Latest / Millennial Mustard Seed / S5 141. Carly Tebbs - Micro message – Fruit of Perserverance

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S5 141. Carly Tebbs - Micro message – Fruit of Perserverance · Millennial Mustard Seed

• 0:11
  This morning I had the thought of this is this is 1/2 baked
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  potato. So I'm going to work it out.
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  As I talk it out. What I was doing was comparing
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  and contrasting a marital relationship and the
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  relationship believers have with the church as an organization,
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  as a place you go weekly or twice a week to fellowship and
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  whatever. And I was thinking how in
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  marriage, if you are just going through the motions, like, yes,
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  this is my spouse, but we don't share anything deep.
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  I don't have an open heart. I I'm easily offended.
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  I don't like the way this person is.
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  I'm constantly praying that God change my spouse while
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  simultaneously blaming everything on them and never
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  looking at my heart like the way that that makes a marriage feel,
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  which I've lived through personally so I can.
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  It's not great. It's saltless hard boiled eggs.
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  If there was a flavor to marriage, that's what that
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  marriage is like. And how in those seasons of
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  life, when you stick it out, you don't give up, You don't be
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  like, well, my husband's a narcissist and I'm out of here.
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  Hello. We're all narcissists to some
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  extent. So let's stop leveling blame,
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  even though it doesn't feel like it at the time and it doesn't.
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  It feels like the Sahara desert in a windstorm, sandblasting
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  your face. Somehow the Holy Spirit works
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  some stuff out of you and like in you and through your heart,
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  you come to a place where it's like, oh, OK, so a lot of these
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  issues are my issues. And I keep looking over here to
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  blame this other person, but it's really me.
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  That is what it's like when you're going to church and
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  you're just doing it because this is what you do.
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  So a lot of times in that season, people divorce the
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  church. People will be like, this is
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  stupid. I'm tired of programs, I'm tired
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  of formulas. I'm tired of empire building
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  within the church, right? And you leave and we did that.
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  So I'm not pointing fingers. But what ends up happening is
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  you don't get the fruit of perseverance.
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  And I'm not saying one should commit to a church and stay
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  there forever, but I'm saying divorcing the church, no longer
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  attending church services and and taking the approach of like
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  an A la carte experience, you lose the opportunity to bear the
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  fruit of perseverance in that way.
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  And it so closely mirrors a marital bond.
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  So then you have to look at it as threefold, right?
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  There's the marriage of husband and wife, there's the marriage
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  to the Lamb, And then there's the marriage of the church and
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  us in the body, the unity of the body, right?
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  So those 3 aspects are all marriage in some way.
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  They're like different facets of the same diamond.
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  When we persevere, we come out of the other side with the fruit
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  of persistence. And also it births in you a kind
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  of grace for people and institutions because you see the
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  hand of God even in the mess. Do I think God should sort out
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  the formulaic empire building that is in the church?
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  Yes, I do. I wish he would have done it
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  yesterday, but he's not. But and he is God and he's doing
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  it in his timing. The Bible literally says don't
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  forsake the assembly of the Saints.
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  Don't do that. I was always like, why?
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  I mean, easy for you to say Paul, because when you were
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  writing that y'all were doing it right, OK.
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  You were small gatherings. You were seeking the word for
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  yourselves. You're coming together, sharing
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  what you had amongst each other. It was the book of Acts church
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  boom. And now look at us.
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  Now we have people dressed up in Marvel costumes in doing skits
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  of Michael Jackson's thriller. This is what we're doing.
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  So what are you talking about forsaking the assembly of The
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  Who are the Saints? Where are the Saints?
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  Because all I see is a bunch of actors wearing masks.
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  I see theater Jesus, and I don't want to participate in theater.
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  I got enough drama inside my own walls.
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  I don't need to go watch somebody else's drama played out
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  on the stage that they call church.
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  OK, puke. That was my mentality.
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  And I don't fault my yesterday's self for that.
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  But retrospectively, when things are clearer, I could say that we
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  would do well to persevere because it mirrors what marriage
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  is. And even if we're not married,
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  that bond with the Church in the fellowship of the Saints, that
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  persistence, that willingness to stick it out bears fruit in our
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  lives. That is hard to combine other
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  avenues. I think people come by it
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  through jobs they feel called to.
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  But all of this comes down to obedience, right?
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  Once we stop doing these things sacrificially and we start doing
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  them out of obedience, then we bear fruit because the
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  sacrificial system is done. Now we do obedience.