What Purpose did God Have? (Romans 10:10-15)
The title of today’s message is, “What purpose did God have?” We will share this Word from the passage of Romans 10:10-15. When God called us, He absolutely had a purpose. There is no calling without a purpose. Even when we go into a company, the owner of the company has a purpose.
Introduction
(1) Philippians 1:6
It says that God Who started the good work will be faithful to complete it. The One Who began this work is Jesus Christ, and the One Who fulfills it is Jesus Christ, so absolutely, the purpose is in him.
(2) Purpose, End
Even as Jesus Christ did His ministry, He did it with his purpose. In Matthew 24:14, when will the world end? When the gospel is preached to all nations, then the end will come. What is all the work and our business for? It is for the purpose of evangelism. Why? Because Jesus came to this earth with this purpose, so when my purpose and God’s purpose align, that’s when things work out. When God calls us but we don’t know God’s purpose, we have no choice but to live for another purpose.
Evangelism
But God is doing everything for the purpose of evangelism. When Moses did not know this, he had to wander for 80 years. The moment he realized God’s purpose for which he was called…
Main
1. Disciple
We have to confirm this through the words of the disciples
(1) Acts 8:26-40. Philip – Eunuch
It was the meeting between Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. God prepared Philip so that the Ethiopian eunuch would be evangelized to. If you say it in reverse, God raised Philip so he could save the eunuch.
(2) Acts 10:1-40 Cornelius, Simon the Tanner, Peter
In Acts 10:1-40, you see Cornelius. In order to save Cornelius, God prepared Simon the Tanner and Peter. Because of this one person, Cornelius, two people were moved.
(3) Acts 13:1-4 Paul
In Acts 13:1-4, God prepared Paul as the missionary so he could evangelize all of Europe, starting from Macedonia. So, no matter what we do, if we do it with God’s purpose of evangelism, then we begin to see that our eyes will be opened.
(4) Acts 13:48
It says all those who were set aside for salvation received the gospel, meaning that according to God’s time schedule, the people are used. But if you center evangelism on yourself, you won’t be able to do it. Because people don’t understand evangelism, they’re not able to do it. But if they say they don’t like to evangelize, it means they don’t like God’s purpose. Why is that? It’s because they don’t understand God’s Word.
(5) Acts 16:6-11 Troas – Macedonia
God changed the path from Troas to Macedonia, and that means God is moving everything regarding evangelism, so you’re seeing God’s work. If you’re able to see that, then you’re able to open your eyes in regards to what God is doing and how He is working.
(6) Acts 16:6-12 Lydia
It says Lydia’s heart was opened to God. God opened Lydia’s heart to evangelize to her, and her home was opened to evangelism.
(7) Philippians 3:7-14
It says we race towards the reward in heaven, the purpose to which God has called us. So, what is evangelism? It is to relay God’s purpose. If you don’t know this and you evangelize however you think, that’s why evangelism isn’t working out for you.
2. Within the Church
1) Churchgoer – Gospel
We need to relay the purpose accurately to the believers in church. Some believers just go to church, simply said, they just receive salvation. God has a purpose, a goal of trying to relay the accurate gospel to them.
2) Believer – Blessing
Then there are believers who go to church. God doesn’t just want to give them the accurate gospel, but the blessing of one who actually has faith. God’s goal is for us to relay this to the believers so once they believe in the gospel, they can enjoy the blessings.
3) Faithful Workers – Disciple
There are those who are faithful and they teach us what a disciple is. They’re not just believers, they’re faithful. They always attend worship, and there are people who do their work in the church faithfully. What are these people? They are ones who completely understand the word, “disciple.” If you follow after the words of Jesus Christ, then you’re a disciple. Simply put, God is allowing them to know the 3, 9, 3, which is the Triune God, the 9 settings, and the 3 ages.
4) One with a Mission – Evangelist
There are those who have a mission, God allows such people to know what it is like to be an evangelist. If they don’t have a mission, they can’t bear it. So, when we have the life of an evangelist training on Sundays, we focus on 3 and 4, because the ones who have a mission are bound to listen to this. Rather than these things being set by a certain thing, there’s a time schedule. Within the church, there are four different kinds of people, and God gives the accurate word to all four.
Several people must absolutely listen to the message in the afternoons, they have a mission, they have to give a message, so they absolutely must listen, and because they are God’s evangelists, they must listen and continuously give the message. These are the goals God is doing within the church.
3. Evangelism Failure
But sometimes we fail at evangelism. Why do we fail? Those who evangelize in the field or do regional churches, you must listen carefully.
1) Col 4:2-3
It says if you do not pray, the forces of darkness will not be bound. If you pray, God opens the doors but the reason your evangelism fails is because you’re not praying. There are instances where people misunderstand prayer. “God does everything so why do we pray?” Such people only know half the Bible. God does it, but through whom does He do it? Through those who hold to the covenant and pray. He doesn’t work upon the people who’ve lost hold of the covenant.
Why did He delay the Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years? Because they did not pray. Ultimately He did the work of missions and world evangelization through the future generations who held to the covenant.
2) Matthew 5:1 Crowd, Disciple
Why do people fail at evangelism? In Matthew 5:1, they were the crowd. They set what is abundant as the standard, but you can’t use this standard. I talked about this in Navajo many times, but people were more interested in crowds and swarms of people. They keep going towards this, so I told them about this multiple times. So, we call the people who can do this work of the disciple without me, because without this, if we focus on a large gathering of people, evangelism will not work out. Absolutely God has prepared the disciple.
It’s the same for the Karen people. Of course there are young remnants, but they will be prepared later on. There’s a person prepared by God right now. It doesn’t matter if we’re doing children or adult ministry, but right now, who is the disciple with an open door of evangelism? It isn’t a child right now, later on it may be children, but not now. Right now, there are young adults who are prepared to open that door. But if you don’t know this, you won’t be able to evangelize. No matter how diligently you work, you will not be aligned with God’s point.
When you do your regional churches, what should be the point of how you look at it? “Who is the disciple prepared for regional evangelism?” Then what must you do? Be as a loyal one with a mission. Don’t stay at the level of a churchgoer or believer. It’s the same for El Salvador, just one person, the disciple. It doesn’t matter if nothing else works out, but you should keep producing disciples. But instead, people keep going towards swarms of people because that’s what the world is focused on.
So, camp is just finding the prepared disciples. We are already going to El Salvador, but we aren’t entering and doing something; it has already been finished and we go in. Even right now, we’re doing this, so it’s not like all of a sudden, we do something and go in. God has prepared them, so you go in and prepare the setting for them so they can continue. When we go into El Salvador, there’s a female pastor, but there’s no interest in the female pastor; but through that female pastor, who are the disciples connected to her? If you don’t have this, even if you evangelize diligently, it will ultimately amount to nothing. You must always remember this. It’s not just that you need this.
3) John 4:10-24 Worship (Spirit, Truth)
You must know what worship is, why? Because in order to continue this, there is worship. You have to succeed in proper worship to continue this work, you have to worship in spirit and in truth. The disciples do not skip out on worship, why? Because they have to constantly receive answers from God. If they say, “I can’t give worship because I’m too busy,” then it’s not their time right now. It may be their time in the future, but not now, why? Because the evangelism movement isn’t something we do with just our knowledge, because otherwise, the person who studied theology a lot would evangelize. But that’s not it; we must proclaim God’s purpose to that person. It’s not just doing this out of memorization, but the one, through worship, can proclaim it.
In the Old Testament, why did God give all the feasts for worship? It’s so they could conquer Canaan. For disciples raising other disciples, they explained how important worship is. It’s not a matter of coming to worship, but it is giving proper worship.
4. Evangelism – Success (Door)
There absolutely is a door through which you can succeed in evangelism.
1) Prenatal
When you talk about prenatal, they are not born yet, so they can receive salvation later on. It may not be their time right now, but when you look at that person, it seems God’s time schedule will be upon them. In the place where I am right now, God absolutely sets aside the people to receive salvation. People who think like this will succeed in evangelism. It is not through our diligence, but it is us, focusing on what God is doing.
I heard this multiple times, but people say evangelism isn’t working out. They even say, “If anyone can evangelize, why don’t you go out?” It’s because they don’t know what evangelism is. We talked about this right now, why do we fail at evangelism? It’s because they’ve never prayed about evangelism. They pray about other things a lot, but they don’t pray about evangelism. They pray for their children and business, but not once do they pray about evangelism.
“Pray so that the doors of evangelism will open,” because absolutely, Satan and the forces of darkness hold onto that person, and that’s why we pray. That’s why during Friday night prayer, we must pray together. But if you look, not only at myself but everyone else, what is people’s interest? If your child was sick, how much would your heart burn for that child? Even if you tell that person not to pray, they will pray. Just like that, pray for the other souls as well. The fact that you don’t do that means that your interest is not in God; you’re interested in yourself and that’s why evangelism isn’t working out because you’re only focused on yourself.
When you face a problem, you pray about it. There’s not one time you’ve prayed, “Who is the person whom God has set aside to receive salvation?” So why is evangelism not working out? You’re not interested; what are you interested in? Yourself, you pray when a problem comes to you. Why do we pray for others? Because others’ souls have to be saved. But God’s interest is not my interest. Only my interests are my interests, and that’s why the individual falls and the field falls.
Let’s say everybody at church is like this? Then that’s not a church God desires. That’s a religious organization just going around in the world. In Genesis 6, that’s what everybody did, they were only interested in what they wanted; they had no interest in God’s interest, so according to what was inside their heart, the fruit was borne. Absolutely, the success in the doors of evangelism begin with prenatal people. Simply put, your eyes have to be opened to see that there is absolutely somebody to receive salvation in the field right now, and that’s the work God is doing. But if you don’t have any of this, and instead one day, you decide you will evangelize and go with red eyes, it is not going to work out for you.
(1) Captain
In Acts 27, when he was on the ship to go to Rome, there was a huge storm. But absolutely, Paul knew there was someone to receive salvation on that ship, and ultimately, it is the captain of the ship. So, what are the eyes of the evangelist? Within the place you are, God has set aside the people to receive the gospel.
(2) Prayer 2 Corinthians 4:4
Absolutely you have to pray. It says in 2 Cor. 4:4 that the god of this age has blinded the hearts of believers, so what do you do about this? You pray. Paul prayed before he went anywhere, and everyone in the Bible was like that, why? Because it is not a matter of our persuasion; the forces of darkness must be bound.
2 Thessalonians 2:10-11 Spirit of Deception
It says there’s a spirit of deception. What happens if you have this spirit of deception? The person will not be able to receive the gospel
Acts 10:38
There are people who are oppressed by demons. What are you going to do about it? You can’t sit still, you have to pray and when you pray in the name of Jesus Christ, the forces of darkness will flee, so absolutely, a regional church that has no prayer is just a meeting, but it is not a life-saving meeting. The people who are doing these regional churches must pray because there are demons in that region.
(3) Method Acts 13:1-4 Fasting (Guidance of the Holy Spirit)
What is the method? In Acts 13:1-4, they fasted to receive the guidance of the Holy Spirit, why? They fasted to do the work God called them for. Before doing camp, we do fasting prayer, why? To receive the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It’s not something we plan with our heads, because nation by nation, region by region, everything is different. All believers do this together. They’re going to receive the Word together along with the people who are going into the fields.
(4) Answer
You will receive an answer. In Acts 8:26-40, people receive God’s answers according to God’s time schedule. So to succeed in evangelism, this is important. Anyone can say “evangelism,” but the ones who succeed in evangelism are different. Doing whatever you want and think isn’t biblical. I cannot succeed at evangelism at all, it is something God is doing. Through the people God has called, evangelism happens.
2)New- Believers
What’s the second most important? There are new believers. Evangelism is here. But for people who don’t know evangelism they keep looking toward the strong people, the intelligent people, and the successful people. But behind the new believers, there’s an incredible field so you must not lose hold of this. But instead of looking at new believers, they keep looking at successful people, saying, “Oh there’s a field behind this person” so what is the most important part of a church? It is the new believers. Everybody is important but when you look at it from the perspective of evangelism, then the new- believers are the most important, why? Because they didn’t know when they first came to church, meaning there’s an incredible amount of people within their families and friends who don’t know the gospel.
(1) Foot
These are the feet of evangelism, you have to be able to see this. Some people are greedy for new believers, so they make it so that no others can talk to them, but that will destroy the new believer. If you’re blocking them from talking to other people in the church as if they were possessions, you’re not focused on evangelism, but you want to possess them. It doesn’t matter who brought them into the church, but you have to lead them towards the church so they can continue to grow. If you keep bickering over new believers, it will block evangelism and it won’t work out.
That’s why the pastor exists. The pastor must ask them. You have to entrust them to the pastor and the church, because if you say, “I brought them in so I will do it,” that’s not right. It is correct that because you’ve brought them into the church, you must have an interest in them and pray for them, however, you can’t just keep them. For example, if I brought them into the church and I only come to Sunday messages, the new believers will also be like that, then how will that new believer survive?
This is an example. The new believers will begin to take on the level of that person. They must come out during the week and evangelism will take place. If the person who brought them to church comes to Early Morning prayer service, the new believer will also come, and that’s how you quickly raise a new believer. But if you hold onto them by yourself, it is not going to work out, so from now on, even if you do bring in someone new, you must entrust them to the church and the pastor. That’s why the pastor exists and does pastoral ministry.
(2) Upper Room
Those who come in through the Upper Room movement, they have to continue to grow through these movements. In the field, if you don’t have Upper Room meetings in the field, evangelism will not take place. No reason to hesitate, but recreate yourself quickly. If you have a location, they will come to that location. Within the region, there has to be someone named Simon the Tanner for Cornelius to be sent. Otherwise, there’s no space they can come to. If they would go to church, they would have already come, but they can’t.
So just because you do the Upper Room meeting, does it mean they will receive the gospel? No. The smarter or more successful someone is, they won’t reveal their problems as quickly. They will come a few times and see what other people are like, and only then will they reveal their problems. So, this is the field church, this is what you do in the field and that’s what the family needs to do as well.
Have specialized churches within your workplace. Why? Because you have to have this place and location so people at work will come to you one day. It won’t happen all of a sudden where you approach them and all of a sudden evangelize. Evangelism isn’t always like Philip and the eunuch. Absolutely, you have to create this space within your workplace where anybody could come and reveal their problems to you, and that is why you’re needed there as a messenger. Within your field ministries, you have to constantly wage war with the forces of darkness.
If there’s none of that, it’s not a regional church, it’s not a field church; it’s nothing. Isn’t that correct? If you’re in charge of a region, you have to bind the forces of darkness because evangelism is bound to take place in that region. Eventually people will look at the work you’re doing in that region and say, “This is the kind of work they do.
You have to have this as your setting and then go out and do camps. As you go out and do these camps, you have regional meetings and field churches. There is a camp where you go and research the region because you don’t know the region. But the people who have already analyzed the field don’t have to do this, but the people who have this, you go out into the field in your Darakbang meetings and analyze the region by speaking to people. You don’t have to do this in a lofty form, this is just part of our lives so you just have to go, but the issue is, are you doing this centered on the idea of evangelism or centered on yourself? The results will differ based on this.
The people who are successful in evangelism are centered on evangelism, so that’s just their lifestyle. You must not let go of new believers. I’m sorry, but there is no evangelism behind the old believers, so why are you holding onto them? The people who have just come to church and left, there’s no field behind us. Let them go because they didn’t leave the church on their own accord; God allowed them to leave the church so don’t focus on them, but focus instead on the new-believers. Even if the old believers do, time and time again, come into the church, there is no field behind them, so open your eyes to new believers and really focus on them. Then, absolutely if you look at the field or the family or people at work, there are unbelievers behind the believers because unbelievers will play with other unbelievers.
5. Disciple
God explained earlier, God makes a disciple thirsty. You shouldn’t hold onto someone who isn’t thirsty because there are others who are thirsty, and it is the time schedule for thirsty people right now. For example, if someone is thirsty, they will quickly drink water. If someone is spiritually thirsty, they will want to continue to listen to the Word. It may be whenever, God will arrange it sporadically. Then after some time, you’ll realize whether someone is thirsting or not, why? Because they’re doing world evangelization, so God will make it so that they are thirsty. Look at the Ethiopian unit for example, he was so thirsty for the Word and he bought a Bible and he was reading Isaiah 53 and he was reading words about Jesus Christ, and he didn’t even understand.
Look at Cornelius. Cornelius went to Peter and greeted him, there are these kinds of people. So don’t just focus on one person but God has a time schedule for everyone. There are a lot of people and we don’t know God’s time schedule, so that’s why there’s a message of the seven regions. It has to be the apartment I am living in, but I want you to escape from that thought. “The quad-plex in which I live is my region.” You hold onto things that won’t work out. Is the only place you’ll operate is your house? It’s not just that, but you’re working in so many places. Within that, it’s the people whom God has prepared. You don’t even have to accessorize.
Other people may be loyal, they received the Word so well, there are people who go to church for a long time and still don’t understand the Word, but unbelievers who are thankful and faithful have the mission like Lydia and then they can hear immediately, and she didn’t listen to the message for a long time, she heard it once, and when she heard the word once, she opened her house to them, what does that mean? She’s asking them to prepare the gospel for her family. So, Acts 13-19, all of thee Greek, they were asking for the gospel, there are disciples like this. We have to look for disciples. We’ve already talked about this.
What is it that the disciples and believers cannot do the most? It is to receive the guidance of the holy spirit. Because even if you receive salvation and the Word about evangelism, if you can’t do it, you can’t do it. If you cannot receive the guidance of the holy spirit, no matter how aligned you are to that purpose, you cannot go that path. When you see that you make a decision, you’re always centered on yourself, then you’ll see you won’t receive the guidance of the holy spirit. In the decisive moments, people will leave their guidance of the holy spirit. Especially female remnants, how do you know this? When they marry. It seems like they’re holding onto the mision the entire time, but at the decisive moment that they marry, they look at things that aren’t gospel.
From the beginning, there aren’t many guys in the church anyway, but this is how it turns out. They’ve received a ton of training and they receive all of this mission and word, but at the decisive moment, they meet a weird guy, so instead of evangelizing, they’re only going to serve. You must receive the guidance of the holy spirit well. Why is it that we cannot receive the guidance of the Holy Spirit? Just like this weeks pulpit message, we’re not aligned with God, and we’re trying to go ahead of God.
Especially if you look at Koreans, they are very hasty and if they’re too hasty, they cannot receive God’s guidance. And then there’s the humanistic people who keep trying to move according to the law of this world. If you keep trying to do your walk of faith by meeting with people and talking to them with words, then the more you do it, the more you will suffer because that’s a person who doesn’t know God. God knows and the devil knows. But people focus on their own righteousness or themselves, then no matter how correct I am, I must receive the guidance of the holy spirit. When you’re stuck in legalism you will stray, then you divide people based on whether they are aligned with you or not? Then there’s no way to receive the guidance of the holy spirit.
People who cause divisions are legalistic, but if a pastor is like this, that’s the enemy of the church. Please do not misunderstand, I will not take your side. Why would I take your side? There are people who become disgruntled, but why must I listen to them? I have to take God’s side. They are just insisting on themselves, when people come to me, I don’t listen to them 100% because they are only speaking from their perspective. People have no choice but to be like that before they receive the word of God, they will keep on talking about how they feel, how they experienced it. But because they are the god of their own lives, they keep looking at things from their perspectives. And if I’m caught up in that, that’s my mistake. So if the pastor listens to his wife’s word, he’s going to die. What does that mean? It’s not that the pastor shouldn’t listen to his wife but we must listen to the word of God because if we get caught up on the person’s word, then you will become like Annaniaze.
I don’t know if I can do your walk of faith, but the church is not a place for that. It’s not a place where you come meet with people and convince them. If you do, pray about it, because the more you do, the further you get away from evangelism. As you explain your perspective, they may feel better in the moment but they keep getting further away from God. So, individually what you must do? You must say, “This doesn’t align with me,” but what is it that God is trying to say? And when you pray about it you’ll receive an answer, but you’ll form your own group from your own perspectives.
Then you go into Satan’s masterpiece because he’s making you determine what is good and what is evil. Because people don’t receive the guidance of the Holy Spirit, they don’t understand that the nature by which they used to live in the world is incorrect. If Adam and Eve knew this, do you think they would have fallen into Satan’s deception? They just thought what they thought was right. Instead, you need to look at what is God’s plan.Ask the other person, “Even what you say is correct, what is God’s plan? But if you are dividing people saying, “My words are correct,” or “your words are correct,” This is the work that Satan is doing and we’ll never be able to succeed.
Do you think the people higher up know or not? They know that you are taking on the role of dividing people, and if you do that, your family will also be divided, no matter where you go everything will be divided, so you need to really defeat that humanism. That’s what it means to listen to something and not really listen. If you listen and get caught up on it, it’s trouble, especially for the pastor, there’s a perspective that the person is trying to bring a crisis to us, but if we listen to that, we will get into trouble, because it is not the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the person is only emphasizing their perspective. So, humanism is when everyone’s nature already, especially for the new believers. But if you don’t change this nature for them, what’s going to happen? They will continue by the nature of the world.
3) Filling of the Holy Spirit
You have to receive the guidance of the Holy Spirit to be filled with the Holy Spirit. When you receive the filling of the holy spirit, you realize the spirit of God is with you, so with what purpose did God call us with? I hope you hold onto this Word and really focus your heart on world evangelism.
Prayer
Father God, thank You so much for this word, and I hope your purpose of evangelism will also be our purpose, in the name of Jesus Christ I pray, amen.