Wait, I'm a Saint?

Right now, I'm reading a book entitled "Victory Over the Darkness" by Neil T. Anderson. So far the book is amazing, it is an eye-opener to who I am in Christ. Everything has a basis in Scripture, and rightly so, Neil T. Anderson was chairman of the Practical Theology Department at the Talbot School of Theology. Today, while reading, I came across something that I had never thought of before, and I don't think very many other Christians think of this either.

When Christians think of the word "saint", what do we think of? We think of people that are giants of the faith, like the apostle Peter, Paul, or Augustine of Hippo (pictured to the left). We think of devout people, holy people, people that are way more spiritually mature than we are or ever could be. I know that this is what I think of when I think of the word "saint". But what if I told you that you are a saint? Yes, you, are a saint. If you are a Christian; a person who has accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and was born again of the Holy Spirit, then you are a saint. Its mind-boggling, believe me, but we are.

From his book, "Victory Over the Darkness", Neil T. Anderson writes, "Have you noticed that one of the most frequently used words of identity for Christians in the New Testament is "saint"? A saint is literally a holy person. Yet Paul and the other writers of the Epistles used the word generously to describe common, ordinary, everyday Christians like you and me. For example, Paul's salutation in 1 Corinthians 1:2 reads, "To the Church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours."

According to what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians, we are saints by calling, not by what we do. We as Christians usually believe that a saint is someone who earned this great title by doing miracles or doing some great service to the church. However, Scripture says that followers of Christ are "saints", which as Dr. Anderson pointed out, means a holy person. "In the King James Version of the Bible," Dr. Anderson says, "believers are called "saints", "holy ones", or "righteous ones" more than 240 times." 240 times?! With a number like that, its obvious that in Scripture believers are referred to as "saints".

I know this hard to fathom at first, but we as Christians are saints. It does not mean that we are perfect by any means, but we are in Christ Jesus and in Him we are being perfected. This is something that the deceiver will try to tell you is not true. Satan and his demons will give you a false view of yourself, do not believe them! You are a child of God, Christ dwells in you, and therefore you are a saint. I pray that this will help people see themselves in a new light, and shake off the fallacies that the darkness will tell you.

Suggested reading: "Victory Over the Darkness" and "The Bondage Breaker" by Neil T. Anderson

Dodger Baseball Outing

Hey all, this is just a reminder about our upcoming family outing to Dodger Stadium on July 19th. We will leave the church at 12pm sharp (right after 2nd service). Our tickets are for the AM PM All-You-Can-Eat Pavillion. This is a great chance to hang out with other students and their families and get to know one another more. It is also just plain fun. For those of you who don't like baseball, you can see how much junkfood you can eat. :)
Tickets are $30 and this includes parking if you carpool with us. (Normally, tickets are $35 and you have to pay $15 for parking).

Signup soon because tickets are going fast. Email jan@cclb.org to save a spot, and bring your money to church or the church office prior to July 19th.

-MW

Encountering Jesus [Through Music]

(From time to time, I want to give some brief thoughts on how we can encounter Jesus on a day-to-day basis. This is the first of such posts.)

Today is a pretty good day. The sun is shining, I've got some things planned, I'm not too stressed. It's really nice. However, once or twice a week (on average) I wake up full of anxiety, doubt, sadness, anger, and frustration. I want to scream, I want to quit, I want to cry, or all of the above. Do you ever have these types of days? For some of you, you might be at a spot in your life where every day is like this.

I've found that on these days reading the Bible or having some type of focused prayer time is especially difficult, which is ironic because the one thing I need on days like this is to encounter the living Jesus. However, in past months, I've developed a strategy for dealing with the glum and the frustration. It's simple...I sing.

Now, you probably do this, too. You find a place in your room or your car and you crank your stereo or your ipod and you sing along. You indulge your heartbreak or your anger by singing along with Kanye's Heartless or something by Rage Against the Machine. And that's fine sometimes, there is a place for that. But how do we use music for more than just amplifying our feelings and allowing us to wallow in self-pity?

The answer? We use music as a way for us to come face to face with Jesus in a very, real, raw and emotional way. We use music as a vehicle for prayer, complaint, praise, and perspective-change. Simply put, we lament and praise. Laments are ponderous songs of complaint and heartbreak that approach God boldly and reverently. Praises are songs that confess God's goodness and promise in spite of our situation. If you're in a time of difficulty, you should use both types of songs to both deal with your situation and gain hope for the future.

Here's what I do: I get to my office before anyone else is in the building and I crank up my computer speakers with some modern worship songs and some ancient hymns that really resonate with how I'm feeling, but that also speak some truth into my heart about how good God is. Then, regardless of how I'm feeling, I start singing along. Before long, I've come to my wits and I've found some joy in the midst of sadness.

So try it. This was David's strategy all throughout the Psalms. Find a place where you can be alone, and sing along. Music is one of the most, if not the most, powerful things at our disposal for bringing us into touch with the reality of God and ourselves. Don't just use music to manipulate yourself and have a pity party, use music to surrender yourself to God.

Q: How Can You Have Good Without Evil?

This question came to me today from a student: "If theres no evil how do you know wats good?"

It's a good question, right? It seems correct to define 'good' over and against 'evil.' For instance, if I say "I want to eat some good food," I probably am expressing a desire for a certain type of food that is better than the implicit "bad" or "not-so-good" or even just "normal" food that I would normally eat. The conclusion that we draw is that the "good food" gains it's goodness only in comparison to the "bad" or "normal" food.

When we apply this same assumption to God, we could conclude that God is only "good" in comparison to "evil" beings; namely, Satan and evil people. So God's goodness then, rather than being something absolute, objective and definable is something that is relative and only shows up when compared to "evil." When we think about it this way, God needs evil people and evil beings like Satan to be good.

Most people (including me) don't like this conclusion, because it denies the truth of the Bible--that God is really amazing and really good, without the existence of evil to make it so. So how should we think of good and evil?

First of all, we need a definition of good. God is that which is good. He exists as Father, Son and Holy Spirit for all eternity in perfect love, harmony, and fellowship. This Tri-une relationship becomes the basis for all other goodness that is ever to be found in the world. So first and foremost, God is good. Secondarily, those things and relationships in the world which partake in and reflect this Tri-une love are good.

Second, we need to rethink our understanding of evil. Does evil exist? That is the question. Yes, evil exists, but not in the same way that good exists. What do I mean? Good exists objectively and eternally. Evil, however, is the absence of good. Let me illustrate with another silly example: Swiss cheese exists, this is for sure. However, do the holes in swiss cheese exist? Yes, but not in the same way that the cheese exists. Why? Because the cheese is something, but the holes in the cheese are merely the absence of cheese. In the same way, evil exists in our world as the absence of good (ie, the absence of God). Evil is when things and relationships no longer partake in God's Tri-une love and so they are full of chaos, strife, disorder, and disharmony? Sound familiar?

Thankfully God enters a world at variance with Himself and He takes on our Godlessness upon Himself, bearing our punishment, turning people back towards Himself, so that we might not continue to descend into chaos (ie, hell), but rather have eternal life in the Tri-une love.

Feel free to post follow-up questions here for everyone to discuss or respond to.

Welcome to the Rooted Youth Blog

Hey All,

Welcome to the new blog for Rooted Youth. As of now, I am the only contributor, but hopefully in the future we will have other pastors/leaders who are going to be adding content from time to time. Also, in the near future, we will have this blog synced up with the church website so that the content is delivered through multiple streams.

The idea is to have a blog that is both informative and interactive. Basically, we want to do a few things with this blog:

1. Provide students and parents with great content for their spiritual growth, and some stuff just to make you think.

2. To update parents and students about events and new things happening with both the High School and Middle School Ministries.

3. Allow students and parents a place to ask questions and post their own thoughts and communicate with one another about the material.

I hope you enjoy and find something here in the future that interests you. Please don't hesitate to email me at matt@cclb.org if you have any questions or topics you would like to see discussed here on the blog.

-MW

P.S. We even have a FACEBOOK feature on the right that allows you to monitor your facebook without navigating away from the page. I thought all you facebook addicts would appreciate that. :)