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