Ginghamsburg Church, it is indeed an honor and privilege to be with you. I am Brian Brown, pastor of Woodlawn United Methodist church in Alexandria, Virginia, and the pastor of the Prince William campus. The first time I had the privilege of hearing your pastor speak, Pastor Mike was the keynote speaker of the Virginia Annual conference. As he was addressing our resolution that we had just passed to build 250 new churches in the next thirty years, I remember getting the feeling that Pastor Mike wasn't too impressed. As I began to discover the Ginghamsburg story, I knew why. You have a pastor with extreme vision and with radical faith to change not only Ohio, but to change the world. We have two individuals with whom we are connected. One is Lance Watson and I believe that he's been here on several occasions. My wife grew up in St. Paul's, where Lance is the pastor and he performed our wedding vows in 1992. The other is Rudy Rasmus, which allowed us to engage in some conversation and I remember I asked Rudy, "In a nutshell, how would you describe Mike Slaughter?" He laughed first and then he said, "Well, he's a good guy. He's straightforward, he believes the gospel and he lives the gospel." Then on Friday of this week I had the chance to go out with Mike and Carolyn and several things were apparent. One was that he was straightforward. And the other was that he believes the gospel and that he lives the gospel. So it is indeed a privilege and an honor to be here and to be invited by your pastor.

As we look at the word of God together, it's Father's Day, and for our earthly fathers we can probably go to Best Buy, Circuit City, Lowe's, Home Depot, or even Wal-Mart and find a gift that would appease us and give us attention on Father's Day. But what do we do as a worshipping community, what do you give God, the Father who has everything? He's omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. What do you give a God who has it all? As we turn to the word of God, we see that same challenge was before Cain and Abel. I invite you to turn with me to Genesis 4:3-5. The word of God says, "In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. But Abel also brought an offering - fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering, he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry and his face was downcast." Why is this? For years, this passage troubled me because I thought fruits and vegetables were a good thing and would be a good offering and that it should have been acceptable. But no, God accepted Abel's offering and rejected Cain's and he accepted the fat from the meat that came from the firstborn. I struggled with understanding why one gift was better than the other? In time, I was led and able to see in Hebrews 11:4 what made the difference. There it says, "By faith, Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith, he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead." Hebrews 11:6 goes on to say, "Without faith it is impossible to please God." So in our time together, I want to take a look at this faith thing and help us to understand that having faith must precede the actual gift. Let us pray. "Father God, we thank You for this opportunity to give Your word in this blessed house, known as Ginghamsburg, we ask that You will allow our eyes and ears and heart to be open so that we might receive a brand new word. And, God, we also pause and recognize and ask Your presence to be with those in Des Moines, Iowa, who have been removed from their homes; as well as those in California. And also be with family of Tim Russert, Big Russ, as they go through the time of pain and separation until they meet again. God be with us now. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Where does faith come from? If we're going to develop this faith that preceded the gift that made the difference before the fat offering and made the difference before the fruit, then we must first of all understand where it comes from. I'm glad that the word of God, the Bible, is an instructive book that can lead us to the answers. If we turn to Romans 10:17, the word of God tells us where the source comes from. "Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ." If I am going to increase, if I'm going to develop, if I'm going to exercise my ability to have faith, then I'm going to have to increase my word intake. Just like when we're exercising and water comes out of our pores and we increase our water intake because our bodies are 75% water, our faith walk is 75% faith. If we're going to please God, then we must increase our faith intake. And surely right now, we are increasing our faith intake by gathering together corporately in worship. We increase our faith intake in our cell groups and when we gather together in our Bible studies. But what about the rest of the day? I'm glad to know that God speaks through people, places and things. All day long we have the opportunity to hear God's word, because God is always speaking. The good news is that he can use anything through which to speak. God is always speaking and we can recognize God's word because there are characteristics that will allow us to know that we are hearing from God. If God is speaking, there will always be a word of hope. If God is speaking, there will always be a word of reconciliation. If God is speaking, there will always be healing in the message. All day long we can increase our word intake and develop our faith by listening for God in people, places and things, so that everything that we give to God will be pleasing to him. Jeremiah had it right in 29:11, "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future'" - a bright future. Increasing our hearing in God's word increases our faith. We know that God is on our side. As we do that, it is necessary to become an active listener, because as you're listening for God, you're going to hear a lot of voices going on at one time. We've got to make sure that before we respond with any substance, any prayer requests, that it is indeed God who we are hearing from.

On my way to Dayton, I got off the plane and hadn't made it to the hotel yet, and I got a text message from my son's civics teacher. She said, "Your son Brian skipped class today and I'm very disappointed in that behavior." You must understand that this is out of character for my son. My son is a straight A student and he chose the next-to-last day of school to skip class. The first voice I heard from in this situation that I was going to need some help in, was from the civics teacher. Then I heard from my own voice as I began to think, "You just wait until I get home." I remember thinking how lucky he was that his dad was out of town. Before I jump to any conclusions, let me give my son a call, there might have been some extenuating circumstance. Surely there was a reasonable explanation for this. So I called my son and said, "Brian, how's it going?" He said, "Oh, it's going fine." "How was civics class today?" "It was alright. It was uneventful, nothing special happened." "Are you sure nothing happened in class today?" "No, it was the last full day of class, we didn't do much." At that time, you can keep strange company and strange friends - me and anger were becoming good friends right about then. I said, "Brian, let me call you back." So I hung up the phone. I had heard from Miss Van Allen, the civics teacher; I had heard from my son; and I'd also heard from myself, but I had not yet heard from God. So I paused a minute, and said, "God, I need you right now. What do you say about this situation?" My son is also fortunate that I've been working on this message of faith because I don't always get it right, but this week I've been working on developing this. When I asked God, just knowing the word and how God speaks, I heard the word forgiveness; I heard the word reconciliation and I heard the word healing. I understood that when God was giving me the word to give my son, he always blesses in full circle. So it had to be a word that not only blessed me in feeling good about being dad, but it had to be a word that blessed my son and it had to be a word that blessed Miss Van Allen. I heard from God, and God's word, the source that gives us our faith, to be patient, forgiving and healing.

I moved on to the next part of the message and that is the substance. In Hebrews 11:1 the first part of that verse tells us that faith is the substance of the things hoped for. I was developing my response to my son and I stopped right there, what is it that I'm now hoping for? What is the substance of what I'm hoping for in light of God's word? As we develop faith and our walk with God, it's important that our response always comes from the source. Had I responded out of dad's voice, then there would have been a disconnect with the source. The source said to be patient, and I went on and prayed in that time thinking about what God had told me in that brief moment. I said, "God, help me. Help me to treat my son the way that you treat me. God, help me to respond to Miss Van Allen, and for Brian eventually to respond to her in such a way that this blemish on her understanding of who my son is would not be the lasting taste in her mouth after  a year of doing good work. God, help me with my son. Help me to instill in him the dangers and the pitfalls that come with lying. Help me to instill in him the importance and what goes along with having honor and character." I had the substance there for what I was hoping. The substance is something down the road, something for which you're hoping. But the substance, if we're going to develop faith, must be developed from the source. It couldn't be developed from Van Allen's word, my word, my son's word; it had to come from God. The response, the substance was formed in prayer. Hebrews goes on to tell us in the last part about the evidence.

Before we get to the evidence, I want to share that if God can get his word through you, he'll give it to you. If God can work through you, he'll give it to you. Ginghamsburg, you have witnessed this over and over. If God can speak through you, he'll give it to you. He'll give you what you need, if you allow him to work through you, then he'll give it to you. As we look at the evidence, that same verse Hebrews 11:1b, says that "faith is knowing the substance of things hoped for, but faith is the evidence of things unseen." I haven't done anything yet, all I've done is gotten the source; I've gotten the substance of my prayer, but I haven't moved out yet.

You have been in James for awhile and I like James because he was no nonsense too. James said show me your faith without works and I'll show you my faith with works. That's what the evidence is about. I've heard from God, he's allowed me to form the substance of what I hoped for in such a way that it's informed by his word, but now what am I going to do. I looked at his word a little more and 2 Timothy 4:2 talks about what I needed to do and it says, "Preach the word. Be prepared in season and out of season. Correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction." Now I was ready to move into the evidence of the fact that I had heard from God and I had a prayer request before him. The evidence comes after the substance. The substance is formed by prayer and fasting. Now you know food is not the only thing that we need to fast from. At the time, I was fasting for my good friend anger. Come on, anybody ever feel good about being mad? You know you shouldn't be, but you can't shake it off; and sometimes you don't mind walking with anger. But I had heard from God and knew that I had to get rid of that anger, it was something from which I had to fast. So I called my son and heard his side and he gave me a book on why he had skipped class and why it wasn't important and how he had already gotten an A in the class and how it was okay to skip class. I said, "Son, let's stop right there. Do me a favor, before I get home I want you to do a little research. Go to the word of God, biblegateway.com or crosswalking and look up a few words for me. Look up honor, character, deception, and just spend some time with those words and when we get home, I'll talk about it with you. We'll talk. I love you." And I got off the phone. There has to be some evidence that agrees with the source. And the evidence comes from a prayer request that was in agreement with the source, which is God's word. Throughout our lives, if you analyze how God has moved, you will see God's word speaking, you will see the prayer, and you will see the evidence when you moved out on God's word.

Candace and I, in 1997, were living in Maryland and Brian had just been born and we were contemplating what we were going to do as this new family. Now we have a baby and Candace was working long hours and I was working long hours and when you have your first child, you don't know what you're doing. We just had this new baby and we were trying to balance our lives and we started praying about how we could maybe be around family members because we needed help, we didn't how to raise a child. We started making that prayer request knowing that God would honor us in some form or fashion because one of the scriptures that guides our lives comes out of Luke 12:31, "Seek ye the kingdom of God and all these other things shall be added unto you." So we were kingdom-minded and knew that "God, anything that you have in mind, we are prepared and whatever your will is, it will bless us." But we knew that it would bless everybody else as well. So Candace and I began to pray and one day she came home from work and said, "We're moving to Richmond." That's where her parents were and it was a little over 100 miles from where we were. I said, "That's great, honey, when are we moving?" I said it a little sarcastically because I didn't see what she had seen. But sometimes God will speak through other people before he speaks through you. And if we can open our ears to increase the word intake, we will hear from God. We can hear from God in people, places and things. God can speak through a candle if he wants to. God can speak through a light bulb. God can speak through a raindrop. God can speak through the bow-wow of a dog or the meow of a cat. God can speak through anything that he wants to speak through.

So she informed me that we were moving to Richmond and I didn't think too much about it until three weeks later and she came home from work and said, "Brian, guess what? The vice president of the bank offered me a position in Richmond. She said it's the managing position of the administrative branch of the bank and I can start as early as two weeks." At that time, I knew God was up to something and she had my full attention. I said, "Well, what else happened today?" She began sharing the story, and we began praising God. Then we stopped and said, "Okay, God, there are a lot of other things and we need to make sure this is not just about us." But it's also about where God would have us to be. God will bless us if we're faithful. If we first seek the kingdom and order our steps in his word, God will take care of the details. I said, "Candace, if you look around the neighborhood, you see every other house is for sale and it's not going to be easy selling this one." So we needed to include that in our prayer request and we prayed about it. We both went to work, came home the next day, I got home late and Candace said, "Guess what, honey, the bank said they're going to buy our house." So we began to thank God for the things he showed us. The source was that we were prepared to do whatever God wanted us to do. The substance was we knew God was a family man and liked building families. The evidence was that now we had to do something. The evidence was that we had the source and the substance. I remember going to work that day, I still worked full time and I was half of our income. I was an account manager for a company at that time and I went in and said, "Rod, this is going to sound a little strange, but I believe God's calling us.” He knew I was a Christian, and working out my walk with God. "I think he's calling us to Richmond, and I know we have an account manager in Richmond, and I know I manage the Pennsylvania and Washington Metropolitan area, but would you consider allowing me to go one day a week to the Richmond area so that I can build up that territory so that I can potentially make this move, and keep my job?" Rod looked at me as if I had four heads on my shoulders because it was a full-time job in the territory I was in. But Rod said, "Brian, if you're up to it, I'll give you that one day a week."

And so it was, about three weeks later, Candace and little Brian went to Richmond, staying with the in-laws. I had worked that week, and that Friday, was my first day to start building this new territory in Richmond. I got in my car, leaving the Baltimore office, and about 11:10, the phone rang and it was Rod. He said, "Brian, how are you doing?" I said, "I'm on my way to Richmond, on my way to build this territory." He said, "Well, I've got news for you. Liz, the account manager in Virginia, just resigned. You are the new account manager in Richmond, Virginia, as of today." I didn't pull over immediately; I looked for the next rest stop. I pulled over and just walked around and began to cry at the awesomeness of our God. But God wasn't through. We moved to Richmond, God had taken care of the details, and now was the time to see what God was going to do in ministry. So we started looking for a church home. You have to understand that Candace grew up in an African American church; I grew up in an African American church. I converted her to United Methodism - amen, praise God. So we were looking for an African American United Methodist Church. That shouldn't be hard - not so in Richmond, Virginia. We went to the first and we didn't hear from God at that church. So we said, "Okay, we'll go to the next one." At another church, something happened that led us away from that church. We were beginning to wonder what was going on, what was God up to? We looked at the list of the churches that the district superintendent had given us and the rest of them were white United Methodist churches. Candace and I looked at each other, and asked, "Do you think God is sending us to a white church?" We looked at each other and in that pause, in the silence, God spoke. So we said, "Okay, let's go down the list." The first white United Methodist Church we went to, the folks were friendly, but we didn't hear from God. We heard a lot of voices, but we hadn't heard from God. Then we went to the second one, and we could tell that they would be grateful if we worshipped somewhere else. At the third church, they were extremely friendly and we knew they wanted us to be there, but we hadn't heard from God.

We went home and started praying and I said, "Maybe God's calling us to a different denomination." We put that on the table, because the key is that you want to be wherever God is. You want to be where God is speaking to you and you can hear his voice and know that's the place for you. We had moved to a new area and we weren't too familiar with it, but there was a grocery store and out front there were a lot of weeds. When they had finally cut the weeds away, there was a United Methodist sign less than two miles from our house. It said Providence United Methodist Church. Providence - I liked that. It turned out that it was two miles from our house and it wasn't on our list, because that was in a different district. So we went to Providence United Methodist church and I remember meeting David Torrence, the pastor, and the first question he asked was, "Which seminary are you going to?" I said, "I'm going to the Samuel DeWitt Procter School of Theology at Virginia Union University." It happens to be a Baptist institution, but 99% of African American attendees go to that particular seminary. David Torrence, you've got to understand is white and he shook my hand, "That's a great school, that's where I went!" And I heard God say, "Hello." We had found a home and God had enlarged our territory. He had taken us from being Afro-centric to a Euro-centric environment. To seeing that God is black and he is white and he is yellow and he is green and he is a God of all his people. I praise God for growing me. For that was what led me to have the opportunity to hear about the awesomeness and have the opportunity to worship with the church called Ginghamsburg.

Happy Father's Day. God bless you.