Pastor Wayne Cordeiro
September 13, 2015 - W1537

Happy anniversary, everybody! It is our 20th year here, and I remember the miracles that the Lord did when we first began. We didn't have much. We started over at Stevenson Intermediate, and the first offering that we received was $500. And we didn't even have chairs. We sat on cafeteria tables and benches that they left for us.

And so we got excited because the first thing we could do was buy chairs. And I remember the next Sunday I stood up and said, "Do you remember the offering that we took? Do you want to know where it is? You're sitting on them." And that's how New Hope began. But God began great and miraculous things we never thought about.

And as we come to this 20th anniversary, I thought, “We need God to give us a fresh anointing so that we receive again the pioneer spirit in this next season.”

Even back then we had such talent in our musicals. It was six weeks after we started New Hope that we had our first musical at the Castle High auditorium. The great Ron Bright directed us, and we had such a fun time. When it was all done, I said to his son Clarke Bright, "It doesn't get any better than this." And then they moved on, and Steve Kenny came, and he moved on. And I thought, “Oh, man, we're done, we're finished. It is not going to get any better than that.”

Well, just recently I went to Dane Ison's Youth Performing Arts Center (YPAC) performance, and they did “Into the Woods”. And when it was done, I thought, “Man, it doesn't get better than this” as I see the young ones picking up the baton with excellence. But the cool thing is it's with the same heart. I'm blown away.

Haggai 2:9 says, "… the latter glory of this house will be greater than the former." But God showed me something that sort of took me by surprise. He said, “But in this next season you will be greater together where both generations come together.”

And I was reading Exodus 17 when Moses had seen so many miracles coming out of the Exodus. They had seen the Red Sea part. They had seen the people get manna from the sky. God was opening up all of these grand miracles. In Exodus 17, God says to Moses when they had no water, “I want you to take the elders, and I want you to strike this rock.” Now, the next time He's going to say speak to the rock, but the first time He says to strike the rock, and water is going to come out of it.

How many of you, though, know that even though there have been great miracles, there's still greater miracles that God has in store for us?

But after a great miracle, the Amalekites came. Did you know that when there is a saving miracle, the enemy smells it and comes? When so many miracles were happening, I remember all of the things that the enemy began throwing at us. And that's the same as in Exodus 17.

Now, the Amalekites came. The Amalekites were pretty insidious people. You see, what they did was they hid in the mountains, and when the people of Moses and the Exodus would come through, you know what they would do? They would wait and see who the laggers were - young kids, those that weren't feeling well, that were sickly, and the elderly. The Amalekites would actually come and pick them off, kill them one by one - all of those who couldn't keep up.

And God said to Moses, “I want you to take out the Amalekites, but I want you to do it in a different way than I told you before. I want you to go on top of the mountain, and I want you to lift your hands. And the Amalekites are going to be in the valley below, and I don't want you to fight them. I want to send Joshua, the new generation. They're going to swing the sword.

The Bible says, "And Moses said to Joshua, 'Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites, and tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staph of God in my hands.' So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning. And when Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up, one on one side, one on the other, so that his hands remained steady until sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword. Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it because I will completely blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven.’ Moses built an altar and called the name of it 'The LORD is My Banner.' He said, ‘Because hands were lifted up against the throne of the Lord, the Lord will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation.’" (Exodus 17:9-16)

Now watch what happens. It's going to take two generations to win this war. And Amalekites will be their enemies from generation to generation. In this next season we need to develop a multigenerational army because we are fighting a multigenerational enemy who's going to come after young people, who's going to destroy their morals, who will come and alter the things of God with the younger, and for the elders, he's going to try and take them out one by one.

How many of you are 40 and over? You embody the principles of God here at New Hope. You've seen the miracles. You've watched what God has done. And in you is a story of the Lord, the song of the Lord is how the Hebrews say it. But that word "song" is the word "story." The story of the Lord is in you - the song of the Lord. And it's not designed to be taken to the grave. It's designed to be given away.

Watch what Moses did. He went up and lifted his hands. You know what he was basically doing? God was saying, "I want you to bless that Joshua generation. They're going to do it differently." I'm sure if I were Moses on the mountaintop looking down at the Joshua generation swinging the swords I would have criticized their methods.

And they could have spoken negatively about the methods, but instead God said, "Just hold your hand steady because as long as you're blessing them, they will win.”

And in this next season, that prophetic declaration that God wants to give to us is that both of us need to work together to win this next war, to encourage, to bless, to be able to coach and to mentor because everything that's in you has to be divested and given to the next generation.

Can I encourage you to be people who are what I call dream releasers? Because I look at the young ones and I think, "There's a million dreams in their hearts." They're waiting for people like us to say, "Let them fly. We'll coach you. We'll help you."  

It all reminds me of a time back in Japan when I learned about the joy of being a dream releaser, and I want to encourage you that are 40 and over, let's be dream releasers because there's a bunch of dreams just waiting to be set to flight.

During the three years I lived in Japan with my dad, God used various experiences to shape my life, and the most poignant of them took place when I was in the seventh grade. This one would transform me forever.

I came to love Japan, and I always looked forward to weekend jaunts that my dad would take us into the cool hills surrounding Tokyo. And we headed for the countryside mountains. We wound our way up the side of this mountain where the beauty of the vast countryside lay below, and there it unfolded before us the higher and higher we got.

At the summit we stopped at a lookout point. On one side of the viewpoint therewas a man dressed in a traditional short kimono selling caged birds.

I thought I was buying a pet to bring home but the man "corrected" me and told me to bring the cage back after releasing bird!

But instead of making a run for it, I thought, "Why not? Let's try it." So I went over to the edge of that precipice and I slowly opened the door that separated the bird from its freedom, and yet it stayed there, so I started tapping on the cage. I tapped it again, tapped it a third time. It suddenly burst into flight with a jubilant fanfare of tweets and whistles. I watched until that little bird disappeared into the clouds, but then I stood there suspended with a new discovery.

I walked slowly back towards the vendor and returned the empty cage. I took the reverent posture of a young disciple before his sensei. I didn't return home that day with a new found pet. Instead I brought back something far more profound; I experienced the joy of being a dream releaser.

This one moment, this one incident has traveled with me throughout the years forever altering my perspective about serving people.

PASTOR BURGESS: The only reason that I'm standing here tonight is because Pastor Wayne tapped on my cage. I wanted to stay where it was safe, where it was comfortable. Let him do the fighting. He's much better at it.

And Joshua had that same choice. Moses had done all the work. The rest of Israel had all stood by; right? Well, Moses and God did the ten plagues. Essentially the Israelites just followed along. They just did whatever Moses had asked them to do. And so why wouldn't it be exactly the same with the Amalekites attacking them?

But, see, God wasn't calling the people of God to be mirroring the past. He was calling them to be pioneering the future. It's easy for us to imitate. It's much harder work to innovate, and yet we're only here today 20 years later because Pastor Wayne and so many others joined alongside and said you know what, we've got to think outside of the church box and fight differently for the souls of this generation.

And so, hey, young people, listen up. If you keep saying not now, you're going to miss out on what God wants to do right now.

We have our leadership. But just like Moses said to Joshua, “Joshua, you're up and you're going to find your army.”

Our values, they're going to stay the same. If you cut us, this is what we're going to bleed 20 years from now. But our methods, they have to change. God led His people out from Egypt one way, but He led them to victory over the Amalekites in an entirely different way. And we have to decide, are we going to stand back, or are we going to fight? Are we going to step up to the line, or are we simply going to live off the victories of the past? We have to move, people, from one person, to a few people, to all of us---no longer passive observers watching God use other people, but active participants in what God wants to do to help us reach this next generation. God already has ideas inside of you, and right now He's tapping the cage.

We're going from no motion to slow motion to promotion. God is calling you and me to step up, to take up our sword and to fight. We have the covering of Pastor Wayne as our senior pastor, but all of us have to decide where we are going to take our stand

I love that Joshua story because even when the battle was turning against them, did Joshua and his army cut and run? No. They kept fighting. The enemy does not want New Hope here 20 years from now because he doesn't like how many people he's losing to the Kingdom of Heaven. So you better believe he's going to do everything he can to keep you where you're at. Meanwhile, God is tapping on your cage saying, “Now is the time.” The battle is ours, the time is now, and the victory is the Lord's.

Our values are not going to change, but our methods must if we are going to reach this next generation. You've all just been promoted. Welcome to the army.

Questions:

• Why should we be dream releasers?

• Why does God want two of our generations to come together?

• What does the Amalekites in the book of Exodus have in common with today?

• What does the story about the tiny bird in the cage represent?

• How are we going to reach the next generation of God’s army?