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Nick: My name is Nick Hoover and I'm the chef at Coldwater Café in Tipp City.

Andrea: I'm Andrea Hoover, and I'm the fitness coordinator for Ginghamsburg Church. We had been married about eight months when we found out that we had about a 1% chance of ever having children. At the time, we weren't ready to start our family, but there's something about being told you can't have children that makes you want one right then. So, we started looking at our options and adoption is certainly something that we had always talked about. My doctor told me about a class at Kettering Hospital where we could learn about adoption. We sat through the first two hours of class one night and left saying, "This is it. This is exactly what we are supposed to do."

Nick: I remember we started praying right away and we thought there was a good chance that our baby could have already been conceived, so from the beginning, we started praying for our child, for her health and the health of her birth mother, the woman that was in God's plan, and praying that the right match would happen.

Andrea: We signed with the agency and started filling out the paperwork that we needed to do. I really felt strongly that December 1 was the magical date, that we had to have everything finished by December 1. I know now that God put that in my head. We had to put together a little scrapbook of our lives. The birth mother would select us, or not select us, based on what was in that book.

Nick: We were told that it was going to take anywhere from six to 12 months, that's the average wait time for an adoption.

Andrea: On December 11, we got a phone call that we had been picked by a birth mom in Dayton. This birth mother had actually talked with the agency the end of November and had gotten profiles on a lot of families and didn't like any of them. So, she went back to the agency and told them she would like to see more. By that point, our profile was completed. Our scrapbook of our life was finished, so that's how she ended up with ours. Nine weeks later, we have a baby - on Valentine's Day, she's our little Valentine.

Nick: It's comforting that God does have a plan for our lives and what we need to do is be faithful and listen to him. We do feel that this is the way God is going to grow our family, through adopting, and we're looking forward to raising Esther and hopefully adding more children to our lives too.

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God answers prayers in different ways. A lot of people confuse faith with magic; but faith doesn't have anything to do with magic. We don't always get our expectations, but faith has everything to do with miracles.

I don't know how many of you check my blog, but this past week I asked the question: who would Jesus vote for? There were more responses than I've ever had, including a call from Washington D.C. and one of Obama's people. If you have not checked it out, you'll see a lot of things on my blog that I wouldn't dare talk about here. I would encourage you to go there. We're going to be hearing a whole lot more between now and November as we are bombarded in many ways, but one of the things about election years is that you see a gross castration of the true meaning of what faith is all about. We've really heard it from some politicians this year, the ones that were the loudest in this way have already been knocked out. They say something like this, here's a quote, "My faith is personal and it will not influence my public views, decisions, values or leadership" What you're saying is that your faith is irrelevant. You can't separate true faith from the core of who you are and it impacts every decision that you make in your life. Faith is always about asking the question, what does God want and then acting on the perceived will of God. The people who flew the airplanes into the towers in New York - that was an act of faith. They were acting on the perceived values of God. When I say that faith affects everything you do, I couldn't run for president of the United States because my faith would not allow me to ever push the red button. I would have to say that up front. I've heard senators say in the past, that their feelings about atomic warfare would eliminate them from running for president. My feelings about capital punishment would not qualify me to be governor of any state. You can never say, truly, that your faith is separate from your values or decisions that you would make publicly. There is no such thing as private faith.

We're in James and we are going to talk about the power of persistent faith and better understand what faith is all about. Open your Bibles to James 1:5-8, "If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. Those who doubt should not think they will receive anything from the Lord; they are double-minded and unstable in all they do." We're going to see when the Bible talks about doubt, it's not talking about the absence of intellectual question, it's talking about something else.

Bow your head and open yourself to the Holy Spirit. Ask God to identify resistance in your life, hardness of heart. "Lord, open my eyes that I may see and ears that I may hear. In Jesus' name, Amen." Faith is asking the question, what is the will of God and then acting on the perceived will of God. If you are going to act on the will of God, then you have to know the will of God. This is where faith begins. If any of you lacks wisdom, ask. God is the author of wisdom. Wisdom is different than knowledge. An atheist can collect knowledge, but God is the source of all wisdom. Jesus said it in this statement and too many times we read this statement in a poetic way and we don't see the scope of what he is really saying. "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; those who seek find; and to those who knock, the door will be opened." In Greek there's a tense that we don't have in English called present continuous. It means something you do right now and continue to do all of the way into the future for the rest of your life. In this statement by Jesus, ask, seek and knock are in the present continuous tense so in English you write it: everyone who keeps on asking will receive; everyone who keeps on seeking will find; and everyone who keeps on knocking, the door will be opened to them. The Bible illustrates in many, many ways that God is committed to reveal his purpose and his will to his people. Throughout scripture we see how precise God is in guiding his people to his perceived will.

I love the story of the Exodus when God led the people of Israel from the land of slavery under the oppressive hand of Pharaoh to the place of promise - it took 40 years. The difference between a miracle and magic is that magic is instant and miracles are progressive. We read all through those 40 years, not only did God provide in miraculous ways, manna, some kind of crusty nutrition they would find on the ground, and quail that would land at the camp at night. We read that God led them by cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. When the cloud stopped or the pillar stopped, the people stopped and pitched camp. Then when it began to move again, the people moved. Jesus said this is the incredible thing about the Holy Spirit. So many of us are living beyond or lower than our means as Christians that we don't understand the gift of the Spirit that Jesus has given to us. The Greek word for Spirit in the New Testament is counselor. He said, "It's a good thing that I go away, because when I go away the Father will send you the Counselor who will teach you all things and remind you of the things that I have said to you." Not only is he going to remind us of what Jesus taught us in the past, but he's going to give us fresh direction and specific instruction for God's purpose in your life today.

Here is the difference between knowledge and wisdom, where all faith begins, discovering the will and purpose of God: ask God. You can go to school and get knowledge. Knowledge is the collection of facts or raw information. Wisdom is having God's perspective on those facts or information. Through the Spirit, you have the mind of Christ so you can see it from God's perspective. So many people have knowledge and can tell you what is wrong, but wisdom, seeing it from God's perspective, is how to act rightly in a wrong situation. It's knowing the right thing to do, not just understanding that something is wrong. When God wants to work in the world, this is what is so amazing; he uses people like you and me. Ordinary, everyday people! He always uses a person. God never does anything in the world without using a person. Think of the scope of everything we see: Ginghamsburg at work from the Sudan to the Dayton initiative to the food pantry. This coming year we'll feed over 60,000 families in the Miami Valley area and close to 100,000 in the Sudan. God always acts through people. I love it!

The people of Israel had been under the bondage of Egypt as slaves for 400 years. Moses was a stutterer and when God showed up to Moses, Moses said, "It's about time you do something about it, God. All the junk that's going on right now in Serbia and every day there's some new junk happening. It is about time." God answered, "Yes, I've heard the cries of my people. I'm going to do something about it. Moses I'm going to send you." Then there are two whole chapters of Moses arguing with God about why someone else would be better than Moses. You never win an argument with God. He said, "I am going to send you, Moses."

Here's the difference, the whole thing of the Spirit and seeing problems from God's perspective and understanding how God's going to use you in it. Look at the Sudan. How many people around the world know something is wrong in the Sudan, but how few know the wisdom to do something about it? We are one month short of being involved in the Sudan for three years. We've only been there 2 years and 11 months and we've invested 3 million dollars in the Sudan. Isn't that amazing? Let's celebrate what God has done. Faith begins by asking the perspective of God, seeing problems from his perspective and acting on that perspective. We see how God led us to not just give food, because already this month, 30 trucks filled with food have been hijacked. It's in your bulletin, have you read that? We give you the news. What we did, God led us to do. God did through us this sustainable agricultural project that is feeding the people. Then child protection and development - we can't celebrate this enough. There are 11,000 kids in our 90 schools right now. At this point, we have finished six water yards: and a water yard serves about 22,000 people and their livestock. Do you get a sense of how God always works through people? Isn't that a great thing? There are some children sitting here right now who God is going to give a perspective. It was a high school freshman who raised $90,000 in the 1970s to build a hospital, called a CAT, Crusade Against Tuberculosis, that inoculated every child in Haiti in a 10-year period against tuberculosis. This is what faith is all about. It begins with asking the will of God.

One of the things we need to keep doing is remember the Greek tense, present continuous. So when Jesus said ask, he means you've got to keep on asking because that gives you clarity. Did any of you ever start out on a trip and got lost? That's what I like about some of these rental cars when I'm driving in another city. Now they have these little talking things, "At the next light, turn right." That really helps. It doesn't help me know the whole thing, but that's when I get messed up, to know the whole thing from the beginning. I like it when it talks to me all along the way. That's how the Spirit works and why we have to keep on asking. What's so good is that the dynamic of abundant living in Christ is not the Bible; the Bible is like a menu. It's tells us what is available. It is the living presence of Christ that is using us to do the same things he did when he was on earth and even greater things every single Christian can do through the Holy Spirit. God's not a respecter of persons where some people are chosen to do greater things than others. It's all about who's listening and who's willing to go. It's not even about how smart you are or how talented you are. God says, "I'll supply you with all you need." Look at Acts 16 starting at verse 6, "Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia." They started out for a destination, but they were asking and the Holy Spirit prevented them from going to Asia. God knows. God sees the future. When you're not listening to God, sometimes you can step in some doo doo that you wouldn't have to step in. "When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to." They were paying attention. Some of you got into that last marriage mess because you weren't listening. Even though God was talking, you wanted your will over God's will and that's called being double-minded. You can't have the blessing of God and what you want at the same time. You don't want to go where you want to go. God only desires his abundance and his purpose in your life. You want to be where God wants you to be. It goes on, "So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, 'Come over to Macedonia and help us.' So they passed by Mysia and went onto Troas." I believe that vision. It doesn't say it was in a dream. I believe it was in prayer, because evening is the fifth time of the day that Jewish people go into prayer. He had a vision of the man of Macedonia standing and begging him come to Macedonia and help. "After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them." It's why you always want to be asking. God knows the future and he knows where the holes are that you don't want to step in. God does not will you hurt or destruction, he wills his purpose in your life. But if you want the blessing of God and what you want at the same time, that's double-mindedness and you'll never receive a thing.

Jesus said that persistent faith is about keep on asking, it's also about keep on seeking. Seeking implies asking and action. Jesus told many parables. He told one about a widow who lost a coin and she turned everything upside down seeking it. Once you begin to seek, not only are you asking, now you are, through action, going and pursuing. It's not enough to want to know the will of God if you are not willing to do the will of God. That again is double-mindedness. It's not the absence of intellectual doubt; it's acting on what you believe God is saying. Remember, I said that God began to turn my and Carolyn's marriage around in year 20. We came to that place asking, it took six months - should we get divorced or not divorced. We didn't like each other, we can't stand each other, we feel nothing for each other but the more we asked, the more we understood that our relationship was the will of God for our lives. It wasn't about what we wanted or what we felt, it was about the will of God. You don't want what you want. There's not a miracle in what you want. You want what God has designed. There's where you will find the miracle. So we made a commitment not only to ask what the will of God was, but now to act on that will. It didn't matter that we didn't feel anything for each other, but now we were going to act like we loved each other. And then, guess what? God still does resurrections - and we love each other. Amazing! But it didn't happen because we wanted God's will, we worked God's will. Asking without action is double-mindedness and you'll never receive what you ask. Faith is more.

The whole theme of James is why I so love it. Faith is more than wanting the word and the promises of God, it's working the word. Go to Hebrews 11. I love this chapter of Hebrews. They call it the hall of fame or the hall of faith. It's really what it is. Notice how faith is not just wanting the word but working the word. Look at verse 7, "By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith." Holy fear means respect. It takes me about 24 hours to lose a healthy fear of God. And then I'm capable of being a real butt. It's why it's so important for me to spend that hour in the word every morning. I use the Transformation Journal in my life. That's what holy fear means. By faith, Noah, when warned about things not yet seen means he's getting God's perspective on the future. Then he built an ark to save his family. He went to work. Faith is not just wanting the will of God, or understanding the will of God, it's going to work for the will of God in your life and the life of others around you.

I have this picture in my office and I look at it every day. It's pretty massive and it's of Noah building the ark and the collection of the animals. The ark itself almost looks like a city that's rising in the background. Why I look at this every day and what I'm reminded of is that miracles are the result of a lifetime commitment in the same direction. Think about the energy expended for this work of God in Noah's life. I started thinking, what did he know about building a ship? How much study or training or anything else did he have to do to go out and learn shipbuilding? Obviously he would have to learn something about zoology. This guy had the best zoo in the world! Just think of that energy. When the call of God comes into your life and you began to understand this purpose that God has in your life, then you have to think about the discipline. My son took three years after college to try to figure out if he was supposed to do ministry like me, we're all ministers in whatever we do, but was he supposed to do ministry vocationally? Was he supposed to teach school or was he supposed to do medicine? At the end of his first year of teaching, he called me and said, "Dad, I know what it is, it's medicine. In medicine I can do ministry. I can do the things that doctors in this church do and go around the world. It's medicine." I see my son right now studying until 3:30 in the morning and he had classes this morning. It blows me away but to really fulfill the purpose, he's going to be in his mid-thirties before he's done with all of his residencies and everything. It's about a 12-year deal. Think about self-denial. Miracles are never instant, they're the consequence of a lifetime commitment in the same direction.
For some of you right now, this is a hard time of the year, and you are going to be getting some checks from the government. The government is going to tell you spend them. I'm going to say pay off debt or put it in the bank ... or give it. We're going to have to think about financial health by disciplining ourselves, cutting our spending, refusing to get deeper into debt and living by disciplined budgets. Miracles are never the consequence of wanting the will of God in your life, it's working the will. Jesus said that everyone who keeps on asking receives. That's persistence, a long commitment in the same direction. I wanted physical health, so I had a plan. I got a trainer. The kind of faith that talks about seeking and work, to most people around you, it's not going to seem practical or rational. Look at Hebrews 11:8, "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going." Do you notice that what God has for you in your future, you have to work to get there. Abraham was 75 years old. That's when most people are heading to Florida. But you don't want what you want. And you don't want what most people are doing. You want the will and purpose of God in your life. In almost every case, faith means you travel the harder way. I love what it says in verse 29 of this chapter where is says the people of Israel went through the Red Sea, not around it. Faith is the demonstration of expectancy. It's not praying and waiting for a door to be opened, it's praying and walking toward the expected promise, trusting that the door will be open when you get there.

Last week, I mentioned all of these things where God is leading, like we're moving into Dayton to the Ft. McKinley campus. I expect in a few months we'll be totally operating there on a day-to-day basis. Building the Field of Grace campus here and by next year you could see us breaking ground for about 50 units. We need your prayers continually. This will be a community for orphans. We're not concerned just with child protection and development in the Sudan, but we're concerned with child protection and development in Ohio. How do we know about doing all this stuff? We don't! But as long as we just sit around and pray about it, I can tell you when it will happen. Never! You have to keep asking, hear the will of God and get God's perspective on what's needed. Don't sit and wait for open doors, walk toward those open doors, trusting that the one who has called will open the door in front of you. Persistent faith is not only to keep on asking for the will and perspective of God in your life; but through the Holy Spirit we have the mind of Christ. To dream God's dreams. Then it is to seek, which means to ask and then you act and work for that will in your life.

The third thing that Jesus said is that persistent faith is to keep on knocking. To keep on knocking means asking, plus action, plus persistence. The majority of miracles are the process of persistence, not the result of a single action or attempt. In all my life, of all the miracles I've experienced, there was only one time I experienced an instant miracle. I was far from medical care in the Himalaya Mountains in Nepal. I had some kind of deep congestion and no antibiotics. A pastor came in and laid his hands on me and immediately I went to sleep like a doctor had given me a shot - and it was just prayer. I woke up and had no fever - I was healed. God does that, but isn't that something that in 30-some years of walking with Jesus, it's happened once. Every other miracle has been the result of progressive, persistent knocking, and pursuing the promise.

Last week we shared that quote of Thomas Edison where he said that so many people who fail don't realize how close to success they were when they quit. That's a great quote. But look at this one in Mark 8, "They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, 'Do you see anything?'" The amazing thing about miracles is that so many times you think if only I had…I could do that too. You don't need anything else other than what God has already given you. Jesus realized that as the Son of God - and even used spit. If God can work with spit, believe me, you have everything you need for God to work with. You just have to work it. The blind man looked up and said that he saw people, but he hadn't been able to see anything before, so this was good. He could see light and darkness and shadows like trees moving. That's what we call kind of worked and for a whole lot of people, kind of worked is okay. But kind of worked and okay is not the miracle. Too many of you in your marriages, in your finances and in your work have just settled for kind of okay. Kind of okay is not God's intent. What blows me away is that even for Jesus, one attempt didn't work! It partially worked. But Jesus didn't stop at partially worked. He wanted the miracle. Once more Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes, if it doesn't work the first time, we're going to do it a second time, if it doesn't work a second time, we're going to do it a third time. If it doesn't work, we don't give up. Some of you parents give up. Some of you come to me and say, "I'm tired, I can't take it anymore. Let them do what they want to do." No. That's why you're parents and they're not! You don't quit. My son-in-law is 31, my daughter is 29 and my son is 26 - and I'm Dad. It doesn't stop. You do something stupid and I'm on you. "Once more Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly." Jesus had to touch the dude a second time and if it didn't work the second time he would have done it a third, fourth or fifth. Successful people are not brighter, stronger or richer; they stay with it longer than anyone else. And they fail more than anyone else.

I don't often tell you my partisan views, but I'm going to tell you that I was a Green Bay Packers fan in football during Super Bowl season this year. It was because of Brett Favre. Two years ago, everybody said he's washed up, too old, he should quit. You'd see him walk off the field frustrated after throwing interceptions, not being able to pull it off. Would you think he'd come back and have the best season of his life two years later like he did this year? Can you imagine if he would have quit? During this year, he broke seven NFL records. No person in history has thrown more touchdown passes than Brett Favre. It happened this year. What if he had quit last summer when everyone was waiting to hear his retirement. It's amazing, just Google his name and see what he has done. The seventh record he broke this year: he threw the most intercepted passes. Successful people are people who don't quit. They stay at it longer than anyone else and they fail more than anyone else.

I do a lot of pastor conferences and people will always say, "Tell us about your failures." "Oh, you mean stuff that doesn't work? I see that it's part of the plan, that we're to keep persisting, persisting, persisting and God's will gets done. Yes, there's a lot of stuff that doesn't work." So they say to me, "What's the secret of Ginghamsburg?" I answer, "Well, God." That's a mystery you can't explain. But there is something else, I've been here 29 years! I came to this little country church and I don't leave. My good friend, Mike Lyons, was here almost from when I came and he said, "Mike, I don't understand why people have you go all over the world and talk. I've been around you for 29 years. They need to have me come because I can testify that you haven't done anything great in any one year. You just don't go away." That's faith. Keep on asking, keep on seeking, and keep on knocking.

I want to ask you a question: where do you need to trust God and persist in a promise that he's made to you? I want you to identify an area in your life right now. Maybe it was a long time ago and you've let it go. For me, Sudan is getting hard. But we're going to finish this thing. We're going to persist. We need to expect hard because character is formed in the fire. Strength is developed in resistance. Where is an area in your life, a promise that God has made to you that you need to persist through? Bow your head right now and listen to God. Faith is not the absence of doubt; it's acting on what God has promised. Listen to the words of Jesus: "Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them and they shall be granted to you." In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.