Pastor Wayne Cordeiro, Pastor Jon Burgess
April 16, 2017 - W1716

Pastor Wayne Cordeiro:

Your name is powerful, Lord. There is no equal. At moments like this, when the Holy Spirit is moving so powerfully in your spirit that you want to just burst, can I encourage you to run to the spirit and let Him change you from within. When you come to God, everything starts to change, and you start to grow - before that you were reticent and holding back.

Jesus, today we come to You as Your children, and we are going to celebrate and love You with all our heart, will all our mind, with all our strength, and with all our soul. We are willing and fully free without shame to let You know how much we love You and our grateful for the cross. Father, I pray for the parts of us that are still reticent and that need to be set free. Lord, release this wonderful church to be a people of God. Thank You for showing us how much You love us. You paid the price so that we can enter in by Your invitation. We love You and thank You for loving us, Amen.

We don’t know exactly what God looks like, because our perception varies. When I was growing up I thought God was a celestial scrooge. I thought God would get upset and say, “Don’t laugh in church.” Once, as I was walking into Farrington High School where our services used to be held, I said “How are you?” to an elderly man. He replied, “Just preach the word brother, just preach the word – quit trying to be a comic, this is not a comedy club, and just preach the word.” I replied, “I do my best, but I like to laugh.” He then said, “Just preach the word.” I then said, if you come to New Hope, I would like you to laugh. I make people laugh so I can put something in their mouths that are open.” I then said, “God Bless you.” and walked away. I want to break that image of God being a celestial scrooge.

What does God look like to you? A little girl in the fourth grade was drawing in class, and her teacher walked up to her and asked her, “What are you drawing?” She said, “I am drawing a picture of God.” Her teacher replied, “No one knows what God looks like.” The little girl then said, “They will when I’m done.” Who is God to you? Some of us say that He is the one who bore the cross. To others, He might be different. It is important for you to have the correct view of God. That is why, today, Pastor Jon Burgess, is going to help unpack who He is.

Pastor Jon Burgess:

What an honor it is to join you. If we are looking for the wrong Jesus, then you will never find the real Jesus; therefore, I want to silence some of the misnomers about Him. Some of us have been in the church for a long time, but may have not met Him. For example, I am looking in the refrigerator for ketchup to put on my hamburger, but I am unable to find it; therefore, I call out to my wife Cindy, who is in the other room with my kids doing homework asking her where it is.   Cindy replies, “It’s in there.” So I go back and look on all of the shelves again, and start moving things around, but still can’t find it and I call out to Cindy again, “It’s not in there.” So replies, “I think it’s on the second shelf.” Now I’m determined to find it. I look on all of the shelves, the side doors, the crisper, and even in the freezer and don’t see the ketchup. Now I am convinced it is not there. So I yell, “It’s not there!” Well, this time Cindy got up from her chair, solidly walked to the refrigerator, and removed the bottle of ketchup from the side shelf and shows it to me. Here is the deal, I did not recognize the ketchup because we usually buy the Safeway brand which has a different label and is stored in a smaller bottle. I had a different picture of what ketchup should look like in my head; therefore, I did not see the ketchup. Could we be doing the same thing with Jesus? Maybe we are not seeing the real Jesus because of pictures that we saw of Him while growing up. He is standing right in front of us, and we are looking at Him, but are not seeing Him. Tonight, I am hoping that the blinders on our eyes will fall to the ground.

Those that lived with Jesus saw Him with their own false ideas. The Bible says, “Then Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said, ‘Look, here is the man!’” (John 19:5) Pilate literally had no idea and understanding that Jesus was the Son of God standing in front of him, evidenced by having dressed Jesus up as a criminal and by having mocked Him. The crown of thorns mocked his masculinity, because it was ancient Greek tradition for the groom to put a crown of thorns on his bride to remind him to treat her gently. If anyone has ever had their masculinity or femininity mocked, Jesus was mocked so you could be set free. Jesus’s own neighbors did not believe He was the Messiah, because they saw Him as the son of a carpenter named Joseph. His own disciples did not believe He was the Messiah. “Philip said, ‘Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.’ Jesus answered: ‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been with you for such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”?’” (John 14:8-9)

A while ago, I remember doing this newlywed thing where Cyndi and I were separated and asked questions pertaining to how well we knew each other. Cyndi was asked what color my eyes were and she answered brown. My eyes are green. I could not believe that she didn’t know this. After having many candlelit dinners, having kids together and spending our life together, she missed this. The disciples were the same way with Jesus.

I remember this ridiculous movie called Talladega Nights. In the movie, the race car driver sits down with his family around the table to pray a blessing over the KFC and the Taco Bell meals. The race car driver closes his eyes and prays, “Dear eight pound, six ounce newborn Baby Jesus…” His wife then slams the table and says, “Don’t even know a word yet, just a little infant so cuddly, but still omnipotent.” His friend Cal chimes in and says, “I like to think of Jesus wearing a tuxedo t-shirt because I like to party.” As ridiculous as this sounds, we do the same thing regarding Jesus.

How do you picture Jesus? The atheist says that He is just a mental construct for the weak minded. The agnostic might say that He is a good teacher, a moral man, elevated to the same level of a historic religious icon. Especially on big holidays, we have to be careful not to perceive him commercially like the Easter Bunny or like jovial Santa Clause during Christmas.

On a date night, my wife and I went to Target and checked out the greeting cards, because we wanted to acquire a feel of how our culture perceives things. Some cards portrayed two dimensional pictures of Jesus, and not who He really is as read in scripture. The religious card section had a hippy picture of Jesus wearing a long white robe. This does not look like the real Jesus because He looked like someone from the Middle East. I saw this Jesus tweet on a card that shows the face of Jesus saying “Save me some chocolate eggs, I’ll be back in three days.” “#resurrection”. Another card shows two pictures - a stack of a regular pancakes and another stack with the face of Jesus on top of them. Printed on the card was, “Hope your Easter is a miracle!” The last card had a picture of a church with three people standing outside, and a picture of another church with many people, of many colors standing outside. This card said, “Hope you get to see friends you haven’t seen since Christmas! Happy Easter.” Today, you can move out of those conceptions and meet the real Jesus who is here. On Good Friday, Pastor Wayne talked about the men on the road to Emmaus, and that Jesus had conquered sin, death, and hell through the resurrection. When you read how Jesus revealed himself to two despondent men, you would think that that is a weird story.

Have you ever thought of God having a sense of humor? If not, look to the person sitting next to you. That is all the proof you need!

When Peter came running up to Jesus, saying that they had no money to pay the temple tax, Jesus did not give him the money, but instead told him to go fishing.   Upon catching fish, and cutting a fish open, the exact amount of money was found inside of the fish. God has a sense of humor! He was saying to put your trust in Him, not in things of the past, and He will provide everything you need.

In the Bible, Jesus did not reveal who He was until the night bread was broken, and then He vanished. The Bible says, “When He was at the table with them, He took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him, and He disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while He talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:30-32) From reading this scripture, do you think God is pragmatic, or is He slightly playful? When God is talking to me, He is funny.

If your heart is burning for Jesus, then this is proof you know the real Jesus.

When you meet the real Jesus, you can’t help but sing, and let it out.

Jesus was fierce in the temple. The Bible says, “Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.  ‘It is written,’ he said to them, ‘“My house will be called a house of prayer,” but you are making it “a den of robbers.”’The blind and the lame came to Him at the temple, and He healed them. But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things He did and the children shouting in the temple courts, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David,’ they were indignant. ‘Do you hear what these children are saying?’ they asked Him. ‘Yes,’ replied Jesus, ‘have you never read, “From the lips of children and infants you Lord, have called forth our praise.”?’” (Mathew 21:12-16)

I remember meeting this guy named Ryan, who said he was an atheist, but attended a men’s retreat, because his wife had signed him up. Before going into the service, he shared with me four single spaced pages of hurts that he experienced in life, which he attributed to why he could not believe in Jesus. He also had bad ideas of who Jesus was from the past and he was wounded when Jesus did not answer his prayer.   I responded through the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, by acknowledging these hurts, and said that his hurts mattered to Jesus. I proceeded by telling him how I met Jesus and that I talked to Jesus by reading His Word. Well, service started, and Ryan met Jesus face to face. On that day, I remember that I did not introduce Ryan to religion, but to Jesus, who changed him from being an atheist. Tonight, all we want to do is to make sure that you actually meet Jesus, because His presence is here.

The picture that Pastor John showed you portraying Jesus wearing a long white robe reminded me of a guy who lived in Hilo and looked just like that. He was a street person who wore a white robe with a rope tied around his waist, and who smoke dope under a bridge – true story.   One day, we got on the same bus riding to Pahoa. So I sat next to him and asked him what he was doing around the bridge. He replied, “I have a church.” So I said, “Wow! Do you preach the Bible?” He replied, “No, we smoke weed.” I said, “Really! If that’s a church thing, how did you come to that conclusion?” He replied, “The Bible says that God made every herb of the field.” I said, “Hmm … God made poison oak – why don’t you smoke that?”

It’s funny when you try to make Jesus into something other than Jesus. The problem is, when you try to change Jesus, He can never change you. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “If any man is in Christ, or any woman is in Christ, that person will become a new creation. The old will pass away, the new will come.”

In reality, our goal is for Jesus to change us so that we can become the people that He created us to be; however, each one of us has to make the decision whether we are going to live the rest of our life trying to change Him, or pause and say, “Lord I just want you to change me.” If you say this, He will change and transform you.

Scripture says, God’s ways are above the Heavens and the Earth. So are God’s ways above our ways. Scientists say humans use only 4% of their brains. With that fact in mind, how can you figure out God? So God changes us using our hearts – not our minds.

You may think that you need to get your act together before you come to Christ; however this is not possible without His help. You come into His embrace, just as you are. God’s power will transform you. God loves you just as you are, but He loves you too much to let you stay that way. If you open your heart to Him, God’s power is available to change you. I’ll explain this power. Jesus was all man as well as all God. Jesus died on the cross and the Spirit of God raised Him. The Bible says if the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead, will dwell in you, then He also will resurrect your mortal body, and from death bring life again, and to that which is broken, to that which is healed. When you receive Christ, the spirit of God comes into you and changes you. Being dead in your sin, you cannot change without the Spirit of God. Revelations says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.”

God will not barge Himself into your life, because God wants you to let Him in. We at New Hope will give you a chance to open your heart to Christ, just by raising your hand so that God can see your heart connected to your hand. My life changed in a place just like this. Some years ago, I gave God the permission to change me, and He did from glory to glory. It starts with His love, but it is responded to by your choice. I want you to have that same choice – so if you have never received Christ, do so today.

Study Suggestions

1. Who is Jesu to you?

2. Why do people have different perceptions of Jesus?

3. How do you know that God has a sense of humor?

4. How do you know that you know the real Jesus?