I was talking about this with Michael on the way back on the plane today about how so many Christians in the world scare me with what they try to make Christianity. So many people see us as narrow, bigoted, people who have no fun or do not know how to celebrate. Isn't it great though to be alive - the gift of life and to know the Lord of life.

How many of you know what a Fantasy Camp is? Fantasy Camp is where grown men pay a whole lot of money to go away and live out the fantasies they had as little boys. Some of you will remember that I did this in January of 2002. Generally, the baseball Fantasy Camps are a few weeks before the major leagues move into their complexes. I did the World Series Fantasy Camp that was held in Dodger Town, the Dodgers training camp in Vero Beach, Florida. There were seven teams. I was on the Red's team. My two coaches were Ken Griffey, Sr. and George Foster, two of my heroes from The Big Red Machine days. One of the sub-coaches was Pete Rose. Hanging out with Pete Rose was fun; and I know all of the negative stuff about Pete Rose. He kept using bad words around me and Foster, who is a Christian, kept telling him not to cuss around me because I was a pastor. I don't think it makes a difference that I am a pastor; it should be your lifestyle anyway. Foster is a strong Christian. Rose told me if I was going to get to play, I had to shave my beard. You couldn't be on the Cincinnati Reds and have facial hair. Some of you wondered what happened or what motivated me to shave my beard - it was Fantasy Camp and Pete Rose wouldn't let me play baseball.

It was amazing because all week you use the major league's facilities when you report on Sunday night. You go Monday morning to your locker room and you have two uniforms; a home and an away uniform hanging in there with your name on it. Every night, they clean and polish your spikes and do all of those kind of things. You eat all of the food the pros eat. You can't believe the food they have in those locker rooms. They have an ice cream cooler as long as this platform that has every kind of ice cream treat you can imagine; Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia, and all that. Then they have a healthy table for people who want to eat healthy in the locker room. One night, Carolyn and I went into the lounge where you could play cards and stuff and we sat for two hours and talked to Brooks Robinson about the 1970 World Series against the Reds. He sucked up everything on third base that the Reds could hit at him. I grew up in Cincinnati where every father baptized their son in sauerkraut, German beer and baseball.
It was every little boy's dream. Why do you think it is called Fantasy Camp? But there is a world of difference between wanting to be, and even knowing a lot about, and doing.

(video)

Lance: I love baseball; it is all I think about. I collect baseball cards, baseball memorabilia. I have a Fantasy baseball team, mostly Reds players. What am I smoking, right?  The Reds! Alright, Joshua Fogg - my man, Joshy. I have probably watched somewhere in the range of 2,873 games in my life. Ask me anything about baseball, really, anything, go ahead and ask.

Narrator: What is Ken Griffey, Jr.'s batting average right now?
Lance: Easy, as of 4:56 this afternoon, he is hitting a .273. - .200 against lefties - .294 against righties - .167 at day games - .346 at night. Okay, go ahead; ask me anything else, what else you got? C'mon, I can take it,

Narrator: Do you want to go play catch?

Lance: Um, okay. Oh yeah, I can tell you the favorite color of every player on the Reds. Aaron Harrang is partial to fuchsia. I go to bed at night with the satisfaction of knowing I may know more about baseball than anyone on the planet.

(end video)

I know a lot of Christians, just like that. They know facts, but cannot throw or catch, let alone play baseball. Let's pray. "Lord Jesus, guide us, activate the word in our lives. It is in Your name we pray, Amen."

Open your Bibles to James 1:22-25. "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Those who listen to the word but do not do what it says are like people who look at their faces in a mirror and, after looking at themselves, go away and immediately forget what they look like. But those who look intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continue in it - not forgetting what they have heard but doing it - they will be blessed in what they do."

Three years ago, I took the Honda motorcycle safety course in Troy, Ohio. We all agree on this: motorcycles are dangerous. Every other week, we read about a motorcycle fatality in the area. The first night you are in class, one of the first things you learn, is that when you are in a car, there are 600 factors to which you have to pay attention. You don't realize that because you have so internalized it, but you're always checking side mirrors, rearview mirror, blind spots, gauges, all kinds of things. Six hundred factors you are paying attention to in the car. On a motorcycle, there are 2400 factors to which you have to pay attention. You can see why motorcycles up the risk. One of the things we learn is how to deal with, not just know, but deal with those 2400 factors. Motorcyclists learn a simple acronym, it is called SEE: search, evaluate, and execute, three actions we do. We see those same actions right here in this scripture.

Let's begin with search. Look at verse 25. It says, "...look intently into the perfect law that gives freedom..." I'll compare it to motorcycle riding and to life. When you are riding a bike, you are looking 12 seconds ahead. Whatever speed, we are looking 12 seconds ahead of where we are going so that we know how to navigate the road that lies ahead of us. We won't react, but we will be proactive in how to navigate the road that lies ahead of us.

Think of all the potentials on a bike. A pothole is a whole other experience on a bike than in a car. I have gotten a flat tire on a car before when I've hit some of these monster potholes. This time of year it is gravel, any kind of sand or debris that is left from snow. In the fall, it is wet leaves. There are people in cars who do not see you when you are on a motorcycle. So, you are always anticipating the potential, always paying attention. If a car is stopped at a stop sign, are the wheels moving at all or are they stopped? Any kind of little demonic being that may wander out in front of you. One time there was a squirrel that came out right in front of my bike. Squirrels just dart out from a tree. If I swerve on a bike, it is different than swerving in a car. That little squirrel hit my motor guard and came up and hit my face guard on my helmet. Poor little thing. Cyclists are constantly looking 12 seconds ahead.

I am an imperfect person. I can't see the future, so I am constantly seeking God's perspective on everything from money to marriage, the world, the earth, and my responsibility to it. Jesus teaches about building on life foundations. On what are you building your life foundation? He said in the Luke 6:46, "Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and don't do what I say?" Anybody in the room fall under that? We hear him say something but we fail to activate what he says. "As for those who come to me, hear my words and put them into practice, they are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. So when the storm came, the house did not shake because it was well built." Or an earthquake, how many of you felt the earthquake the other day? It was amazing, it woke my son, but my wife didn't even feel it. Whatever I do today will become the fruit of my life tomorrow. He said, "But those who hear my words and don't put them into practice are like the man who built a house without a foundation so the moment the storm struck, the house collapsed." It's why I am constantly seeking the future and how am I going to navigate what is before me. I am constantly seeking God's perspective on everything. Whatever I do today, how I am building my life foundation and my life priorities today, will become my fruits of my tomorrow. The fruits of my tomorrow will be the fruits of my eternity.

Especially in marriage, love is a powerful thing. It is a gift from God, but it can also be a destructive thing. When I am building any relationship in my life upon the word of God, clearly the word says to me, "Do not yoke yourself unequally." This is where I see most people mess up. When you mess up in a committed relationship, it becomes devastating in the future. Most people, when they begin to build a relationship, build it on emotional feeling. If there is anything more shifting sand, that any relationship can come tumbling down, it is emotion. Parents, this is why you are parents and your children aren't. When you set boundaries for your children's dating, children can't understand the effects of the future that they are sowing today. Teenagers can be smart people, but it is a time when their hormones are raging. Remember, the reason God gives us his word is that he loves us, he knows the future and he wants to protect us and provide for us.

I see that so much in my relationship with Carolyn. In all of my dating experiences, Carolyn was not the most passionate relationship that I had. If I would have married the most passionate relationship I had, oh my gosh, what a disaster that would have been! Nor would I have the children that I have today. God is always for all of us. "Blessed is the person who hears my word and acts on the word" is what the Lord Jesus said.

Did any of you go to the Walk for Darfur in Dayton this afternoon? You were down there? How was it? Was it awesome? Nick Clooney was there. Some of you remember him as a newscaster, and he is George Clooney's dad. There was a refugee from Sudan. My son spoke there and I am so proud because somehow I acted on the word of God about not yoking myself unequally and basing marriage on the word and not my feelings. Look at the fruits you are reaping in your children. I really want to encourage you parents, when your children are fighting you about dating someone who is outside of the faith. This does not make that person less, but here is the danger - whoever you date, you are ultimately going to marry. It is so important that we give our children boundaries before they have the maturity to make those decisions on their own. Once they are out of your house, it is too late. The horse is out of the barn! We have to determine those boundaries. There were times when my daughter said, "I hate you, Dad!" She doesn't hate me now. She has one of the most incredible husbands. I love my son-in-law, I email my son-in-law and tell him how much I respect him, and love him, as he leads his home as a Christian man. How are you going to navigate your future? What is that foundation? You don't want to be reactive you want to be proactive. You want to know how to act when that situation arises.

The second thing we do is evaluate. Notice the analogy that James used between the word and a mirror. How is the word like a mirror? What do you do with a mirror? You look at it to bring something up close or for self-reflection. To see yourself, self evaluation. To get a sense of who I am, and the situation I am in. I was taking a nap earlier on the couch in my office and I had my shirt off. I had a t-shirt on under it. I hung the shirt so I wouldn't wrinkle my shirt. So I didn't forget and come down here in my t-shirt, I looked in the mirror to make sure I was appropriate. Remember what James is writing about. We have mirrors today made with refined glass, but in biblical times, they didn't have refined glass for mirrors. You can imagine the people of most ancient times probably the first way they saw themselves was a shadow. When you see a shadow you don't really have an understanding. You see yourself as a blob on the ground that moves. Then probably water was one of the first ways people got an image of themselves. Then people noticed that there were certain metals that if friction was applied to those metals, probably by accident the first time, that you could see your reflection in the metal. At the time this was written, polished metal was used for mirrors. This is really going to date me – in my town they used to have carnivals where they would set up something called a funhouse. In the funhouse they would have these mirrors that would give distorted images. The problem with a metal mirror is that it can distort your image. You have to be careful to spend some time to really look at it, and look at yourself from several angles or you won't get an accurate picture of who you really are if you take a quick look and walk away. Here is what James is trying to say. How do you get an accurate image of who you are?  How do you form your identity, your self-esteem? If, all of your life, people have been telling you, you're a failure, you're too fat, you're too skinny, you're dumb, then that is the image you are going to have of yourself. Your esteem and identity have come from what other people have said to you. Or sometimes your esteem and identity has come from somebody like a parent and you've always tried to live up to their expectations so you still don't know who you really are. Sometimes, growing up, we didn't like who we were and there was somebody in our school or a peer who we wanted to be like. So we keep trying to be like that other person instead of really being who God made us to be. The only way that I can really understand who I am, the only way I can truly have God-esteem in my life is when I look at myself from God's perspective.  

I have said that some of the best training you can have to be who I am is to spend a month in the corner in second grade, finish your junior high school with four F's and a D minus. Be the kid that wasn't allowed in fifth-grade band because they said you have no music aptitude. That's the one that always blew me away. What would that do to your esteem? Not even allowed to be in the fifth grade band? They aren't even making music in fifth-grade band.

So it is only in this place, it is only when you look intently into the word of God, the face of Jesus Christ, that you hear, "I know the plans I have for you" says the word of God, "to prosper you, to give you a future and a hope. I wove you in your mother's womb. You are fearfully and wonderfully made." You can imagine that when I first started thinking about connecting to Jesus and I started reading the New Testament, I saw the most incredible person that I had ever experienced or read about anywhere in life. I'd never heard of somebody like this. That wasn't religious.

I don't want to criticize the Pope, but to see all that pomp and circumstance, with so many people dying in the world. This is not to be critical and I understand how the world sees a guy walking around with robes and red shoes with everything that is going on. Do you understand why there is a disconnect in the world? I think it is unfair to say that without mentioning all the great Catholics like Mother Theresa and all those kind of people in the world. But, that was the image I had of Jesus and I didn't want to walk around in red shoes and white robes.

Then I heard that Jesus was this man who was rejected by religious folks, it was the religious folks that crucified Jesus. In a world of anger, and there was so much anger in myself, that Jesus would say things like "when your enemy hungers, feed them" or "if someone smacks you on the right side of the face, turn and let them do it to the left." This was the most incredible person that I ever read about, anywhere in history.  It was like, "Jesus, let me be on your team."  Remember, I was the kid that was cut from every athletic team I ever tried out for. I don't have any kind of coordination or anything. That is why I went to Fantasy Camp. It is like Jesus said, "Come here, you been listening to the wrong folk. You didn't choose me, I chose you! Not only did I choose you, I have a lot of important things to do, so I have appointed you to do those important things." Surely this man must know I didn't even make it in the fifth-grade band! And he is going to trust me? "Trust you? Not only am I going to trust you, you are going to do so many incredible things, the impact of fruit that will come from your life and I want to tell you what, it is going to last. Nobody can take it away from you." There is only one place you can get a clear reflection of who you are and that you are fearfully and wonderfully made or you will forget and you will start listening to somebody else or living up to someone else's expectation.

What is so important in this evaluation is that we all need credible sources of accountability, people who are working the word and producing its fruit, to help us evaluate who we are. I need people to help me see how I am doing. Not ones who are just talking about the word, there are too many people who are talking about the word who have no fruit of the word in their life because they not working it.

Let's go back to Fantasy Camp, and what I mean by credible people. I reported Sunday night, Carolyn went with me, and they put us in one of the managers' rooms since we were one of the few couples there, so we had this nice suite in Dodger Town. On Monday, I showed up for practice first thing. We practiced Monday and had a game Monday afternoon, two games Tuesday, and two games Wednesday - five games. I am 0-4 through five games, that means however many at bats I had and all I was doing was hitting weak grounders and pop-ups. I don't think I struck out once all week. The speed of the Fantasy Camp is about in the 70s, like high school speed baseball. But popping up and weak grounders!

Ken Griffey said to me, "Mike, tomorrow I want you to eat breakfast real quick and head over to the batting cages, we are going to work on this." I think Ken Griffey knows a little bit about baseball, did real well with his son, didn't he? Not only does he know a little bit about baseball, he performed well. He produced the fruit. Can you imagine having Ken Griffey working with just me in the batting cages? You pay a whole lot of money to go to one of these things. So he got there, we got in and he said "Mike, get on the batting tee." Even the best pros start on the batting tee. So he watched me and I was hitting balls and he said, "Mike, I been thinking that what you are doing is hitting the ball too late. By the time you get your bat right there, the ball is too far in so everything is popping up or weak ground outs. What I want you to do is move the tee up here; I want you to hit the ball out here - out front." Remember, I played five games and went 0-4. Didn't pay all this money to go down there to be 0-4 - or my friends didn't pay all this money. It was my birthday gift from my friends.

After I went through a bucket of balls, hitting the ball out front, he started soft tossing to me. Then he pitched to me. We had a double header on Thursday and I went 4-6 in that double header on Thursday. I made the magazine cover the next day. This is why men really love their fantasy. It is not a doctored picture, that is how I was hitting the ball. I was ripping everything down the left field line. So then that night, Thursday night, every night they pick a player that performed best that day, that night I got the MVP award. The next day I went 1-5, so I finished the week 5-22. But here is the key: you need a credible source that can help you see in your life what you're not seeing. Then when they enable you to see it, you can execute. Search, Evaluate, Execute. Look what it says in the word, "Don't just hear the word, but do what it says." Life is not measured by our words or belief, life happens at the level of action!

I really enjoy getting out and working with ministers. Last night, we were speaking in this environment and it looked like a club. We had ministers from all over the world. It kind of reminded me of that bar scene in Star Wars. I don't know how, but people all over the world know about Ginghamsburg Church. I still don't understand how, in this out-of-the-way place, but God knows - the Spirit of God moves in this place in a unique way. I hope you feel the awe and wonder of the presence of God, which also means you are right in the place where God wants to do the best stuff in your life.

Pastors are always coming up to me and saying, "Mike, how have you been able to accomplish what you've accomplished, especially living where you live?" I say, "Well, it's just this: it is faith." They look at me like they're expecting some complicated answer. "No, it is just faith. I believe what God says and I act on it. Whatever it is! When I hear God say it, I go to work!" The problem is, a lot of people want magic, they don't want miracles. Miracles are the result of us believing what God says and then acting on it. So many times in the Bible when someone comes to seek a miracle, they have to act on what they've been told.

Naaman, in his leprosy, came to Elisha, the prophet, and said, "I want to be healed." Elisha said, "Go wash yourself seven times in the river Jordan." I don't know, it might have been seven days he had to go back. You go one day, and think, "This is crazy, it's not working." You quit - no, you go two days, three days,  four days, seven days.

Another time, the disciples had been fishing all night. When Jesus came, they were washing their nets. They were ready to quit working; they've been working long enough. Jesus said, "Put your nets back in the boat and cast out into the deep water." They said, "But, Master, we've been working all night and haven't caught anything." Jesus said, "If you quit working now, you'll never catch anything." Faith is believing and trusting what Jesus says, and then going to work. If you look at the end of verse 25 in James, it says, "They will be blessed in what they do" he is paraphrasing Jesus in Luke when Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hear the word and do it."  You experience the power of God in your life, the miracles of the Holy Spirit, when you hear God in your Holy Space and go to work on it in the market place.  

Will you bow your head in prayer with me. "Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not practice what I say?" Jesus is present and is speaking and teaching. The word of God is all around us. I want you to identify one specific thing that you've heard God say. Name it. That will only be a wish or desire until you activate it by committing to act on that one thing.

"Lord Jesus, I pray for that sister or brother who is sitting here and is living below the life You designed, that You imagined for them. Because of fear, believing that what they hold in their hand has more power to give meaning or security than letting go and putting it in Your hand. Jesus, I thank You. You are Lord of the universe and everything You have promised is yes. So as we get up and leave, Lord, we believe what You say and we'll act on it. It's in Jesus' name we pray, Amen."