Identity Thief Series

Now that’s funny I don’t care who you are. Hey, isn’t it great to be able to laugh in church? Yeah. Life is hard and laughter is good. Most of us don’t laugh enough, most church people don’t laugh enough. One of the things that I love the most in this place that we call DCC is the fact that we are able to laugh a lot and have fun together as we chase down this better way to live that we all came in here chasing. I also love that fact that I am standing today in the midst of a sea of Orange. Go Broncos! I’m with you, see, I just can’t wear orange, it clashes with my hair. So I’m excited about a lot of things today, the party I get to go to today, the Superbowl late this afternoon but most of all I’m excited that you are here, especially if you are new.

If that’s you we really think that is important that you know that you we are not people who used to be like you, put up with people like you, of fix people like you, we are people just like you. What that means is this. If you have made mistakes, hurt people, been hurt by people, have parts of your life and story you wish you could change, erase or do-over, if you aren’t perfect, if you have a jacked up story, if you love the Broncos, me too. If you don’t love the Broncos what is wrong with you? Seriously, we say “me too” all the time in this place. All of your story is safe and welcome here regardless of how it reads and you belong with us regardless of what you believe. Hope that is more than just a bunch of words. We hope you feel that, experience that, and walk away from here today believing that it is true. Thank you for taking a chance on us this Superbowl Sunday, and thanks to all of our friends who are tuning in to watch us online before you watch the Superbowl too.

So we are jumping back into this series that we are in called Ransomed Heart today, a series that I believe is one of the most, if not the most important series that we have ever done in my almost 8 years here at DCC and I love the way that you are embracing it and wrestling through what we are talking about every single week. So way to go, stay in it. If you haven’t been with us we are talking about how all of us, even with those of us that have done this church thing for all or most of our lives still encounter a voice that continues to suggest that something is still missing in the midst of this thing we do called church, religion, this thing we do called life. There is something more, we were made for something more and deep inside we know it. So what do we do with that? That’s what we are after in this series…how do we learn to find this something more?

So we’ve talked about the importance of our invisible lives, the heart of a man, the heart of a woman, and last week we talked about how a part of this journey requires us to have a clear understanding of this larger story that we all find ourselves living in. Today we need to get more personal and spend some time talking about the story within that story. We need to talk about your story and mine. While the preview to the movie Identity Thief is pretty funny, the reality of that happening, our identity being stolen is not very funny at all. It is a serious problem in the world we live in. I was reading this week that there is a new victim about every 2 seconds and that has been the number one consumer complaint now for 15 straight years. The phrase “identity theft” may not have been made official until 1964, identity theft has been going on since the very beginning of time. It is keeping us from the life that we are looking for and that’s why we need to jump back into this and talk about that. So here we go.

If you have a Bible we are ultimately going to be in Luke chapter 15 today. If you don’t have a Bible we would love to give you one. They are back on the back tables that you can grab right now if you would like if you close or on you can always grab one on your way out. As always you can hit our app or the You Version app too. Or you can ignore all of that and read along with me on the screens. Luke chapter 15 beginning with verse 11…