what he wants to say next is, you know what? I need to go preach to some of those Gentiles. And I want you folks in Rome to help me do that. We'll be reading that on Monday and I'll see you then. Okay. I jumped out right there and, and just kind of wound it all up. I'm supposed to have an official close here. Thank you for listening. That's part of my close. I need to thank you for listening. And, and honestly, I really do appreciate you listening got to talk last week with some folks who are visiting with us at west side and, and they're up on the Bible reading and listening to the podcast. And that was just a joy, just a joy to know that this is helping the west side church and it's helping people outside the west side church. So I do appreciate you listening. And if you love the money morning coffee podcast, I wish very, very much that you would share it with others and that you would rate and review it and that you would follow and subscribe on whatever app you are using to listen to the podcast. So until next time, may your coffee be delightful. I'm now looking at a bottom of the mug of a cold cup of Ethiopian. I'm almost got to the end of it without it getting cold, but, uh, may your coffee be delightful? May your Friday be delightful and may the Lord be with you today? All day? I will see you on Monday morning with a cup of coffee.

Thanks for listening to the Westside 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 IO that's upbeat with two P'S, U PP B E AT, 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,