...the reality is, is that God shows up through Christ
and the Spirit to show us that we are a blessing. He has come to heal us and to
reconcile us, and for us to then go and share that hope with the world because
God is with us where we are presently and where we are moving forward. But how
is that possible?
Well, that's where Romans 5 enters in. Before we jump in
to explore the text together, though, I would just like to share a little bit
of my own story with you all, not unlike all of us, I am a makeup of many things
that make me who I am and create my identity. To share a few; I am a father,
I'm a son, I'm a brother.
But also, I am divorced, I'm gay, and I'm a youth minister. So
let me maybe unpack a little bit of that for you. I grew up going to a very
conservative evangelical church. Now, I will not stand up here and say that it
was all bad because I gained a lot of things from my church home. A lot of good
things that have shaped me, informed me, and that have rooted me in the faith
that I have today.
But as you can imagine, there were also things that I
learned growing up that made me question, and really caused harm to me for
things that I came to learn later about myself, specifically regarding my
sexuality. It wasn't until later in high school where I started to even understand
what that looked like, but my foundation had already been laid for me to
question that part of who I was.
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