Find God’s Mission as Your Reason to Live
We should actually read more but we only read up to verse five.The main passage we are reading today is after Jesus Christ died on the cross and resurrected. He went to meet his disciples again, and these disciples believed in Jesus Christ. Despite the fact that they believed in Jesus Christ, the disciples we read about in this passage went back to their old state, to their old professions of eating and drinking. It is not that they did not receive salvation. Why do you think the disciples went back to living this way?
If you look a few chapters forward, they go into the incredible works of God, but it means that there are many churchgoers like this. They go to church, and they believe in Jesus. But just like the passage we read today, most of them will go back to their old jobs, just so they can catch a few fish and survive. If you ask them why, they will respond that they must eat and survive.
But Jesus Christ and God have such an incredible personality that they came to find the disciples in such a very kind way. He simply asked them if things weren’t working out for them, and they answered that it wasn’t working out. That is the content of this passage, so Jesus tells them to cast their nets into a particular section, and they caught a lot of fish.
The issue today is not about catching a lot of fish.The people who believe in Jesus Christ don’t understand the reason why they have to catch these fish because they do not know the reason why they have to live. They live like non-believers, living just as they did before catching fish just to eat and survive.
When Jesus Christ is not with them, they don’t receive any answers, and they don’t catch any fish. When Jesus Christ gives an occasional answer, they may eat a little fish. Most Christian believers will live their lives with this kind of repetitive cycle. It is not that they have a bad personality and it is not that the core of their lives are bad because, of course, we need to eat and survive. But the only thing that they think about is catching fish and surviving.
When God looks at us, He’s so disheartened. When people look at this kind of situation, they are not heartbroken because they see that people are working very diligently to catch fish. But actually, if you and I are in this kind of state, then we must be renewed. If we are in this kind of state, it is going to be difficult for us to escape the states of the non-believer then you’re not going to be able to overcome the standards of Galilee, which was a very poor and uneducated region. Then you’re not going to be able to overcome the poverty that was passed down from generation to generation.
You won’t be able to overcome the foolishness that was passed down from generation to generation. Until when? Until you understand the reason for your mission. If you receive a mission of why you live, then you will overcome the standards of Galilee. You need to understand the reason why you are catching fish.These people were apostles, so they gave up their roles as fishermen and went full time into evangelism. But, everyday, believers will wonder why they are catching fish. It’s not just about making money or making a living, but I am a fisherman, and that is my job. God will use that to save lives.
That is what believers must have. The 12 disciples all became apostles and gave up their professions like fishing. But everyone who believes in Jesus wants to keep their job of fishing, but their state must change. Jesus Christ is God. We know that, and we have also received salvation. So after they followed Jesus around for three years, they received grace as well.They lived their Walk of Faith, received grace, and saw miracles, but they still did not see why they had to live. They thought that living a good life and believing in Jesus Christ were all there was to life.
That’s why they lived according to their circumstances.One day, the Lord resurrects and comes to find them. Even if you experience the resurrection of God being alive, you will be able to receive God’s Word. When you received salvation, it was through God’s grace and the incredible situation of the cross caused everyone to run away. Whenever there’s a big incident or whenever there’s a problem, people will run away.
Look at Simon Peter, he was enduring and enduring, using humanism time after time, and ultimately, he ran away. Jesus Christ dying on the cross was the fulfillment of God’s Word since the beginning. However, Simon Peter is trying to block that from the beginning with his humanism trying to protect Jesus. Ultimately, when Jesus Christ faces his death, Simon Peter falls into this problem and tries to run away. As he saw that incident, he wasn’t able to reach the conclusion that this was the fulfillment of God’s Word.
Because of that, he has no choice but to continue living his everyday life. We all, ultimately, need to make a living, so we can eat. But ultimately, Simon Peter realizes that God is with him. Once you experience that resurrection, just once, you will be completely different. It is not just about knowing about the resurrection, but there is this fact that he is realistically with me. Then God will give me His Word. God is not alive but staying silent. God realistically gives us His Word and that is how Jesus comes to find Simon Peter and asks, “Do you love me?”
The reason why Jesus asked Simon Peter three times is because He wants to give him the mission which is the reason why Simon Peter must live. Simon Peter realized he was not just somebody who was trying to make a living by catching fish, but he must become a fisher of men to save lives. This does not mean to give up everything and to go into seminary. This means that the reason I have my job and the field that I am in, is so that God can give me the people that I must catch. After I received that mission then the works of God began to arise.
Before we received that mission, we had no choice but to live in the states of the non believer even though we had been saved. Think about it. The disciples received so much grace by following Jesus for three years. They were all imagining their future with Jesus. They dreamt the dreams of exalting Jesus Christ as the True King and serving under him. Imagine how much grace they received thinking that they had found this new world at that time when they confessed, “Only Jesus Christ.”
It was a different meaning of “only.” The only Jesus Christ they were holding onto was that if they believed in this Jesus Christ, then all of their problems would be solved, and they would be able to survive in the world. However, the cross is something that completely flips everything upside down. That is how it comes to us as well.
All of the images we have of our future lives is what we try to restore by meeting Jesus Christ. All of that is completely turned upside down because that is not the reason why God has called us. The standard of having received the Gospel is that you are realistically experiencing the fact that God has finished all problems on the cross and is with me right now. But if that does not take place, then you live by your own thoughts. If that does not take place, then if you don’t receive any grace, you live your life and then you die just being a fisherman. However, if you restore the faith of realistically believing, without a doubt, the resurrected Lord is with you. Then the Word of God will come upon you. Then Jesus allows them to catch over 150 fish.
They received the Lord’s grace, once again, but that is not the Lord’s goal. There is another main topic that God wants which is to bring them to the resurrected Jesus Christ and to give them the mission that He had. He gives this to Simon Peter. The ones who receive the mission will never shake because the Lord has given it to them.
If you do not have the mission, then you’re going to shake. No matter what you do when you face a problem, you have to avoid the problem. However, if you have a mission, then that problem becomes an answer and an opportunity. This is the Simon Peter who was at this low level, a Galilean who only knew how to throw his fishing net. However, once he knew his mission from the Lord, the way he saw everything changed. He realized how he lived until then, and as his perspective began to change, the power of the filling of the Holy Spirit came upon him every time he prayed. Later on, when he faced death, as he received the power of the filling of the Holy Spirit, he was not afraid of death.
The church officers need to have that strength, that faith, and must go into the world to overcome. You have to confirm the Gospel that God gave you: the Gospel of the resurrected Jesus Christ, every single day. If you are not able to confirm that the resurrected Lord is with you every single day, then you’re going to run away in the face of problems just like Simon Peter ran away. When you find a problem, you need to see the answer. You should be able to see that. Jesus Christ dying on the cross was actually a prophesied word from the very beginning. When does this happen? Only after you’ve received the mission.
You, church officers and remnants alike. When God calls you, God calls you with a specific mission. You need to have that in order for God to continuously lead you with His Word to fulfill that mission. If you don’t have this, then the pulpit message will not align with you. It’s not because you are a bad person, but it means that you do not have a mission.
If you have a mission, then the word you receive on Sunday will align. That is why even after he received grace by following Jesus Christ for three years, he still ran away. After you confirm that the resurrected Jesus Christ is with you every day, then God will give you His Word and His mission, and you’ll see that Word and mission every day of your life. That means you are writing the stream of this Word, the stream from the core message, from headquarters. For business people, there’s the business and industry message as well. There’s also the Sunday message you received from your pulpit. You must take that Word into your field. If you don’t have this mission, then you’re just going to receive this Word and then it will go away.
Every single word that you receive is to fulfill that mission, but you do not have this mission.
People who do not have this mission. You must pray to God to receive this mission.
Until then, you will not be able to receive the Word from the pulpit message holistically.
Until that happens, you will continue looking around on the internet for a message that aligns with you, and it is because you do not have a mission with you perfectly. Simon Peter was like that.
If you do receive a mission, because it is a God-given mission, God will give you His Word so that you can fulfill that mission. It is actually way better for you to go onto the internet to look for the Word of God instead of the things of the world on the internet. I’m not saying that this is a bad thing, but I am saying that you do this because you do not have a mission. However, if you do have this mission from God, then God will continue to give you His word so that you can fulfill that mission.
On John 21, we see that Simon Peter was in this exact time schedule. Once you receive that mission, you pray about it. You need to receive that spiritual strength. No matter how much you try if you don’t receive spiritual strength, you will be taken in by the world. First and foremost, you are going to be taken in by the world because Satan is working through the culture of the world, unseen to your eyes. Secondly, you will be deceived by yourself because you are not receiving the Word of God. You will be deceived by your own past experiences.
However, if you receive the Word of God and you have a mission from God and you go out into the world with spiritual strength, then just like elder jung, you go out into the field already having victory. Even non-believers will do this. All the most successful business people in Korea will go out into the business fields already having conquered through early morning meditation.
First, they will wake up early in the morning and read all the newspapers in Korea. They know everything that is happening in the culture, the politics, the economy and the news.
Because they are non-believers, they will then go into Transcendental Meditation in the morning. Then they receive all these ideas about what they must do about all of the meetings that they are preparing for and all the things that are under their control. So actually, they end everything in the early morning.
Once they go out into the fields, they just execute the things that they had already seen or received that morning. Of course, we must have this in the morning. If this does not take place, then it’s normal that things are not working out for you. If you’re not able to have that time in the morning, then it’s normal for you to be confused.
However, if you have spiritual strength, then God will show you and teach you. When you go out into the field, there is God’s guidance because if you have spiritual strength that means that the Lord completely holds on to you.Then there’s no need for your own thoughts or your humanism because God is working upon you. Only after that took place for Simon Peter did his ministry really begin which were members of the Early Church.
Not a single one of them had a proper job, and some of them even owned a house. But none of these people had property. However, God worked upon them regardless of all of that. Why? Because they have the mission of God. God even pushed the physical things towards them. That’s the reason why they gathered together and prayed with one heart. Why must the churches gather together and pray with one heart? That is why we gather together and pray for the region. Why do you save this church? It is so that you can save this region because everything is for the future generation. The schools and the businesses are all in this region.
You gather together and pray with one heart for the working and filling of the Holy Spirit. When you try to break one stick, it is easy, but if you put three sticks together, it becomes harder to break. The spiritual battle is the same way. It’s the same difference as praying alone or praying with one heart. That is why we need the church where we can put our hearts together. Everyone has the mission to save the world and that is why our prayer topics are the same. If you say that my prayer topic is this or that, it actually means you don’t have a mission.
Everybody’s mission is the same. It is the finances to save people; it is the studies to save people. If you must die or get sick, while doing this, then you just die or get sick. But if the working of the Holy Spirit takes place and you get healed, then that’s also what happens. As that happens, you will receive incredible spiritual strength even if you do this a little bit every day, just like when you exercise. The first few days you may be weak and tremble, but the muscles will build up their strength. It is the same spiritually. If you receive spiritual strength, then you will be able to overcome it. David had that strength and that’s why he was able to overcome Goliath.
It’s not enough to be able to throw a stone very well. If you are shaking and trembling in fear, and you go against your opponent but your heart is already shaking, there is nobody else who would go before Goliath. There’s no way that you could go before Goliath if your heart is shaking in fear. It is not that they were not skilled, everybody in the Israelite army knew how to throw stones because everybody in the Israelite army was a shepherd themselves.
It is not that they didn’t have the skills, but they were shaking in fear. If you look at the ways of the world, it may cause you to shake with fear. But David enjoyed that spiritual strength every day in his life. Unless that takes place, you will get caught up in your own standards. Whether you catch a lot of fish or not doesn’t matter. You’ll just waste your entire lives, catching some fish some days and catching no fish. Other days, you’ll just completely waste your lives. If you don’t have a mission, then the first thing you need to pray for is for God to give you that mission1. If you don’t have a mission, you’re going to continue to wander. You’re living in America, but you don’t even know why you have to live here, so you’ll wander your entire life.
But if you do hold on to this, then you will begin to pray. God, what is the topic that you want me to hold on to within the prayer topics of the church? Then the churches all gather together, and they fulfill the entire mission. Every church has a different mission even though the direction is the same. That is the mission God has given to you.
If you talk about evangelism and go out into the field a few times, you will understand that you need the filling of the Holy Spirit in order to evangelize.
This is a fact. Philip went out with the filling of the Holy Spirit and in Acts 13, people were raised up. In Acts, 16, the Holy Spirit made Paul go to Macedonia, and ultimately told Paul to go to Jerusalem. Then the Holy Spirit told Paul to do Rome evangelism. This is not something that comes to our brain, but evangelism is for us to be led in the work that God is doing.
If that does not take place then you are always going to be looking for some kind of method. These are the people who have always gone and left relatively early. Why am I saying this? I’m saying it’s the same for our church officers. If you are looking for some kind of method to do something, you should just go to a library. But because you have a mission from God, you need to follow God’s method. That is the filling of the Holy Spirit.
Because you need to fulfill the mission of saving lives, you can receive the economy of light that God has prepared. Unless that takes place, you will get caught up in your own standards. Whether you catch a lot of fish or not, it doesn’t matter. You’ll just waste your entire lives, catching some fish some days and catching no fish. Other days, and you’ll just completely waste your lives. If you don’t have a mission, then the first thing you need to pray for is for God to give you that mission. If you don’t have a mission you’re going to continue to wander, you’re living in America but you don’t even know why you have to live here so you’ll wander your entire life. It’s not that Simon Peter did not go to church and did not believe in Jesus, but it was that he wasn’t able to experience the resurrected Jesus, and there are many people like that.
It’s not that Simon Peter did not go to church and did not believe in Jesus. It wasn’t that he wasn’t able to experience the resurrected Jesus, and there are many people like that. There are even pastor’s kids who grow up in the church for a long time, but later on they leave the church. Even though they play the piano so well and they might even praise so well, later on, they might leave the church.
So what happened before that? That person just had a pastor for a father, and they had that prayer culture.The culture they were raised in was the culture of the church, but instead of having the culture of going to shrines and temples, they have this culture of going to church, and they were just doing whatever they were told because they are pastor’s kids. But they did not believe themselves. Then later on when they make their own mind and make their own decisions, they’ll just leave. Ultimately, they will come back after having experienced the world. Don’t you think that God has a plan for that family? We might go to church, but if we do not experience the resurrected Jesus Christ as Lord, then we may end up the same way.
Jesus Christ resurrected and went to meet Simon Peter. You need to have that experience in order for you to receive that mission. If you don’t receive that experience, then even though you receive the Word of God a lot, you’re going to experience it differently, and you’ll waste all of your time catching fish.
If you have a reason to live, then you’ll even be thankful for death because it means that you have fulfilled your mission. It’s okay even if you get a disease because if you fulfilled your mission, then it’s okay to go. If you have more of your mission to fulfill that doesn’t matter, but if you don’t have that and you face a crisis or an urgent situation, then you are going to shake. That is when Satan works upon you.
If a person doesn’t have the mission, they will waste their entire life shaking until they die, so I hope and pray that you will restore this mission. It is easy. It’s the prayer topics of the church. Why do you think God sent you to this church? God has given this church a prayer topic, and God wants you to fulfill that. Until that takes place, you cannot find your mission.
But if you do hold on to this, then you will begin to pray. God, what is the topic that you want me to hold on to within the prayer topics of the church? Then the churches all gather together, and they fulfill the entire mission. Every church has a different mission even though the direction is the same. That is the mission God has given to you.
If you talk about evangelism and go out into the field a few times, you will understand that you need the filling of the Holy Spirit in order to evangelize. This is a fact. Philip went out with the filling of the Holy Spirit and in Acts 13, people were raised up. In Acts, 16, the Holy Spirit made Paul go to Macedonia, and ultimately told Paul to go to Jerusalem. Then the Holy Spirit told Paul to do Rome evangelism. This is not something that comes to our brain, but evangelism is for us to be led in the work that God is doing.
If that does not take place then you are always going to be looking for some kind of method. These are the people who have always gone and left relatively early. Why am I saying this? I’m saying it’s the same for our church officers. If you are looking for some kind of method to do something, you should just go to a library. But because you have a mission from God, you need to follow God’s method. That is the filling of the Holy Spirit.
Because you need to fulfill the mission of saving lives, you can receive the economy of light that God has prepared. Unless that takes place, you will get caught up in your own standards. Whether you catch a lot of fish or not, it doesn’t matter. You’ll just waste your entire lives, catching some fish some days and catching no fish. Other days, and you’ll just completely waste your lives. If you don’t have a mission, then the first thing you need to pray for is for God to give you that mission. If you don’t have a mission you’re going to continue to wander, you’re living in America but you don’t even know why you have to live here so you’ll wander your entire life. It’s not that Simon Peter did not go to church and did not believe in Jesus, but it was that he wasn’t able to experience the resurrected Jesus, and there are many people like that.
There are even pastors kids who grow up in the church for a long time but later on they leave the church.
Even though they play the piano so well and they might even praise so well later on. They might leave the church.
So what happened before that, that person just had a pastor for a father, and they had that prayer culture.
The culture they were raised in was the culture of the church, but instead of having the culture of going to shrines and temples they have this culture of going to the church, and they were just doing whatever they were told because they are pastors’ kids but they did not believe themselves.
Then later on when they make their own mind and make their own decisions, then they’ll just leave. Ultimately they will come back after having experienced the world.
Don’t you think that God has a plan for that family.
We might go to church but if we do not experience the resurrected Jesus Christ as Lord, then we may end up the same way.
Jesus Christ resurrected and went to meet Simon Peter. You need to have that experience in order for you to receive that mission.
If you don’t receive that experience then even though you receive the Word of God a lot, you’re going to experience it differently and you’ll waste all of your time catching fish.
If you have a reason to live. Then you’ll even be thankful for death because it means that you have fulfilled your mission.
It’s okay even if you get a disease, because if you have fulfilled your mission, then it’s okay to go. And if you have more of your mission to fulfill that doesn’t matter, but if you don’t have that and you face a crisis or an urgent situation, then you are going to shake and that is when Satan works upon you.
If a person doesn’t have the mission, they will waste their entire life shaking until they die. So I hope and pray that you will restore this mission.
It is easy. It’s the prayer topics of the church. Why do you think God sent you to this church?
Why do you think God sent you to this church?
God has given this church, a prayer topic, and God wants you to fulfill that until that takes place you cannot find your mission.
But if you do hold on to this, then you will begin to pray. God, what is the topic that you want me to hold on to within the prayer topics of the church? Then the churches all gather together, and they fulfill the entire mission Every church has a different mission, even though the direction is the same. That is the mission God has given to you.
In order to fulfill that mission, God is continuously giving us these guideposts as signs through the Word.
If your time schedule is like Simon Peters, then it might be very confusing. All the people who come to Friday night worship, I pray that you will surely restore your mission. If you pray for it, then God will give it to you. From that point on, everything will change.
You might be the same person, but the gleam in your eye will change. Even the way you talk will change, then you will understand the reason why you need to receive the filling of the Holy Spirit, every single day. Before that point you will know this filling of the Holy Spirit as some sort of theory, but after you receive this mission, you will gather in the church to receive the filling of the Holy Spirit, even if you are persecuted by coming. No matter how old you get, you will hold on to this. It’s exactly like this in the Bible every single day.
That is why when you go out into the field, you must restore the field church.
You need to be in your attendance, looking towards the tabernacle and receiving spiritual strength there. Then, that gets relayed into your fields. It’s directly related, then you get so excited for the Word of God.
If you’re not excited for the Word of God, then you’re dead. Isn’t that the right choice to go?
Let’s say my goal is to go to college. Then, the way that you look at your classes will be different. But the people, who don’t really care about going to college, will not care about their classes because they don’t have a goal. They don’t have a reason to study.
If you do not receive a mission, then whenever you receive the Word of God, you might say, “Oh wow, the Word is so deep today” or “Oh, this word is so shallow.” This is just you messing with yourself.
I was like that and that is why I’m asking you guys to do me a favor. Without a doubt, find your mission from God. Until you receive that answer, keep praying until you have that assurance in your heart. Why did God call you to LA? Why did God call you to church? Do you think God made a mistake? Why is God giving you His word? Because there is a word that God wants you to fulfill.
When we pray together, we need to realize that Simon Peter also wandered around without a mission, so that’s normal. It is not a spiritual problem. It is normal, but that’s just the time schedule.
God allow me to understand the mission that you gave me when you brought me to LA, to this church. You have allowed me to come to America to serve this church, so allow me to understand the reason why.
Stay inside the word and your mission, and that is why the pulpit message is so important. From that point on, you will understand why God is giving you that word. Later on, when Simon Peter stands before the court of law, he says that there’s no other name given to men by which we must be saved. Proclaiming Jesus Christ was the mission, and that’s how he overcame death. That is how we can overcome it as well. If the church officers become like this then all of the next generation will arise.
If you are shaking and trembling in front of the coronavirus pandemic, you may be correct, but it means that you do not have a mission. If you are shaking and trembling because of the fear of the fourth industrial revolution, you may be correct, but it means you do not have a mission. It means you are in the same state as Simon Peter before receiving his mission.
It doesn’t matter if the fifth Industrial Revolution comes, you just hold onto your mission, and everything will completely change. That is how your Walk of Faith completely changes. This needs to take place in order for you to overcome all the mental afflictions you may go through when you face a problem. Don’t you shake? Even before you face a problem, you will shake. Don’t you? Why? It is evidence that you don’t have a mission. It is not that you are wrong, but even if you face somebody or something that might cause a problem, you already collapse. This is normal and even Simon Peter was like that. But what this means is that you don’t have a mission.
Quickly renew yourself, you need to hold on to the correct prayer topic. However, if you have a mission, then even if you face a problem, it is not a problem. Even if you face a tremendous storm, it becomes a storm that will fulfill God’s mission. Even if there are two prophets who tell you not to go to Rome because you’ll be imprisoned, Paul confessed that he had to go to Rome in order to fulfill his mission. If you have this mission, then the way that you receive the Word of God will change completely.
Don’t you think that’s right? This is because God spoke through two prophets who prophesied to Paul that he would go to jail. This is the work of God. You may wonder that if you have God’s mission, why would you go to jail? Paul realized that he had to go to jail to fulfill God’s mission because he had to go to Rome.
It must be the same for your job. If somebody says something, then even though you don’t want to use humanism, you’ll have to use humanism. That’s why the answer of nobody does not take place.
You need to be able to see what nobody else can see and go to the place that nobody else can do by holding on to your mission. Paul only went to Jerusalem and then to Rome and was imprisoned because he held on to his mission. Paul confessed that he had to go to Rome to get thrown into jail to fulfill God’s mission because there were all these gangsters who were trying to kill Paul at that time. He had his mission.
This isn’t something that you can overcome just by continuously reciting that a crisis is an opportunity. You know this in your brain, but in reality, you want to avoid the crisis. This is the rightful reaction that takes place because you do not have the strength nor the mission.
Joseph was taken into slavery and from our perspective, it may have been that he became a slave, but from Joseph’s perspective, he was able to whistle a joyful tune because he had a mission from God. And that is why nobody could compete, why? Because nobody else wanted to go there, and the answers of God are all hidden there. I hope you’ll be able to enjoy this mission and this spiritual strength every single day.
People who don’t have a mission yet, pray for that mission until that mission comes and do not pray for anything else. Even if you don’t pray for this or that, you don’t have to pray for anything else because God said he’ll give it to you anyway. Don’t pray with useless thoughts, but pray to receive your mission. If you ask to understand, then God will help you to understand.
Once the Word of God becomes nailed into your hearts, then you’ll be able to pray with the filling of the Holy Spirit to fulfill the Word of God. And then you will be writing the flow of the Word of God that will be fulfilled.
If you put the destination into a GPS, it will give you the directions to go there. So of course, if God gives you the mission, then every week he is going to give you the word that guides you towards that destination. Then what happens is that the church becomes the place where you receive guidance. It is not that the pastor is great or anything, but the word that you receive will be fulfilled and that is normal.
Wherever you are right now, that is your mission field. What is the greatest church in the world? It’s the church where you belong. If you aren’t able to get to that level then you have no assurance. And I hope that you will restore this mission.
Prayer
Let us pray together. When we pray together, we need to realize that Simon Peter also wandered around without a mission, so that’s normal. It is not a spiritual problem. It is normal, but that’s just the time schedule.
God, allow me to understand the mission that You gave me, when You brought me to LA to this church. You have allowed me to come to America to serve this church. So, allow me to understand the reason why. Let us pray together.