Pastor Jon Burgess
March 26, 2017 - W1713

(Video - Pastor Wayne Cordeiro)

Aloha, I’m glad to be with you and grateful for you allowing me to spend some time with our New Hope Christian College in Eugene, Oregon, to help them come to a point of health and stabilization. I love working with students and seeing them grow in Christ. I am also honored to be senior pastor of our wonderful network of six New Hope churches on the island of Oahu; all the churches are doing fabulously.

We begin a new series today called, “Reactive Love.” Reactive Love is to love others out of an overflow of God’s love for you. Jesus said, “Love one another, even as I have loved you,” John 13:34. In other words, Jesus is saying, “You must first know and experience my love for you personally and embrace it; then that same love will be transferred and reproduced in the lives of others, and God’s love will flow accurately!

I am thrilled to be part of Sand Island and all that God is doing here. Pastor Jon is doing a fabulous job, and I’m blessed to partner with him as we find out what God has in store for this amazing campus.

(End Video)

Pastor Jon Burgess: I’m really excited! As Pastor Wayne said, we’re launching a brand new series called, “Reactive Love.” The idea of “re” is to look at something again that maybe we think we understand but may have moved away from the authentic understanding of love. It means to relook, reframe, reexamine, and revisit what it means to live in active love in response to God’s love for us.

“Love one another, even as I have loved you,” is not a Jesus suggestion. It’s a Jesus command. Jesus is saying, “I’m commanding you to love others even as I have loved you. Your reaction to the hate around you is to respond with My love that I have for you. When you look at Me and know how much I love you, you will in the same way react in love to the world around you. If you look at a broken mirror, you will see yourself broken, and you will see the brokenness in everybody else.”

1. Called Out of Hiding: Restoring Our Broken Identity. (Who We Are)

   For some, what speaks louder is not the love in their lives but the brokenness. When we look at ourselves in our brokenness rather than look at the love God has for us, guess what happens? Broken people break people. Taking the brokenness that defines us and making that a reaction to those around us becomes reactive brokenness, instead of reactive love.

Listen to this story about brokenness from 2 Samuel: There was a knock on the door. A shiver of fear went up Mephibosheth’s spine. No one had ever visited his house and that was on purpose as they were in hiding. In fact, he felt so ashamed because he couldn’t even get up and find out who was at the door so he sent his son Micah to open the door. He couldn’t see who was standing at the door, but could hear the words, and fear rushed through his body.

“I am here on behalf of the King of Israel, King David himself, and if Mephibosheth is in this house, the King demands his presence in his court.” Someone called him by name. His past had finally caught up with him! He couldn’t even get up because of his injuries and the King’s soldiers came in and picked him up and brought him into the carriage. As his son followed close behind him, he passed Ziba, one of King Saul’s servants.

It seemed that Ziba was looking down on him. Maybe it was because he couldn’t walk by himself. Maybe it was because he was representing King David. Maybe because he knew death was certainly waiting for him. After all, his grandfather was King Saul, who had tried repeatedly to kill David for fear of losing his throne to him.

As Mephibosheth sits in the seat heading toward Jerusalem, he looks at his son and sees his fear reflected in his son’s eyes, remembering the last time he was in Jerusalem. He was five years old when messengers ran through while he was playing. They shouted, “The king and his sons are dead. The king and his sons are dead.” As a five-year-old, he didn’t know how to process the reality that his grandfather, his father Jonathan, and all of his uncles were dead on the same day, all at the same time.

Before he knew what to do, his nurse scooped him up and ran out of Jerusalem in fear that King David was headed there next to kill him and any remaining members of the house of Saul. As the nurse was running, she wasn’t paying attention to where she was going and tripped over some rocks. The one that was supposed to keep Mephibosheth safe lost grip of him and let him fly, and he hit the ground so hard that he broke his spine and was forever unable to walk. Now a middle-aged man, he still winced at the searing pain that went through his body that had defined him.

His name was not always Mephibosheth, but Mephibaal, which meant “Warrior against Baal. Warrior against false gods.” When they took him into hiding, they changed his name so King David wouldn’t find him and he would survive. They changed his name to Mephibosheth, which means “Son of Shame.” This false identity became his real identity. His entire life was spent looking into a broken mirror. All he knew was broken love that defined his whole life and would now be the end of him.

He loved his son and feared that his son would die for his grandfather’s mistakes. In the middle of his fear was the anger that his son would suffer for something he didn’t do. He knew that it was only a matter of time before King David would take his son’s life.

We will to be defined either by our brokenness or by a whole and holy love. Mephibosheth was about to experience holy love. 2 Samuel 9:3-8, “The King asked, ‘Is there no one still alive from the house of Saul to whom I can show God’s kindness?’ Ziba answered the king, ‘There is still the son of Jonathan; he is lame in both feet.’ ‘Where is he?’ the king asked. Ziba answered, ‘He is at the house of Makir, son of Ammiel in Lo Debar.’ So King David had him brought from Lo Debar. When Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, he bowed down to pay him honor. David said, ‘Mephibosheth!’ Thinking they would be his last words, he replied, ‘At your service.’ Then David said ‘For I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan.’” He never expected to hear this!

Jonathan and David were close friends. In fact, they were more than friends; they were covenant brothers because they had made a covenant with each other that they would die for each other. Even when they were separated by the madness of Jonathan’s father, King Saul, they still loved and cared for each other. A covenant lasted not just till death but it lasted to the children and the children’s children. This is the reason King David was searching the land for anyone belonging to his friend Jonathan—he had made a covenant with him!

A covenant is unbroken even in the middle of brokenness. It is not because of what Jonathan did. It’s not because of what Saul did. It’s not because of what Mephibosheth did or did not do. Covenant says, “I’m choosing to love you, to love you no matter what.”

This was the exact opposite of what Mephibosheth thought would happen. David was showing him kindness for the sake of his father Jonathan and said, “I will restore.” That’s what God wants to do for you. He wants to restore your image, self-worth, and the way you see yourself. David said, “I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table.” “Always” is a covenant word.

God calls us out of hiding not to hurt us but to heal us. He calls us out of hiding not to expose us but to exonerate us. He calls us out of hiding not to uncover us, but to unravel the lies that have defined our life up to this point. When God calls us out of hiding, He is calling us to get real with our past, not to make fun or destroy us, but to make us whole. It is to remind us that we are in His love and we will no longer be defined by the broken world around us or the way life has treated us.

This reminds me of a story of my friend Pastor Makana Delovio. He took my place at New Hope Legacy when I came to this campus. Before he was a pastor, he was a carpenter and woodworker. He makes ukuleles and all kinds of beautiful things out of wood. He told me a story about a friend who had heard that some pallets of old koa wood had been left and forgotten at an old wood mill in the hills on the Big Island.

Without his friend’s guidance, he wouldn’t have known the wood was there. The koa wood had been neglected and left uncovered to the elements of nature and completely overgrown with weeds. Makana dug through the weeds and sure enough, he came across the koa wood—koa means warrior!

The first couple of layers crumbled in his hands because of the mold and elements. As he dug through the layers, he found pieces that were riddled with bug holes, termites, and scars but he saw something in those pieces that he could use. He carefully went through each pallet until he was able to fill his truck with enough koa wood to bring home.

With the eyes of a master craftsman, Makana could see what everyone else would say was not good for anything but firewood. He had a plan and a purpose for the koa because he could see its beauty that everyone else missed! He was willing to get his hands dirty to unearth the koa wood and bring it to what he knew it could become. He is a carpenter and master craftsman!

God is willing to dig through whatever earth, weeds, bugs, and what others said about you to define you, so He sent His Son to dig through all that to remind you of who you are. Like Mephibosheth, God is calling you out of hiding. May I encourage you to stop the hide-and-seek and move to seek-and-find. Remember, it is reactive love—reacting to His love for you. This moves us to…

2. A Seat At The Table: Reconciling Broken Relationships.” This is moving from being who you are to whose you are. You belong to Christ and to each other. The narrative continues in 2 Samuel 9:9-11, “Then the king summoned Ziba, Saul’s steward, and said to him, ‘I have given your master’s grandson everything that belonged to Saul and his family. You and your sons and your servants are to farm the land for him and bring in the crops, so that your master’s grandson may be provided for. And Mephibosheth, grandson of your master, will always eat at my table.’”

Mephibosheth is moving from hiding in shame to becoming a very important person. He has gone from fearing for his life to the place of greatest honor in the kingdom of Israel, sitting around the King’s table with his family!

Just as King David went out of his way to seek Mephibosheth, we are called to go out of our way to seek those who don’t know that they are welcome in God’s family. God is reconciling broken relationships and taking us out of isolation, where brokenness wants to keep us. God is bringing us into a place where we are finally safe.

God sent His only son across time and space and eternity to take on our skin, sin and shame to give us a VIP experience so that we can know the presence of God through His grace. He unburied us, turned us into something and put us in a place of honor.  

You have access through Jesus Christ to talk with the Father. Maybe you’re not really sure that He actually wants to hear from you, but this is the reason that He sent Jesus to earth. The Father loves to hear your voice. It might be a little foreign for you to share your feeling, but what I’m describing is prayer. May I encourage you to speak up? There are many who don’t know that they are invited to the Father’s table. Like Mephibosheth, they’re hiding and broken and don’t feel that God loves them. Tell them that they are welcome at the Father’s table this Easter weekend.

3. Focused On The King: Renewing Broken Purpose. King David’s son Absalom had driven David out of the kingdom, and Ziba, the former servant of Saul, who is now working for Mephibosheth, takes advantage of the situation. So when Mephibosheth says to Ziba, “I need you to saddle up my donkey because I want to be next to King David even if he is running for his life out of Jerusalem”, Ziba leaves Mephibosheth and goes to King David with the donkeys, and when King David asks, “Where is Mephibosheth?” Ziba lies and says, “Oh, he's been waiting for this moment when your kingdom would be overthrown and he's waiting to sign up with the new guy.” So David goes into hiding, thinking that Mephibosheth had stabbed him in the back.

2 Samuel 19:25-30, "When he came from Jerusalem to meet the king, the king asked him, ‘Why didn't you go with me, Mephibosheth?' He said, 'My Lord the king, since I your servant am lame, I said, ‘I will have my donkey saddled and will ride on it, so I can go with the king. But Ziba my servant betrayed me. And he has slandered your servant to my Lord the king. My Lord the king is like an angel of God; so do whatever you wish.’ [He is not defensive even though it wasn't his fault. He understands the beauty of grace.] 'All my grandfather's descendants deserved nothing but death from my Lord the king, but you gave your servant a place among those who eat at your table. So what right do I have to make any more appeals to the king?' The king said to him, 'Why say more? I order you and Ziba to divide the land.' [Mephibosheth’s response shows how far he has come from a man in hiding—defined by his shame and brokenness—to what it is like to enter into love that is unconditional - a love that he did not earn.] Mephibosheth said to the king, 'Let him take everything now that my Lord the king has returned home safely.'"

The meaning of koa is “warrior.” Remember what Mephibosheth's name was before? It was Mephibaal “a warrior against Baal.” I don't know what your circumstances have been trying to name you. I don't know what your sin has been trying to name you, but God is calling you a fighter. He is calling you back on your feet. He's saying, “No more are you the tail. I've called you the head. No more are you in defeat. I've called you into victory. I'm putting you in a place of honor not because of what you've done but because of what Jesus has done!” We don't need to live with false identity, false security, or broken relationships. God is refining our purpose!

Study Questions:

1. Explain “Reactive Love.”

2. How meaningful was David and Jonathan’s covenant?

3. Share an experience of reconciling a broken relationship.

4. How is God refining your purpose?