What does God say about _______?

Two weeks ago I started a new sermon series at Geist Community Church entitled "What does God say about _____?"  (we've been studying the Gospel of Mark for almost a year and we won't finish until the beginning of next year, so I decided to take a break for a few weeks)  In the weeks leading up to the series I asked the people of our church to submit topics that they would like see addressed.  I was quite shocked by the large volume of submissions.  Since there was no way I could cover all of the topics in a five-week sermon series, I promised to blog about some of the topics that I wouldn't have time to cover and address some of the more popular topics at greater depth than a 40-minute sermon allows.

As I reviewed the topic submissions I began to realize that nearly all of the answers were built upon our identity as believers "in Christ."  Who we are "in Christ" must serve as a new foundation upon which we make spirit-directed and God-honoring decisions for our "new life."  Thus, we began the series last week laying the foundation for the following four weeks as we asked: What does God say about Identity?

I've known for awhile that this is a "war zone" in the life of many believers today and even mulled writing a book on this topic.  (at least until I saw Mark Driscoll was going to beat me to the punch with a new book early in 2013)  Still, the response to the message overwhelmed me.  The church received several requests for audio CD's for people to give to their friends and family.  In response, we made copies of the message available this past Sunday for pickup, only to run out with others still asking for more.  (apparently some people still listen to CD's even though I honestly couldn't find a functional CD player in the church to test our newly burned CD master)  Since you're obviously reading this on some sort of electronic device with web access, you can listen to or watch the message here.

My prayer through this entire series has been, and will continue to be, that those of us "in Christ" realize we cannot live the way we used to live because we are not who we used to be!  

Upcoming sermon topics:
What does God say about forgiveness?
What does God say about spiritual gifts?
What does God say about pain/suffering?
What does God say about parenting?

To the praise of HIS glorious grace!