Pastor Wayne Cordeiro & Pastor John Tilton
January 24, 2021 - W2104

"Your God?Given Assignment"

Arise, Awake, & Act!

Pastor Wayne Cordeiro & Pastor John Tilton

January 23 & 24, 2021

PASTOR JOHN:  Aloha and Welcome, New Hope Oahu--Everywhere & Anywhere!

The halau was so worshipful! Did you notice their countenance--the heart of worship and passion that each had?  They were ministering to God in their God?Given Assignments! Each member knows that they are to use their God-Given gift to preach the gospel the best they know!  

Our God?given assignments are often given in visions or dreams as a purpose, plan, or idea--but many times it remains dormant!  But when we realize and release that dream, we are on our way to a significant life. Here's an example:  The halau (the dance that you just saw) was started from a dream and a vision in 1995 at New Hope Oahu. My wife, Lanu, our creative and programming director, danced the first hula in church in 1995--Christian hula was still new at the time.  Shortly after that I was at work and got a call from Lanu: "John, I got a vision! I want to launch a Christian halau for New Hope Oahu; but I have to retire early from Federal Express, but I'll be in my passion! I'll have to volunteer, there's no pay--but I'll be joyous! Or I could continue to work for Federal Express, if you make me, and I'll be miserable because I'm the one that gets all the complaints from customers!"  At that time, she was the senior customer service agent for Federal Express, making good money with great benefits, and number one in seniority in her department to be considered for promotion! It's now 25 years later and look what the halau is doing to preach the gospel in their God?given assignments! When your dreams and visions are released, you're on your way to a life of significance! Do you know your God?given assignment?  Are you making a difference and making your life count for the Lord's purpose--or for yourself?  

1. Release and Realize Your Dreams & Visions for Your God-Given Assignment

Acts chapter 2 describes Pentecost: People from many nations were in Jerusalem and the Holy Spirit was bestowed upon the disciples as tongues of fire sat upon each of them; and they began to speak in tongues as if drunk--but the people heard them speaking the wonderful things of God in their own languages! Signs and wonders are for a purpose! 

Acts 2:17 NIV says: "In the last days, God says, 'I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.'"

In studying the original manuscript, the word for "prophesy," actually means to teach and preach; and the phrase, "young man will see visions, and old men will dream," is a prophetic style of writing of that time that actually meant for all, meaning that we all will be able to prophesy, teach, and preach.  We all will see visions.  We all will have dreams.  

Hebrews 13:20-21 NIV says: "²⁰ Now may the God of peace...equip you with everything good for doing his will, and...work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ..." 

Meaning that we have a gamut of resources from the Lord at our disposal to equip us to do His will for His purposes.  With the pandemic, politics, and everything that's going on, it is for such a time as this that God is calling each of us to use our God?given assignments for the purpose of drawing close to God.  We'll be reopening the church with gatherings, events, and life groups as we are people of relationship in our communities--and we need to come together!  Here's Pastor Wayne, by video, to share how we can know and fulfill our God?Given Assignment.  

[Video]

PASTOR WAYNE:  Welcome, New Hope Oahu, it's a joy to be with you!  Let me start with a few verses written by Emma Lazarus, a 19th Century poet, about a people called "The New Colossus," taken in part and placed on the Statue of Liberty:  

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest?tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"  

Millions upon millions of immigrants came to find new horizons, vistas, and dreams so that their lives could have purpose! That's what this is all about.  Many are coming to New Hope to find a purpose in life to live for!

In everybody's heart is a dream waiting "to breathe free," as Emma Lazarus said.  But that dream maybe in a rubble of past mistakes and hurts; but inside the heart is a God?given dream designed by God.  Even though the dream is latent or immature, it still holds a strategy, architecture, and schematic of everything that you are supposed to be.  Unless we do something with it, it will just be latent and rot within us--and we take it to the grave!

The richest spot on the face of the earth is not in the uranium mines of the Balkans or the gold mines of the Incas--it's in the graveyards in this neighborhood!  Under the pieces of sod are dreams that were never realized, things never developed, and hopes left undone; the potential of unwritten books, songs, and homes that were just dreams and ideas of people that could have changed the world!  But the people may have been afraid of being ridiculed if they had tried something new.  Sure, we may fail, but we cannot be so afraid of failure that we never attain success!  You can't take that to the grave--it's designed to fly!  In every heart is a dream!  

If everyone's dream that God placed in them would find purpose in one church, how powerful and influential would that church be?  That's the kind of church New Hope gets to be!  Emma Lazarus' poem is an invitation to those who feel they aren't valued because they don't have much to give; and God is saying, "Come, let's release the dreams that I put in you in the beginning.  You can't take that to the grave!  People are hurting simply because their dream hasn't been set free!" Everything that God wants to do through you is in potential form--would you release it?

When I was about the fourth or fifth grade, my dad was in the Army and had a tour to Japan, so we lived in an Army camp. Inside the camp was like any other American town, but outside the camp held the mystique of Japan! Sometimes on weekends dad would take us in his old Rambler and drive into the hills surrounding the cities.  There were rice fields that reached out to a little thatched?roof home that a Japanese farmer lived in.  It was beautiful.  At the lookout point, we would breathe in the fresh cedar?flavored air.  The scent was amazing!  One Saturday, dad took us there, and as soon as the car came to a halt, we young Cordeiros raced towards the edge of the precipice to get a front row view of this beautiful valley that lay before us.  A Japanese man was selling birds in cages for one hundred yen, and I thought, that's a pretty good deal for a pet, so I handed him a hundred-yen coin. In exchange, he handed me a bamboo cage containing a tiny bird and said, "No forget bring cage back when finish. Bird no bring home.  Bird let free."  I thought I just paid a hundred yen for this bird and you want me to let it go!  But I went over to the edge of the precipice and thought, let's try it!  The tiny finch hopped suspiciously towards the opening, then burst into flight with a jubilant fanfare of tweets and whistles, then it circled back around right towards me, then took off, and disappeared in the clouds!  I didn't have a pet bird, but I had something that would be with me for the rest of my life--a sensation, a feeling, an exuberance of being a dream releaser--setting something free so that it would have its purpose in life!

Years later I would look back on this defining moment as everything came together for me when God said, "There's a dream that I put in everybody's heart, a purpose for my purpose, but it's in potential form. Everything that this generation needs lies within you in potential form, and if you would put it together as a team or a church and everyone's dreams are released, what a powerful church that would be!"  To me, that's New Hope! Everything that God has designed for you and me would be released, reaching people for God, and not taken to the grave!  Pastor John will finish this message of fulfilling God's purpose for your life.

[End Video]  

PASTOR JOHN:  What a great message from Pastor Wayne about God seeding a dream and vision into every one of us. Seeing that dream come to fruition will help us realize our God? Given assignment!  Are there dreams and visions that you thought are beyond your ability to do? We are called to persevere as Joseph did even after many setbacks: when he was thrown into a cistern and sold to traders by his brothers; when put in prison after being framed by Potiphar's wife; when he helped his peers interpret their dreams but was forgotten! Joseph continued to persevere, and he realized his vision and dreams that God placed upon him and saved Egypt and Israel from famine. From Israel came Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, who saves us from sin.  

Talk about perseverance and waiting on your God?given assignment for five years! Mark Benson, the former owner of Honolulu Ford; came to Scott Hogle and me one day and said, "Hey, God's telling me that I should close on Sundays."  Scott and I told him, "That's the busiest day of the week to sell cars.  Think business!"  And Mark said, "God told me to shut down on Sundays and I will!" He divested all of his other business ventures and waited on the Lord for his God-Give Assignment, but nothing happened for 5 years! Tell us about it. 

MARK:  At the end of the day, success gives you a hole in your heart. I want to do something significant with a purpose, not a paycheck, not for me or my family, but for God! I got a lot of wonderful job offers, but I would have to compromise my values--and I wouldn't do it!

PASTOR JOHN:  After praying and waiting for 5 years, a week ago with all the turmoil in the world and nation, you were confirmed for a job opportunity that is mind blowing! God confirmed to you, "For such a time as this, I made you wait 5 years!" Tell us what that is.

MARK:  I've accepted a position with the Museum of the Bible out of Washington D.C. My responsibility is to develop relationships with Christian and non?Christian, from Colorado to the Westcoast, the Pacific, and Asia, and live in Hawaii and serve the Lord in that manner! The Museum of the Bible is more than a museum, it is alive! It's the biggest, most extensive collection in the world with regard to the Bible. It gives people an opportunity to participate with the Bible wherever they're coming from, with a Disney?inspired ride of a tour of D.C. It's an opportunity to see where God is in our Capitol--across the board to the Torah and to an actual scene of walking through Jerusalem 2000 years ago, with live people inside explaining what it was like.

PASTOR JOHN:  How neat God is! Normally, you would have to move to the mainland, but God arranged it so you can stay here! You've been living off your savings for 5 years and God has confirmed that even with the pandemic, politics, and all that is going on in the world, the Bible is so important!  CBN News reported a few days ago, that the people who distribute Bibles say that 2020 had the highest sales of Bibles ever!  After persevering and waiting on God for 5 years, you have an opportunity to take the Bible worldwide, for such a time as this!  

2. All it Takes is One to Make a Difference 

We love Doing Church as a Team; but God will call just one person to make that difference!  

Matthew 5:16 KJV says: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." 

Philippians 2:13 NKJV says: "... for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." 

These two verses combined calls us to move forward as individuals.  Don't let the enemy ever tell you that you can't do it.  Don't let your gift lie dormant in your life! You can do what God has called you to do! Pastor Wayne shares that as a teen, he had to persevere through a number of challenges, and one day he said, "I'm going to be a rock star!" and joined a rock and roll band as their lead singer. But it would take one person who said, "Hey, come with me to Campus Crusade." So, this rock star wannabe goes to Campus Crusade, and this one person ministered to Pastor Wayne and led him to receive Jesus Christ in his heart. This one person then said, "Hey, I want you to come to a Billy Graham event with me," and it was at this event that God spoke to him, "This is the assignment that I have for you."  And over a hundred churches were planted by New Hope Oahu and over a million people have come to our online services! God can use teams, and we do Church as a Team, but it took just one person to make a difference! Jesus Christ gave His life 2000 years ago on the cross, and 2000 years later we're in the middle of a pandemic and God has called us to be His witnesses in our God-Given Assignment:

3. How Do You Find Your God Given Assignment? 

For God's purposes, we come to Him first and seek Him first as noted in the following scriptures: 

Matthew 6:33 NIV says: "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

Proverbs 19:21 NIV says: "Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails."

Here are three ways that will help put God first and seek Him first: 

A. Through Your Devotional and Quite Times with God.  After you finish your devotions sit quietly before the Lord and say, "Lord, speak to me.  What am I called to do for significance?"

B. Specifically pray, "Lord, help me with my assignment, that I may do Your will." 

C. Be Aware and sensitive to the Holy Spirit.

The Word says that when we call on the Holy Spirit, He will answer and speak to you in a whisper, a small voice, and will be your teacher, guide, and comforter.

STUDY QUESTIONS:

1. Identify your God?Given Assignment (a dream or vision) that God placed in your heart?

2. How would you release and realize your dream for your God?given assignment?

3. How are you making a difference in your life to count for the Lord's purpose?  

4. What three steps can you take that would help you put God first and to seek Him first?