series: Romans
title: 20 Justification & Glorification
teacher: Jacob Bender
date: June 9, 2019
scriptures: Romans 5:20-21, Romans 6:1-14
My kids last day of school was this week. Fiona’s last day was Wednesday, and Milly and Brooklyn finished Friday. And on Friday, I was driving in the car with Fiona to pick up Milly and Brooklyn, and I was showing Fiona the song “Redemption Songs” by Bob Marley.
“oh pirates yes they rob I,
sold I to the merchant ship” —-
and she started singing alone. Then she stopped for a moment and said to me:
“Daddy… is this a sad song?”
and I thought about it for a moment… I ran the words over in my head, and then responded… “well, no. No, I don’t consider it a sad song.”
to which she responded: it sounds like a sad song.
and I said to her: to me, it is a hopeful song.
and she said “well what is it about? about someone who gets robbed?”
like… how is that hopeful?
And I explained to her:
it’s a song about a revolution.
and of course… five year old Fiona… we all know what the next question was…
“What is a Revolution?”
and again, I had to think about it… about how to communicate it to a five year old, and so I sort of took a couple of the lines in the song and added some more to it… and I said:
“it is when there is something in our world THAT ISN’T as it should be… a dominating thought… a controlling thing that is doing something that it shouldn’t… and enough people decide “we aren’t going to stand aside and watch this happen anymore… we aren’t going to let it be this way anymore.”
and instead of waiting for the solution, we are going to sacrifice whatever it is that we have the potential of losing… in order that we can be a part of the solution ourselves.
THAT’S A REVOLUTION.
and that is what we are called to in our world.
Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete.
Pastor Chilly Chilton, the founding Pastor of Courage Church, joined us for one last sermon before he leaves to go and plant Revolution Youth Ministry in Burlington, VT.
conversation means that we bind and we loose together, we learn together, we serve together, and we grow together.
We welcome each other’s perspectives, and we depend on each other’s accountability.
In his first Sunday visiting us at Courage Church, Pastor Brad Reed (lead Pastor of the New York Dream Center and one of the overseers/pastors of Jacob and Dawn Bender) talks about impartation, and about building the church on a firm foundation.
Romans 3:1-20