Teaching Children to Worship

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.

Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee podcast for Monday October the 31st. Happy Halloween if you're into that sort of thing, and if you're troubled that I would say that on this podcast, then you probably need to listen to yesterday morning's 9:00 AM sermon when in the q and a morning I did some stuff about holidays and what we do with those and how we can have differing views on those. So I will say happy Halloween because I know I've got little spooks coming to my house tonight to get candy and candy is amazing. Not as amazing as coffee. Holding some wonderful coffee here from City Girl Coffee roasters. Uh, wonderful family in Knoxville, Tennessee gave me some of their coffee. It's incredible loving that. I've got my notes for Bible reading and I do have some notes from yesterday's sermon in the 10 40 hour when we talked about teaching children to worship. Let's think about that just a little bit more. A couple of takeaways, Dan, from yesterday's sermon. The main point of all of that is that keeping our kids from being a distraction, teaching them to be quiet and to be still is not, not the main function of parenting and is not going to help them become great worshipers. Obviously, we don't want to distract others. However, that is not going to make you an amazing worshiper. You need to know what worship's about and I tried to develop those ideas yesterday. Having said that, when kids get to be a distraction, it seems like we run to two extremes and one of those extremes is the parent who is oblivious. The kid is setting fire to the church building or pulling the carpet up by the threads and doing all kinds of destructive and terrifying things and the child is not being corrected in any way. There's no teaching or training going on there, and that's a big problem. Other parents, other worshipers are being distracted and they don't know what to do or how to approach that issue. It's awkward, it's difficult. All I can say about that is don't be that parent. Pay attention to your child and if your child is not gonna settle down here pretty quickly, then you may need to do some teaching and training outside in the foyer or in the cry room. That's what that is there for. The other side of that, the other extreme is parents who are just really on the disciplinary and bandwagon and they are taking that kid out and all kinds of unhappy disciplinary consequences are falling on that child on a very regular basis. Sometimes parents even they get braggy about this kind of stuff. I took'em out seven or eight times. Sometimes you hear older people say, That's not how I did my kids. I took'em out, I wore'em out and I brought'em back in and then we did it again and and I get it. There needs to be some discipline, There needs to be some teaching and training. Wanna be careful about that. Don't ever wanna make that a point where we're bragging about that and we just need to be careful about those kinds of things and all of that is to say that, wow, we want to do teaching and training and children need to learn to control their bodies and be able to sit in the pew and not be a distraction to others. I get it, I get it, I get it. We don't want to create a situation where when we pull into the parking lot and our kiddos see the church building, they are freaking out because they know this is gonna be a painful and terrible experience for the next three hours. There's going to be all kinds of horrible consequences befalling them, and it's just gonna be miserable, miserable, miserable. If your child develops a tick or a quirk when they're coming through the building because they know this is going to be a terrible time for them maybe. Maybe we need to rethink our discipline process, our expectations, how to do that in a better way. We just don't want to do something to our kids where they hate church and that seems to me to be an important reminder and maybe a way to balance out. Don't want kids to be a distraction in church, but we also don't want our children to be afraid to come to church. One of the wisest men I've ever known, Hoot Smith who was an elder at Westside for so many years and such a wonderful shepherd, he always said, We want to put kids in position to succeed. Think about that. Moms and dads, what can we do to help our child succeed in church rather than just ignoring or punishing failure? Let's put kids in position to succeed and if you do not have a tiny human, you don't have a little, please be patient with those who are wrestling with the little kids and trying to teach and train them to worship God so that someday they'll be better worshipers. Hope those ideas will help you and I hope that'll make all of us better worshipers. Let's talk about daily Bible reading in Ephesians. Now It is Monday and today we are reading Ephesians chapter four verses nine to 16, and this is right in the middle of the thought because Friday we read verse eight when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. Then there is two verses of a parenthetical expression. Not all Bibles will have the parentheses there. The ESV does have a parentheses around versus nine and 10 to help the readers see that this is an explanatory note about this ascending and getting gifts and of course verse nine, he descended into the law, Regents to the earth have caused some to think that maybe this is a trip to the underworld, this is a trip to hell, something like that. It has been U understood that way, particularly in association when First Peter three verse 19, but I'm not convinced that that's where Paul is going with this. It seems to me much easier to understand this, much better to understand this as a trip to earth. This is being set in opposition to Jesus' place in the heavens. Jesus came here. It's the incarnation and one of the reasons he came here is to give gifts and what are those gifts? Verse 11, list them. They are the offices and the roles in the local church that the local church needs so that it can chapter four verse three, Maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. That's what these offices do. That's what these roles are for, to equip saints for the work of ministry and I'll give you a quick note or two here about some of these roles, particularly the word evangelist, verse 11, The term evangelist means a lot of different things to a lot of different people because the New Testament doesn't ever define it. It's only used here and then in Acts 21, 8 where the Bible tells us that Philip is an evangelist and then in second Timothy four, five where Paul tells Timothy to do the work of an evangelist, but it never defines what that work is. As a result, lots of different definitions have been floated. Lots of times evangelist is used to mean some sort of traveling preacher or maybe it's used in some kind of personal evangelism kind of way, but there's nothing specific about the term to make it into that. It is a preaching word and it means to preach these other offices in a similar kind of way. Notice all seem to be very much teaching functions. It's teaching the word of God that's going to draw the church together, build it up. Verse 12, that is an unusual word there for EdFi or build up and it has the sense of furnish or train or instruct. Even fact grow is the idea so that we can be mature and so we can be united. Verse 13, the goal of ministry is maturity and unity and it seems to me to be important to point out that people grow to maturity through serving, through doing things to equip the saints for the work of ministry. I have a tendency to think of the way to grow the church is to do a day dump, get'em in Bible classes, get'em in underneath the pulpit in a sermon and let's push a bunch of information and that certainly is important. As I just said, these are teaching offices that we're talking about here. However, that's not the only way we grow in unity and in maturity when we work to gather, and part of that comes when we speak the truth in love. Notice verse 15, it's not enough just to tell people the truth. There's a way to tell the truth so that we can grow together into Christ. Notice how it begins with being one body for four and now this section ends four 16 from whom the whole body is working properly, growing together, building itself up in love, how these local congregations must have needed this kind of encouragement. Unity is always difficult. You get a bunch of different kinds of people together, different educational backgrounds, different financial backgrounds, different ethnic and racial backgrounds. Unity can be hard. Thus there's a lot of emphasis on that. Notice this comes in front of the discussion, for example, about marriage and about children and some of this other material that we'll read that is extraordinarily important. We pay a lot of attention to Paul starts with unity. We need to think about unity. What are you doing to help the local church attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the son of God to the to mature manhood? Verse 13, so that we speak the truth in love. We're not tossed about by false teaching. We grow together. Every Christian needs to be thinking about that. Every Christian needs to be praying about that and then Paul shifts gears a little bit to talk about newness. We'll discuss that tomorrow. See you on Tuesday. It is Tuesday and we're journeying further in the fourth chapter of Ephesians. The reading for today is Ephesians four 17 to 24, and this is the part of Ephesians that people really warm to because it is just so imminently practical. I'm not even certain how much I need to comment on the text here. Verse 17 begins, However, with this I say and testify on the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do. There it is. Four, one walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called and here's our emphasis because you are in Christ walk worthy of your calling and Paul is repeating that idea again, setting that in front of the Ephesian brethren and the other brethren who will be reading this material. I wanna share with you then the idea that this is about purity. God's people need to add to their unity and maturity, purity. I wish I had thought of that. That's not original with me, but I I think a good breakdown. Maybe write this in the margin of your Bible, unity, maturity and now purity and a bunch of our reading today is about how you think it's about your mind. One of my favorite scholars, John Stat writes about this, what is immediately noteworthy is the apostles emphasis on the intellectual factor in everybody's way of life. While describing pagans, he draws attention to the futility of their minds and adds that they are darkened in their understanding and attributes, their alienation from God to the ignorance that is in them. He thus refers to their empty minds, darkened understanding and inward ignorance as a result of which they have become callous and los and insatiably unclean. In contrast to them, believers have learned, Christ heard him, been taught in him, all according to the truth which is in Jesus over and against the darkness and ignorance of the heathen. Paul, thus sets the truth of Christ which Christians have learned. That's so well said. Read today's reading and I am quite confident you'll get that emphasis on our thinking, on our mind. That's why we read our Bibles and that's why we want to understand what we read. That's why we do those questions. That's why we work on it and that's why we apply it, what we think changes how we live. Let's read Ephesians four 17 to 24 and I'll see you tomorrow. Welcome to Wednesday in Ephesians chapter four, verses 25 to 32 is our reading as we finish the fourth chapter of Ephesians, this chapter is just full, as I said yesterday, of practical admonitions that help us in a very straightforward fashion. Watch how Paul turns his attention now beginning verse 25. Therefore to relationships, relationships matter. People matter to God. That means people have to matter to God's people as well and interestingly, Paul began right away with lying lies, ruin relationships and think about that in terms of the Book of Acts and all the things that happened in the Book of Acts. What stands out in the early chapters. Probably most people remember Acts five or Ananias a Ira are struck dead ahead of almost anything else. What happened there? Why? Why were they struck dead? Because relationships matter. Relationships are built on trust. When there's no trust, there can be no relationships. God deals with that very firmly. We need to think about that as well just walk through our reading today, push through our reading today thinking about all of these things in terms of a local church relationship, how we need to work together. Building up verse 29, we've heard that already. Building up right across the page in my Bible there in verse 12, Building up the body of Christ matters. Verse 32, being kind to one another, verse 30, not grieving the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a person you can't grieve in it. The Holy Spirit's not the force in what would grieve the Holy Spirit division. Division. That's what would grieve the Holy Spirit. We're about unity, maturity and purity and we're about relationships that help us maintain all three of those things. We'll talk more about that tonight after Wednesday night Bible class in the Bible talk, wanna talk about the Old Testament roots that Paul is quoting and working from here, but that'll hold us for today. Do the reading, think about your relationships. See tomorrow it is Thursday and today we are reading Ephesians chapter five verses one to 10. I think as we walk along in the text today, you'll notice there is a subtle shift, not so much ethical admonitions as Paul begins to talk about some things that motivate us to obey God and it is key to see that the Bible doesn't just talk about what to do but provides us the motivation to do it as well. Chapter five in verse two begins with walk in love. There it is again. We're seeing that emphasis on walk 4 1 4 17 now five two walk in love and that walk is now described as a walk of purity. We see some things there about avoiding filthiness and obscenity. Five, four, shameful talk, foolish talk. Foolish talk would be the talk that lacks not intelligence or education, but that lacks wisdom, the Godly perspective on life. Think about how much of what we see today in mass media, maybe on social media lacks wisdom. It's foolish talk because it does not come from a scriptural perspective. It does not echo what God says and what God thinks. Then Paul says five, five, some things about coveting covetousness is when we want something so badly. We'll do most anything to get it, and he says Covetousness five, five is idolatry. This is very similar to the admonition in Colossians and here idolatry is again closely linked with greed. What's going on there? Well, one scholar said the essence of idolatry is the desire to get idols were made by the pagans to visualize and localize divine power and get it to work for them. Barkley has observed a man sets up an idol and worships it because he desires to get something out of God. To put it bluntly, he believes that by his sacrificing and gifts and his worship, he can persuade or even bribe the God into giving him what he desires. That's a noted and a very important idea about worship and about godliness. We don't wanna turn Christianity into idolatry where we're just using God to get what we want. Five, eight, walk as children of of light. There it is again, the idea of walking and in five, six, I shouldn't have jumped six here, but no one deceive you with empty words. There is, yeah, there is a little bit of a specific problem being addressed there. Something's going on, somebody saying some things about these things are not sinful. Some of that's working somewhere around there. Maybe that's why Ephesians and Colossians are so much the same. Some of those similar ideas are being promoted in Colossi wasn't a mass outbreak of false teaching. We talked about that in the Colossian correspondence, but Paul is taking some shots at that. Then again, five eight walk as children of light. I love 10 find out or discern what is pleasing to the Lord. That term is literally testing and approving. It was a term used in secular Greek for soldiers who were tested in battle and it was used as well of precious metal that was proved to be genuine and valuable. The Christian life is not about just checking a bunch of boxes and mindlessly following a bunch of rules and regulations. We need to use good judgment and wisdom. We need to find out how can I please God in this situation. That's Ecclesiastes five 10. That's the end of our reading for today. I'll see you tomorrow. We'll continue in Ephesians five. Welcome to Friday and the last day of the week. In our reading schedule, we are reading Ephesians chapter five, verses 11 to 21 today, and there are a couple of, yeah, there's a couple of bumpy spots in our reading today. Let's see if we can work on this a little bit. Ephesians five 11, take no part in the un fruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them as those who walk in the light. We can't be partners with those who are in the dark. Instead of partnering with them, we expose, which means to confront the evil doer and show the wrongness of what they are doing. Want to do that in a certain way. We speak the truth in love. We talked about that in chapter four and verse 15, but we need to be willing to stand against wrongdoing and in fact, he goes on to say verse 12, It is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. There are things that are just so wicked that we don't even wanna talk about it, but we have to stand against those things. Then Paul says some things about light. This is the bumpy part of our reading today, Verse 13. When anything's exposed by the light, it becomes visible. Okay, I got that. For anything that becomes visible is light. Verse 14, Oh my Paul, what exactly are you saying there? It's very difficult to be sure about that. The new, uh, new living translation the NLT goes with for the light makes everything visible and maybe this is a good argument for reading from different translations. Sometimes a little bit different wording will clarify. It's a very difficult verse. Verse 14 is uncertain. Paul goes on from there. Then to quote from an uncertain text, we're not exactly sure which passage he's calling from there. It may be a compilation of Isaiah 26 19 and Isaiah 60 in verse one, but we're not exactly sure where Paul is going with what he says there. However, verse 15 makes clear it's about wisdom and that we want to be wise and part of being wise is instead of being drunk, being under the influence of alcohol, we want to be under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Now, talk about that in today's reading on Facebook. That particularly somehow being under the influence of the Spirit has meant people act in a wacky and wild fashion, and that's precisely not what this means. Instead of unleashing and unleashing and and just being crazy, no, that's what a drunk person does. Instead, being under the direction, under the control of the spirit will mean that I am under control so that I can do things like worship God with my brothers versus 19 and 20. I can be grateful. I can fill my God-given role. I can submit to one another out of reverence. We'll talk more about submission next week as Paul begins to transfer from a direct and kind of general view of the local church to some very specific things in the household and we'll talk about submission. No, it's not a dirty word. It's a very important concept for both men and women. We'll do that as we join the reading on Monday in Ephesians chapter five. Until then, I wanna say thanks for listening to the podcast and reading the Bible with me. If you are enjoying the Monday Morning Coffee podcast, we certainly wish that you would rate or follow, subscribe, and review the podcast. Mostly, we would like for you to tell someone else about the podcast that helps it grow and have more application and more opportunity to help people understand the word of God in their lives. So like I said, until next week when we're talking about the rest of Ephesians five and submission, all of the things that go with that. Until next week, may your coffee be delightful. May your Friday be wonderful and I pray the Lord will be with you today all day. I'll see you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

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