We are in the second week of the book of James and one of the reasons I love the book of James is that James dispels this whole idea that faith is the absence of work. You're here because you are dealing with important God issues in life. You want to experience the fruitfulness of the word of God in your life. That's why we are all here. We get only one life - no comebacks, no do-overs and we want to experience the fruitfulness of God's success in every dimension, in our relationships, in our parenting, in our life missions. But it does no good to believe the word if you don't work the word. We are going to see that you cannot separate faith from work, or faith from perseverance. Many, many people want the blessings of God, but far fewer people are willing to pay the price of stick-to-it-iveness to experience the blessings of God in their life. "Lord, teach us through Your Holy Spirit. Open our eyes and ears that not only may we see, but apply the truth of Your word. In Jesus' name. Amen!"

We are going to begin in James 1:2. "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." We're going to pay a lot of attention to that word 'trials.' Fruitfulness comes from maturity, completeness. I remember the first year I planted strawberry plants. I became impatient and picked those things a little too soon. That ruined the whole thing. Look with me at verse 12, "Blessed are those who persevere under trial, because when they have stood the test, they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him."

If you have a driver's license, will you take it out? I want you to look at something on your driver's license. You don't have to show it to anyone else. There is one thing that induces stress on every occasion and that is test taking in any form. One of the things on my driver's license is an endorsement - an M for motorcycle. I got the motorcycle endorsement a few years ago and I remember taking the Honda training course. It's four nights, Monday through Thursday, four hours each night. The first night is all course work. Then Tuesday and Wednesday, eight hours, will be on the bike. Then Thursday night is a four-hour test. So on Tuesday, you begin to think about tests on Thursday. On Wednesday, you think about tests on Thursday. If you miss twenty points, you flunk the test. I want you to look at something on your driver's license. No, you do not have to look at your weight. I want you to look at when it expires. I pay attention to this; mine expires on my birth date in 2009. I hope no one is looking at that thing and just discovered that it has already expired. It's been many years, I was sixteen when I took my driver's test, but I know this much, I don't want to take it again! That's the last thing I need. Someone told me you don't have to parallel park anymore. Very rarely do you parallel park. But I still hate it, especially when there is a car waiting behind me when I have to parallel park.

What we want to pay attention to in verse two, is the word trials, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind because you know that testing of your faith produces perseverance." Trials and testing is the same word in Greek and it means to put to the proof. That is why we take tests. Tests are stressful. The reason that we are tested is that we have to know what we are supposed to know. It is only through tests that we know that we know what we are supposed to know. It is only when we are tested that we know we can do what we are supposed to do. It is with a driver's license test, doctor's tests, engineering tests, or whatever kind of test you take that you can be who other people trust you to be. That is the purpose of testing, to put to proof. Testing produces perseverance. It strengthens you or prepares you to go to the next level. My childhood would have been a lot easier if they would have allowed me to pass from grade to grade without taking tests. You can't do that because you have to be capable of handling the next level. The whole purpose that we are put through these tests is to make sure we are capable to persevere in the next level. Character and strength are formed in the fire!

We have all heard or read about somebody who won the lottery and after they won the lottery, they have lost everything. Not only do they lose, or go through all the money, but they lose their family and everything they have. There is nothing instant about lasting success. There is nothing instant about character or strength. Everyone wants to be successful. We've told you how bad our marriage was for 16 years, yet sometimes people will say to me, "Well, pastor, I wish I could have some things in my life like you and Carolyn. I wish that God would make it easy in our marriage like he has made it for you and Carolyn." So, for those few of you who believe this, you are still not getting it. Everyone wants to be fruitful, in life, in love, in parenting, in financial health, but so few people are willing to take the narrow road of persevering, painful discipline to get there. There is a blessing or a benefit in redemptive pain. Considerate it joy, my sisters and brothers, when you face trials of many, many kinds. What is the benefit when God allows pain or testing in your life for a redemptive purpose?

Some of you who have been around for several years will remember that about seven and a half years ago, this is what I looked like. I am still shocked by people in the church who tell me they don't remember me looking that way, but that's how I looked. Did I believe in health? Yes! But believing the word is not the same as working the word. Fruitfulness comes from working the word. Without work, it is nothing. We are going to see that in the book of James. So I was burning the candle at both ends, wanting health but not working for health. I was drinking about a pot of coffee a day. Too much caffeine can be really bad for you. I was writing a book, plus doing everything else. Carolyn and I were eating at Palomino's on Fountain Square in Cincinnati with my sister and brother-in-law on a Friday evening. All of a sudden, I felt like I didn't know whether I had to throw-up, pass gas, do something. I started sweating and I remember my brother-in-law looked at me and said, "Are you feeling okay?" Carolyn and I were sitting in a booth and I just went down on Carolyn's lap. There was a doctor at the next table and I never totally lost consciousness because I could hear him talk. I remember him saying, "I can't get a pulse. Call an ambulance!" The ambulance was right there and they took me downstairs, out on Fountain Square and a lady shoved an aspirin in my mouth. As we were in the ambulance, I heard them tell Carolyn that my blood pressure was goofy, about 60 over 20, and that my heart was arrhythmic. I knew that was not a good sign, but I was not afraid. As a matter of fact, I even asked the lady in the ambulance if she went to church anywhere. She said, "Well, no. I am a Catholic, and I got divorced, and I am living with a guy, and I don't think I would be welcome." I said, "Well, you would be welcome in our church. Maybe this is why I am going through this whole experience - it is to tell you, God loves you and has a plan for your life." It's another reason why God allows suffering and pain. So, anyway, when I got through that whole situation, I thought, "This is ridiculous. I know better!" I read in the word that my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. But my temple is not going to experience the fruitfulness of God's design for it unless I don't just hear the word and believe the word, but I begin to work the word. So, seven and a half years ago, it created a lifestyle change. I really didn't know you could feel so good, or have this kind of energy when you are past 55, more energy than I had 20 years ago. So it created a lifestyle change in the area of eating and exercise.

This is something we filmed for a publishing project out of Nashville that is going to be coming out in April. I want you to see this to let you see what I do during the week.

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Well, I have just come from a long day at the office and as you can see I have stopped in the gym. I try to hit the gym five to six times every week. I would not have made it one month without an accountability partner. I had a trainer/coach. There are many ways that you can do it. You can find a fitness trainer at a local gym or YMCA. There are many churches in the area that offer aerobic classes or fitness classes. I would encourage you to seek out one of those classes that meets in a regular time slot where you will find friends, I call them fitness partners, that will encourage you weekly and miss you when you are not there. I am in my eighth year of consistently practicing a lifestyle of healthy eating and exercise. We work on every major body part once a week in resistance exercises. We do aerobic training at least three times a week. I am going to take you through some of my exercises very quickly. I am going to turn an hour into a few seconds, so I will catch you on the way back out.

That was a hard hour, but you always feel better on the way home. It's always hard to talk yourself into coming to the gym but, wow, what a difference it makes in health and energy.

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Isn't that true - you always feel better on the way home. That expression you have heard many times "no pain, no gain" is true. It is biblical. Strength is formed in the fire. Every January, I see people in all dimensions of their life who have the want to. It was like the first of January here at church, did you notice this month, everyone showed up at church? Every worship celebration increased two to three hundred people. We were up about a thousand a weekend and it lasted almost three weeks. Normally at the gym you have no problem in November or December getting on any equipment. Now, in January, you are waiting in a line and normally it is just until the first of February. This year they were out of the gym by the middle of January! Here is the key: the want to doesn't do any good without the work. Biblical principal! God blesses people who work the word. It wasn't until Carolyn and I made the commitment in year 20 of our marriage to every day work the word that we began to experience the fruitfulness of what we always professed and what we always believed.

When I started this eating and exercise thing, it wasn't only until I lost a certain amount of weight - it was for life. In year 20, when Carolyn and I made a commitment not just to stay married, but to work the word in our marriage, that is when we saw fruitfulness for life. There are a lot of people who stay married and are miserable for a lifetime. Look at James 1:22, I want you to see that God blesses people when they work the word, not just believe the word. "Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. DO what it says" Some of you are sitting here saying, "I have been faithful. I am good person. I come every week and I study and read the word every day. Why isn't anything happening?" That's deception if you think believing the word is enough. Look at 2:17. "In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action (work), is dead." It is stillborn if you are not working what you're believing. Show me your faith without deeds, your work, and I will show you my faith by what I do.

We're talking about this whole thing of the benefit of redemptive pain. This isn't what every parent should do, I didn't do this with my children, because it wasn't necessary with my children, but it was one of the best gifts my parents gave me. Here's my inheritance from my family that I'm so thankful for. When I barely, by the skin of my teeth, got out of high school, I remember a teacher changed the grade from an F to a D three days before I graduated. And yet somehow I got into the University of Cincinnati. My parents sat down with me and said, "Michael, we are not going to pay for your college. It would be like putting the money down the toilet. If you want to go, you'll find a way to get there." I went to work that summer. I was seventeen years old when I got out of high school. I'd been making $80 a night in 1969 playing in a band in Cincinnati. I lost this deal because, as a Christian, I could no longer play in this band where there were so many drugs. I was a new Christian. Some of these guys will tell you, you're lucky today to make $100 a night playing in Dayton. I was working at North College Hill Bakery beginning at six in the morning until three in the afternoon - for sixty-five cents an hour, cleaning everything that four bakers messed up all night long and re-greasing the pans for the next evening. I worked, I went to school full time, I was the youth minister in my church and I dated. I made the dean's list all four years at the University of Cincinnati and came out of college without any debt. What was redemptive about this whole thing is first working for sixty-five cents an hour and the Vietnam War staring me down. You see how redemptive this whole experience was. Consider a joy, my brothers and sisters, when you experience trials. Trials build perseverance. Now, I can pastor a church, I can write books, I can speak, I can be focused on my marriage - and it seems normal! Do you see how God uses trials in our life to enable us to persevere? Look at verse 4, "Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking in anything." That was such a great gift from my parents, allowing those trials to come to my life. It brought maturity and completeness in my life, so that I would be prepared for the race and the purpose for which God has created me. God intentionally designs desert days and desert seasons in our lives to produce perseverance.

The reason we are in this Lenten season, the 40 days preceding Easter, is that it corresponds to the 40 days that God led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. The word tempted is that same word trials, to be put to the proof. Matthew 4:1, "Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil." Isn't that amazing that it is God who leads us into these tests, into these trials. The purpose is to be put to proof, that you would be who you need to be, you can do what God has called you to do, and be who other people need you and trust you to be. The desert is important because it's when you are in the desert that you learn to depend upon God. When things are going okay, you can get comfortable, stuck and self-reliant. It is interesting that our season of Lent corresponds with Jesus' 40 days being tested in the wilderness; and, Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness corresponded to the Jews 40 years in the wilderness going from slavery to the place of promise. Isn't it interesting that to get to the place of promise from slavery, you have to go through desert. Before you can get to resurrections, you have to go through crucifixions. Deuteronomy 8:2 says, "Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that people do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord." When Jesus was in the wilderness, he quoted this! Humility! Anybody here need humility? One thing I like about being 56, compared to 36, you realize it is more God than you. You know who has really done it. And there is that word test again, to put to the proof. One of the things that God deals with in trials is that he deals with the heart. Did you hear the heart issues? Sometimes when things are going too good, we get a dual focus going on and we forget and our motives aren't to truly serve God's mission and kingdom in the world, our motives become more bread, more bread, more bread. Remember when Satan said, Jesus look at all this great stuff out in the world. All this great stuff can be yours. We forget and think we are here to work and collect all of that great stuff instead of worship the Lord and serve him only. I am so thankful for desert seasons that come into my life to rid me of this duplicity and clarify my focus. Isn't it interesting that Jesus, before he fulfilled the mission God gave him, had to be put to the proof, put to the test.

Let's get back to why God allows desert times. I love the first verse of James where he starts off right away, "James a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ..." That is identity. That is what you learn in the desert. One thing as we study this book of James, what we have to realize is that James is writing to a church that is experiencing persecution. James is the leader of the church in Jerusalem. In Acts 8, we read that persecution broke out against the church at this time. One of the gang leaders of that persecution was a person named Saul, who would become Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament after he encountered the risen Jesus Christ. They put to death a young Christian leader by the name of Stephen, of which Saul/Paul approved. Everyone was scattered, that means driven out of Jerusalem, most even driven out of Israel except for the apostles. The apostles were the professional ministers. The others were the priesthood of all believers who carried the gospel into the world. Why does God use trials in our life? We read in verse 4, "Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went."

Remember, I had that little heart incident, blood pressure 60 over 20, my heart was arrhythmic, they rolled me into the ambulance, and what did I do? Preach the word wherever I go. "Do you go to church? Let me tell you that is why I am going through this nonsense. God loves you and has a plan for your life." Every time we go through nonsense, look for a way how God is going to use it in a redemptive way, in someone else's life. Yet, isn't it true, do you ever get too comfortable and just get stuck and stay where you are? Do you cocoon in complacency and become indifferent to everything? It's one of the reasons I keep going back to Darfur because it too easy to become cocooned in the complacency of comfort. I have to put myself in situations of risk to experience where most of the world are living at this time. It is why I don't want to continue to plant churches in the suburbs, but I want us to move into Fort McKinley to begin. I don't even know how were going to do this community re-development. I see us creating businesses, communities, maybe getting into rehab of houses, connecting to Sinclair with scholarships for people. How are we going to do it? I am 56! Didn't I have enough to do? The Bishop appointed me to a church. We haven't even merged yet and guess who has been appointed to be the pastor of that church? ME! I have two churches. Young pastors start out with two churches; you are supposed to progress to having only one. The older we get, the more they give us. I do want to say too, John Ward is doing an incredible job. They had a professional pastor go into that church and that professional pastor took that church from 90 to 30 people in two years. John Ward, who is a businessperson, has two stores and an Internet business, owns three businesses and doesn't get paid - so I would say he is working full time. He had 98 people in that church last week. Isn't that amazing? You don't want comfortable! You are servants! You are servants of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said, "I came that you may have life and have it abundantly." Life is too short to miss any abundance. I am convinced too many of us just get inside the door of God's saving grace and stop. That is like living all of your life on a spiritual level in kindergarten. I would be pretty bored if I was still in kindergarten. As a matter of fact, I don't even try to be, I won't fit in those little chairs and desk. That is the problem - too many of us are trying to fit into a faith that no longer fits us when God has something better. But here is the key: it does no good to keep believing the word or professing the word if you are not working the word in every area of your life. How long do I have to work it? It is a lifelong commitment in the same direction. God has put great dreams in your heart and has not put those dreams in your heart to downsize those dreams, but that you begin to work the promise of the seed that God has placed in your heart. Watch God, through the supernatural power of the resurrected Jesus Christ, water and fertilize that word, as you are faithful to work that word in your marriage, in your work place, in your life mission, in your parenting. Watch what God will do.

Pray with me. "Lord, give me the perseverance I need to do Your will so that I can receive the fulfillment of Your promises. Enable me to "run with perseverance the race marked out before me." When weariness threatens to overwhelm me, strengthen and refresh me according to Your word. Thank You, that as I refuse to give up, I will reap Your harvest of blessings and others will receive the light of Your life. Amen!"