Pastor Jonathan Burgess
July 26, 2015 - W1530

It’s such a privilege to be standing here as your new Campus Pastor, under Pastor Wayne Cordeiro’s leadership. I want you to know that if it’s a new season for me, then it’s also a new season for you. We can stand together in what I want to call “Living on Purpose.” God is saying, “No more will you live by default but by divine design. No more will you just go through the motions. You are stepping into the movement of God by Living on Purpose, using Apostle Paul’s life as a backdrop.

1. Who are you? What are you doing here?

I’ll begin by sharing how we ended up at New Hope Oahu. Also, let me ask you, “Why are you here? Why does God have you here at New Hope?” I promise you it’s on purpose because God wants to do something through you. One of my favorite Pastor Wayne stories, that I have used many times when seeking God’s direction, is about a Jewish rabbi during the war. He was out walking on a cold, icy, night with the collar of his wool coat turned up around his face. He was depressed, despondent, and distressed by the situations in his life and wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings—the heavy icy fog that was reflective of what his soul felt like. He had been arguing with God, battling back and forth, and didn’t realize that he had walked into a Russian military compound. All of a sudden, a voice said, “Who are you? What are you doing here?” It startled him out of his stupor. He looked up and saw a rifle pointing at him. The Jewish rabbi completely ignored the fact that his life was literally in danger and said, “Wait, wait, what did you just say?” The voice said, “Who are you? What are you doing here?” Then the rabbi asked the guard a very strange question: “Excuse me. How much do they pay you here? I will pay you the same amount if you will ask me the same questions every single day.”

These questions, “Who are you? What are you doing here?” may seem simple on the surface, but if you are asking, “What am I supposed to be doing in this place?” “What am I supposed to do with the calling on my life?” these two questions will help you.

When we were in Kauai and Hawaii Kai, I had asked these questions because I was wrestling with God and told Him, “Don’t send me to Seattle. I want to stay in the islands. I love it here.” But I had to lay down my desires and answer God when He asked, “Who are you?” “I’m yours, God.” “What are you doing here?” “I’m serving.”   And the follow up to that is, “You will go where I send you.” “Okay,” I answered. He said, “I want you to take what you love about New Hope and the islands and take it to Seattle because they need to know what the body of Christ should look like.” So I went on my mission to Seattle and let the idea of ministering in the islands die. I laid my desire on the altar and followed Christ. That was one of the best things that I ever did.

Fast forward, ten years. About a year and a half ago, I’m meeting with Pastor Wayne in Seattle, talking story and catching up. He said, “Jon, we’re starting a New Hope church in Kona.” I freaked out and said, “Kona! That’s where I lived as a keiki while my parents worked for five years with YWAM (Youth With A Mission) Halfway House Ministry. That’s where I gave my life to Christ and was baptized in the waters of Kona!” He looked at me and said, “You want to serve there?” I said, “Yes!” Later, I thought, “What did I just say?” because I was on a mission in Seattle to do what God had asked me to do, and this conversation with Pastor Wayne totally derailed me and I again asked: “Who am I?” “I’m yours.” “What are you doing here?” “I’m serving you and will go wherever you send me.” These are important questions because there’s a great difference between being on mission for God and being on mission with God. Sometimes along the way, we may take what God has asked us to do and make that our identity. The questions, “Who am I? Why am I here?” allow God to define us—not what we’re doing for Him but what we’re doing with Him.

Paul came to grips with this reality in Acts 9:3-8, “As he was approaching Damascus on this mission, a brilliant light from heaven suddenly beamed down upon him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me? ‘Who are you, lord?’ Saul asked. The voice replied, ‘I am Jesus, the One you are persecuting! Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you are to do.’ The men with Saul stood speechless, for they heard the sound of someone’s voice, but they saw no one! As Saul picked himself up off the ground, he found that he was blind.”

Paul was a dedicated Jew and was making sure that none of these gentile Christians were polluting the Jewish faith. Paul thought he was working for God and thought God was telling him to kill and imprison the Christians with great zeal. Danger comes when we don’t continually come to God and ask, “Who am I and what am I doing here?” because somewhere along the way we will begin to “add” to what God actually asked us to do. However, God has a way of getting our attention. He will humble us or we will humble ourselves before God—laying down the things we’re doing for him. God wants us to “Live on Purpose,” according to His passion for our lives.

Pastor Wayne called a couple of months ago and said, “Jon, I need you to pray about working alongside me pastoring the Sand Island campus. I need someone I can trust. I need a shepherd. Would you pray about doing that?” I was floored, humbled, and also very confused. God had just called me to Kona. Along the way, I had taken God’s mission and made it my own. I had it all planned out. I thought we were coming to Kona to be the permanent pastors of New Hope Legacy. What I found out after humbling myself to God was that I wasn’t coming to be the permanent pastor at Kona; I was coming to be the search committee to find the permanent pastor. It took a lot of humbling and laying down my desires before the Lord. I thought I had it all planned out!

2. Who is God? What is He doing in Oahu?

Pastor Wayne had asked me to speak here a few times last year. Looking out from my hotel lanai, I would look over the city and feel God’s heart and burden for the people in the high-rises, traffic, etc. That didn’t make sense. God didn’t call me to the city, He called me to the country. So I began to push away the burden for this city, and yet whenever I came here and saw what God was doing, it would break my heart even more. It didn’t make any sense because it didn’t jive with my agenda. The reason we must ask, “Who is God?” is because it tells us who isn’t God—me. I don’t tell God what to do; He tells me what to do. When we realize who God is, we will see our cities, schools, neighborhood, etc. from His perspective and realize that God put us here for a reason.

As I began to submit to what Pastor Wayne had asked me to pray about, I began to look around and saw the answer. I asked God, “Who is going to take the church in Kona?” God said, “Open your eyes.” Right across the street I saw Makana and Tammy Delovio, our neighbors with seven kids! This past Tuesday, I had the privilege, along with Pastor Wayne, to hand them the paddle and ordained them as the new pastors at New Hope Legacy in Kona. I was completely unaware of what God was doing that year. I thought I was raising them up to be the pastors of a new church plant on the Big Island and, instead, I was raising them up to be my replacement! Who is God? Not me, because I had no clue what God was doing. We need to see from His perspective. Often, when doing something for God, we miss what God is actually doing right here. When I laid down my plans for God’s purpose, then I saw what He is doing on Oahu.

Paul had to do the same in Acts 17:22-29, “So Paul, standing before the council, addressed them as follows: “Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious, for as I was walking along I saw your many altars. And one of them had this inscription on it—“To The Unknown God.” You have been worshiping Him without knowing who He is, and now I wish to tell you about Him. He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since He is Lord of heaven and earth, He doesn’t live in man-made temples, and human hands can’t serve His needs—for He has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and He satisfies every need there is. From one man He created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand which should rise and fall, and He determined their boundaries. His purpose in all of this was that the nations should seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find Him—though He is not far from any one of us. For in Him we live and move and exist. As one of your own poets says, ‘We are His offspring.’ And since this is true, we shouldn’t think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone.”

Paul was in Athens, not to plant a church, not to do ministry. He was waiting for his fellow ministry partners—Timothy and Silas. Paul’s destination was not Athens, but Corinth. But in Athens, Paul looked around and asked, “Who is God in Athens? What is He doing?” (You may not be aware, but God is doing something right where you live, in your workplace, in your schools.) Although Athens wasn’t Paul’s destination, God showed him what He was doing in Athens. Ask God to renew your vision for this island, to awaken and stir your heart for those you see everyday at work, those annoying neighbors with the barking dog, ask God to help you see them the way He does. Who are you? What are you doing here? Who is God? What is He doing in Oahu?

3. Who are we? What is God doing in New Hope Oahu?

Sometimes we need someone to speak into our lives—through a message, a small group, or a trusted friend. I was studying for team teaching with a missionary friend from YWAM at New Hope Legacy in Kona. While we were studying, he said, “Jon and Cindy, I had a dream about you guys. I don’t know what it means.” I said, “Okay.” (This is a couple of weeks before Pastor Wayne gave me this call.) He said, “I dreamt that I drove up to this gravel parking lot and it seemed that it was out in the country and I walked in the back door of a very large building and there you and Cindy were and some other people that I didn’t know. You showed me around—the stage, the balcony, the classrooms.” He was literally describing this whole building to a T. I asked him, “Have you ever been to New Hope Sand Island campus?” He said, “No. I’ve never been there.” He said, “The weirdest thing about this is that I came in through the backdoor in the country, and walked out the front door surrounded by high rises, places of commerce, and all kinds of traffic.” He said, “It doesn’t make any sense. How can we come in through the country and wind up in the city?” When he said that it was literally like someone had taken their fist and punched me in the gut and had the wind knocked out of me. I caught my breath and immediately had tears even though it didn’t make any sense at all. I had to excuse myself. I knew what it meant—God had called me to the country in Kona to get me into the city. (God wants you here because He has something for you to do.) Literally, in one week, I have seen people at New Hope Oahu “Living on Purpose”—stuffing bulletins, setting up chairs and tents, a circle of people praying before midweek service because you know that prayer is the fuel for what God wants to do in this church. I’m blown away!

Acts 18:9-11 says, “One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision and told him, ‘Don’t be afraid! Speak out! Don’t be silent! For I am with you, and no one will harm you because many people here in this city belong to Me.’ So Paul stayed there for the next year and a half, teaching the word of God.” The enemy’s goal is to get the people of God to shut up and don’t say anything through fear, intimidation, and busyness, not realizing you are here on purpose, that God is doing something bigger than we realize, and it involves all of us.

Does anybody know just what the Levites do here? It’s beautiful! What you do before anybody gets here is just as important as what I do on stage. We are stepping into Divine Design, Living on Purpose. We’re not here by happenstance or accident. Would God move a whole family from Kona to Oahu just for this one moment? He wants to get your attention too. Our stories are wrapped up in His Story (history). Next week we will celebrate His Story of 20 years—what God has done through New Hope—is the preface for the next chapter in New Hope’s history. We may not know where we are being led over the next weeks, months, and years, but if the past 20 years is an indicator, it will be quite a ride! WE ARE GREATER TOGETHER!

STUDY QUESTIONS:

1. Where did Pastor John Burgess give his life to the Lord, and where was he baptized?
2. There is a great difference between being on mission ____ God and being on mission ____ God.
3. What does it mean to “Live on Purpose”?