Pigtails

We were at church the other weekend and a little girl was being baptized. I love baptisms, but this one was really making me think. 

"How can this little girl with pigtails have more confidence in the gospel than me?" I questioned in my mind.

"I can tell you why I disagree with J.I. Packer and why I do agree with John Piper. I can tell you why I think Driscoll & Spurgeon don't go far enough at some points. I can tell you why Dawkins is ultimately wrong. But I can't have the confidence this little girl has in the gospel?" My mind began to formulate the arguments against me.

For two weeks this has been bouncing around in my skull and I couldn't really get it out. But reading this has helped, 

"Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the Prophets should come about: Look you scoffers, be astonished and perish; for I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not even believe, even if one tells it to you." Acts 13:40-41

Beware, O my mind, lest you miss what is going on before your waking eyes. Beware, O my mind, lest the preachers speak the truth of the ages to you and you do no believe. Beware, O my mind, lest the astonishment of your redemption is lost for want of knowledge.

I stand in no other place than that little girl with the pigtails stands. I know no more than the child in the water. The knowledge of the holy has not saved me - indeed it cannot. The coming of God in the flesh taking my sin, God's wrath and my shame has done it, finished it and won me.

Not so much that I believe this, or that I cling to this truth like a shipwrecked rat, but that this truth holds me - that it grips me tighter than my gradually loosening skin. I could want for more faith to believe the beauties of the realities of the gospel, but ultimately it is not something I hold, it holds me. It holds me. He holds me.

He holds me like a raft in the midst of the tempest of death. He holds me like the Shepherd holds the forlorn lamb. He holds me like the husband holds his weeping wife. He holds me.

You see, my knowledge or my faith could not convince me of my faith. They couldn't convince me because they're mine and the fallibility of me is astounding. But that faith is not mine, it's His. His faith in himself to save this sinners for his glory. This is my faith and confidence. The rope is tide tight roundabout my heartstrings and will not let me go, and I cannot let it go.

Friday Thoughts

1. Rest with God & he will give you rest; rest without him & you will find anxiety.

2. Luke 24:46-48. Christ Died; rose from the dead; established his Church. Gospel.

3. Participation in the gospel is the same. We've died with Christ; risen with Christ; are building with Christ.

4. We become partners in the grand discussion when reading books and talking. The discussion is founded & moderated by Scripture alone.

5. The story of Joseph is interrupted by Judah. Makes since.

6. Abortion is a central fight against the gospel. It is a direct affront against man being made in the image of God & therefore worth saving.

7. Have we sacrificed community for missions? These shouldn't be at odds, but so often are.

8. When we agree with the world it isn't for the same reasons as the world.

9. Morality cannot be changed at will.

10. Be relationship rich and experience poor.

Open Letter to The Church & My Generation

So we’ve got this debate raging all around us, my generation is screaming things like this: http://dannikanash.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/an-open-letter-to-the-church-from-my-generation/ and wanting the Church to change for equality sake.

I’ve been hesitant to write anything about this topic for a long time. I’m hesitant now as I write because there are faces of friends at coffee shops and others in my life who are gay streaming through my brain, (And I love them, and in my mind their homosexuality is no different than my pride) but I cannot keep quiet anymore. Hence the open letter:

(If you didn’t read the above link, give ‘er a check out, it’s well written and there’s a song too!)

Dear Church and My Generation,

The cry of our generation is not wholly to throw biblical authority away. The cry of my generation is not wholly to give up the beauty of Scripture for a social issue that makes us cool or not cool. The cry of my generation isn’t completely about being comfortable in the midst of a rapidly changing landscape.

There are those of us that desperately cry for biblical authority to override all of our hopes, dreams, feelings, and wishes. There are those of us who want the Bible to be all it says it is – and in so being, just the tip of the iceberg of eternity. There are those of us who keep quiet when our intolerance is intolerable. There are those of us who will loose our friends because our beliefs are different than theirs….

You see there are those of us that see this issue of equality not as an issue of social standing and social pretenses but as a matter of who we worship. In this generation of change stand some who would much rather see God worshipped as he is revealed in Scripture than to worship man and his wants - because that’s what’s at stake here.

What’s at stake is who we worship. Do we worship God as he is revealed in Scripture or do we make Scripture say what we want it to say and therein create for ourselves our own god? Do we believe that there’s a God who hates sin (and in his hatred of sin sends Jesus to die for our sins in the greatest act of love imaginable), tells us that fearing him is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge while at the same time being the God who created all, sustains all, and will make all things boldly new, or do we make for ourselves a god of love who accepts all, cherishes all, never hates, and never fights?

Yet culturally we’ve boiled all these arguments down to one overly simplified question: What would be more tolerant?

It would be much more tolerant to have a god who’d accept all and love all no matter their sexual orientation, their pride issues, their theft disposition and/or their lustful hearts. It would much more tolerant to believe that all are right and none are wrong…. But that’s not the way it is; that's not the way reality works.

Believe us when we say there are those in this generation who stand against homosexuality while at the same time have their hearts break for their gay friends because they want them to be happy and have love too. Believe us when we say there are those who think it would be nice to be standing united with all their generation on this topic. But also believe us when we say that there are those who cannot, will not, and should not give up the foundational authority of the Bible.

Therefore they are, “bigots.” Therefore they are, “conservative nut jobs.” Therefore they are, “intolerant.” Therefore they are, “narrow-minded.” Therefore they are, “hateful.” Therefore they are ____________ (Fill in the blank, they’ve heard it all before).

So our generation’s cry is not wholly the thirst for a rapper’s lyrics, but there are some in our generation whose cry and thirst is for the Word of God – and because of that cry and that thirst they will be hated for their intolerance. Church see this. My Generation know this.

There are those of us who think like this, and I am one of them. 

With best regards,

Sam Morris

Romans 7:24-25

Pastoral Resignation

This morning I read a letter to the church I worked at and help start over the past three years. In that letter I announced my resignation from being a pastor. It was and has been a difficult time for me to process through much of the weight, emotions, frustrations, and worries that have come with and been a part of this decision – a decision that has been developing over the past six months.

In short it is time for me to rest.To remember the gospel which for the past six years of my life has been either a semi-professional or professional job for me. But the gospel isn’t a professional calling. No, it’s so much more and less than that. It’s more because it’s what doctors and lawyers and bankers and moms and dads and college students and grad students and nurses alike cling to for hope and joy and peace. And it’s less because it’s the simplicity of child like faith and awe; because its burden is easy and yoke is light; because it’s the symphony of grace and mercy. The gospel isn’t some ware to be pervade or sold; it is the treasure in the field for which we sell all out of joy.

Many sleepless nights and desperate cries to the darkness (and my steering wheel) have filled my life these past months. Talks with family, friends, a counselor, my doctor, and the elders as well as the impressing leading of God have brought me to this grueling decision. It hurts to – for this next season - lay down the pastoral role. Do I still feel a deep and abiding calling? No, I feel a deep and abiding passion for proclaiming the gospel. Callings are good, they give a sense of direction, but it’d be better put to feel a burning passion for the gospel rather than a call for ministry. While a call to vocational ministry is desired, before any of that who-haw can be true there must be a love for the gospel of grace of which I am a partaker and chiefly in need of. That though my sins be great, my God is greater. That while my treachery runs deep, His love runs deeper. That in the midst of loss Jesus is my comforter.

            Thus I am no longer a pastor at a church.

Confession: This Semester

Before I get into this’n it’s been freeing to say, “I was wrong.” At the end of the summer I planned out the semester, 12 hours of classes didn’t seem too bad. I’d taken a couple grad level classes before in undergrad so it seemed like it’d be doable. Mom said it was too much – she was right, I wasn’t.

It’s safe to say this has been one of the most difficult semesters I’ve had. Sure some undergrad semesters were hard, and when finals came they were really gross, but this one is taking the cake in the realm of stress, tiredness and changes. There’ve been a few breakdowns.

Taking the workload from school, the job at the church, fostering a new relationship and the normal things of life all together has been rich and difficult. Rich because there’s much to learn and much to be humbly amazed by; difficult because I’m prideful and thought I knew it all and this has been three months of being wrong. (In some ways I feel like a raw blister - hyperaware of failures.)

Yet there are three thoughts, which have made this semester more bearable:

1) Bear your burdens well.

Sure they’re heavy and sure they’re daunting, but they’ve been given to you by God to bear, so bear them well. Be emboldened by the simple fact of knowing God – for his own reasons – planned this.

 2) It’s good to be carefree.

When the moments of relaxing come, take them. Whether they’re on Skype, a phone call, staring at the stars from my front porch, in a book, with the roommates, or holding a sleeping nephew whenever and wherever learn to relax in a moment. 

 3) (This has been the most difficult to remember) your biggest problem has been taken care of by Jesus.

This one is beautiful. At the end of any day you can lay your head down on your pillow and remember it’s not your education that saves you, your job that saves you, your interactions that save you, but it’s Jesus’ death on a Roman cross two-thousand years ago that has saved you.

Sure I don’t remember all of these all the time. But at the end of my life – whenever that may be – this semester will be just a simple dark place in the patchwork of life – the dark tiles of a mosaic without which the picture is lost. You see it’s a perspective thing seeing life from the vantage point of farther along.

Weekly Thoughts

1) I got something in the mail which made me giddy.

2) There are some new pens in my backpack. I was very excited to use them - still am. Kinda nerdy. Kinda white. White-n-nerdy.

3) Playing my lovely banjo this Sunday at church! So y'all ought'n ta be at da churrch for sum wurshipin'!

4) "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." Romans 12:2

5) I lived in a castle this week.

6) Looking forward to the end of September.

7) Most of our vocabulary needs re-defining now that we're Christians. Because God is big and we are not.

8) More than once this week all my words have failed to convey how I feel. Paradox after paradox has been my fail-safe.

9) Grad-school has more busy work than under-grad.

10) "My fragile life is secure under your sovereign grace." Don't typically like the rap, but for some reason this song resonates with me.

John 17's Sermon's End

(Listen to the full sermon here.)

This is the prayer of Jesus for his Church. The Church, the vehicle of God to communicate his great gospel to the people of the dying world; those whom he has chosen out of the world to behold his glory.

You, me, us, we, the Church. Saved, redeemed, sanctified by the sheer grace of God for the glory of God.

Not because we were good enough, smart enough, strong enough, or witty enough; not because of physical beauty or spiritual charm; not because of the way we understand doctrine or study the Scriptures or disciple others; we are not saved by anything we do, say or think.

We, the Church, are saved to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he sent; To see Jesus’ glory that was given to him by the Father because the Father loved Jesus his Son before the foundations of the world.

So we must see here in the High Priestly prayer that none of this is about us.

It never has been and never will be. The story of redemption is about God. We are the bystanders in our own salvation; we are the dead revived to life by God and for God.

And we should thank God that God is about God! We are now free to hope in him, to have justice in him, to have grace in him, to have freedom in him, to have our refuge be him.

We, men, are not the hope of God and because we are not the hope of God we are free to be free in our radical hope in God.

And so forever we will find out more and more about who God is because God has loved us so much that he has given us himself.

Middle of the Week Thoughts

1) I'm preaching this weekend at Journey the Way, so writing for the blog hasn't been a priority.

2) All of John 17 in one sermon. Buckle up.

3) I will be eating at Chik-Fil-A today.

4) The Church has always been the plan of God. (Ironically enough what I mean by 'always' is always.)

5) I cannot confirm or deny I started doing some sort of, ahem, 'work-out' this week. If I did, don't worry about it. If I didn't don't worry about it.

6) I'm wearing flip-flops for the first time this summer... I feel like a sell out.

7) The Gaslight Anthem.

8) I need to improve my grilling skills.

9) Re-getting Grace. Still.

10) This Song

Friday Thoughts

1) Late night conversations with roomates are what I missed most when living alone.

2) Kat the cat literally bounces off the walls around 10:45 every night.

3) Birdy has an amazing voice. She's 16, that's ridiculous.

4) Speaking at an event in Clearwater tonight!

5) "Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love." 1 Cor 16:13

6) Boondock Saints

7) From henceforth I shall be referring to my house as "Hogwarts."

8) The liklihood of one going into "Section 8 Government Housing" and not becoming A) addicted to drugs, B) selling drugs, C) Making Drugs, or D) Living in jail is terribly, terribly slim.

9) Since when is it the Government's job to do the Church's job? Maybe since the chuch hasn't been doing its job?

10) I hope that last point stung.

Friday Thoughts

1) Friday! I'm sleepy.

2) My friends from India are in town!

3) The book of Romans. Whoa.

4) Restarted Calvin's Institues of the Christian Religion, it's basically FREAKIN' AMAZING.

5) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Dear Sirus Black, you're my favorite.

6) 'Member that one time we lived in hell, I mean, Kansas?

7) Hung out in a dang cool church on Wednesday. (Look at da pichure)

8) I wanna see Brave. If you judge me I'll do something.

9) If you're not doing anything tomorrow night, be here.

10) Christianity shouldn't be man-centered. If it is, it's not Christian.

Rumored Thought (Pt. 4)

Here are Part1, Part 2, and Part 3.

“And who knows who are the people of God, when throughout the whole world, from its origin, the state of the Church was always such, that those who were called the people and saints of God who were not so; while others among them, who were as a refuse, and were not called the people and saints of God, were the Peoples and the Saints of God? As is manifest in the histories of Cain and Abel, of Ishmael and Isaac, of Esau and Jacob.” (Luther. p 97-98. Bondage of the Will.)

Just because one carries the title ‘Pastor’ does not make them a part of the Church. The title, you see, doesn’t make the Christian, not at all, Jesus makes a person a Christian and his Spirit gifts them to be pastor.

But leaders abound in all the world, in every religion, and in business. So is it possible to be a leader in the Church and not be a Christian? Yes. To the destruction of hundreds of souls, yes, it is possible.

Possible to preach week in and week out on the beauties of true religion, but not know it. Possible to elaborate on the nuances of the gospel and the life it ought to produce, yet dead. Possible to expound on the light of glory in the face of Jesus Christ, yet be blind.

Yet more horrifying than this, it is possible to lead a congregation to the pits of hell and be greeted by their screams upon his own entrance…

(Let that sink in and ask yourself whom are you following? A boy with a vendetta to have a following, or a man seeking to glorify God by giving up all he is to preach for nothing else than the glory of God?)

How does this tie into mission? By the pastor knowing the condition of his own soul before attempting to proclaim the gospel to other souls.

He is to be the leader in mission, and therefore he must believe what he will proclaim, or he will prove to be more of a hindrance than a help in the fight of faith; because his fight will be in another sector (maybe even another country) rather than on the same field as the true Church.

So simply being a pastor doesn’t make one Christian (and simply calling yourself a Christian doesn’t make it true). And sadly, now, it doesn’t always inspire hope that all pastors are Christian. So as those on mission for the glory of God and the good of the Church in the redemption of souls we must carefully submit to godly leadership to lead us in mission.

Atheist Paper

I’ve been working on a paper for a class quite a bit.

We were allowed to pick any topic (one we cared about) and use what we’ve learned in class to analyze a piece of rhetoric.

I picked Christopher Hitchens’ last public address from the Texas Free Thought Convention.

Little odd, I suppose.

But honestly we, as Christians, fail to reach most true atheists effectively. Sure there are some atheists who are just angry at God, the Church, and their parents, but there are others, ones who are, “free Thinkers,” in the, “Community of Reason.” Those ones are written off as lost.

And they may be, but someone, some believer, should try to befriend them, right?

I mean that’s the point of mission.

But more so they’re written off because we don’t know what we believe. More often than not we’re bickering over some menial issue, which doesn’t do or promote anything.

Christians are great at locking up in a convent all alone and leaving the world, those dirty sinners, to die… (Irony)

Yes, speaking freely is scary. Yes, not all are called to be evangelists. Yes, the mission still remains the exact same as it did 2000 years ago, but I’ll re-word it for us: Get to know some folks, make some friends in hope of one day telling them more about Jesus.

But on a completely different note: I saw two guys get arrested last night.

The Narnian Church

I was talking with a good buddy this weekend after church and somehow (not quite sure how) we got on the topic of Narnia (‘cause all good conversations should digress into literature or theology). Yet while we were talking I had an idea.

We love the stories of Narnia, all of them, they’re beautifully captivating, children going to some other place and becoming kings and queens and animals talking. Romantic to say the least, imaginative, for sure, since we’ve all desired at some point or another to be royalty.

The kids in the stories go from reality to Narnia, and then in the end Narnia is what is made whole and beautiful.

This mirrors the Church.

We are able to go to the Church, to be apart of her and to love her, but she is not the place we’re going. Yet she will be made new (more beautiful and more splendid).

Worshiping together, fellowshipping with one another, marveling at our God. Will be new and better and more wonderful. The Church, the thing we love and rest in when the realities of the world are too much, she will be made wholly new and wholly perfect.

Because the Church we now know is just a shade of the Church that will be.

Because the worship we now give is hardly a drop in the bucket of the worship we will give.

But if you hate the Church, then this poses a problem. ‘Cause why would you want to spend forever with a remade Church?

My only response to this is, is this: be careful whom you hate (or strongly-dislike, or don’t want to be apart of… etc). The bride of Christ surely is not one to hate. To claim Jesus as your Savior but hate the people he saved is hate yourself.

Vacation Thoughts (pt. 2)

1. Breckenridge, Colorado will be the closest to heaven some people will ever get.

2. NorthFace, Chaco's, & the latest & best climbing gear will never save a man... Neither will his intentions.

3. God bring me a godly wife.

4. Rest, rest, rest God us in control, trust him, hide in him.

5. Hey Matt, Chad, & Dave, I finished my meal!

6. This time change crap is weird & messing with my eating habits.

7. From now on the warmth of the sun will & should remind me of the embrace of a loving Father.

8. The Church is an odd organism.

9. I'm ready to do my call.

10. One wreck can quite literally & effectively shut down a large portion of Denver.

11. Home has nothing do with the place, but rather the people.

12. My bladder can last one (1) full gas tank.

13. Kansas gives out free coffee when you cross the state line.

14. People with NASCAR stickers should always be driving faster than me.

15. I find the big pictures of (or about) Jesus on the side of the road creepy & ineffective.

16. I successfully navigated Denver & three other towns in the mountains, but Newton is a screwy little town.

Now is Important, right? (pt 2)

Last week I blogged on some musings from 1 Corinthians 7:17-24 in a posted called “Now is Important, right?” (Read it here). I’d like to continue the theme from that post, applying it to something different.

We all want to be loved. To be hugged and cherished, to be - perhaps - swooned over and recognized for what we are or who we are. The way we dress, the way we speak, what we read, and what we own all of these things are attempts at placing ourselves in the realm of the people we esteem. We want to be cool.

Not to be the odd nerd in the corner or to be the guy with his nose stuck in a book. But to be the one everyone loves, that’s what we want, but why?

Why do we want to be loved by everyone? Becoming social chameleons to be hated by none. We even do this in the church, changing and adapting and lying to not be left out or given the cold shoulder.

But shouldn’t the church be the one place where you are capable to be you? To not worry about what the “cool folks” do and feeling the pressure to conform to their image?

God has made us. He has made us who we are and wired us the way we are wired for one reason, and for one reason only, to glorify himself. But we take this body, personality and characteristics and cannibalize them, ripping them limb from limb and duct taping them together to make this Frankenstein of a monster for the sake of being cool.

How would things look if you were the person you are when your alone all the time? And to say it wouldn’t be pretty is to say that what God created is ugly.