Title: Do You Have Meat?
Contents
Guys, do you have meat?
John 21:1 14
As we read the text, we have one doubt. “Why are the disciples returning to Galilee and fishing now?”
The important thing is that they returned to their daily lives for a while after meeting the resurrected Lord. And the Lord respected this. So, they have a precious experience of meeting the risen Lord in their daily life of fishing.
These words give us a very valuable lesson to continue our daily life.
1. The risen Lord visits our daily life.
If you look at text 4-5, it reads like this. “At dawn, Jesus was standing by the seashore, but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to him, “Son, do you have any fish?” They answered, “No.” is. And he showed interest in how many fish he caught.
The Lord does not only come to the field of evangelism, worship, and prayer. It means that the resurrected Lord will come to the place where you work hard, prepare food for your family, and spend time for leisure. We need to ponder a few facts here:
First, we must be preparing to meet the Lord.
Once, while passing by, I suddenly stopped by a church member's house. It just tells them to wait inside and doesn't open the door.
After a while, open the door and ask to come in.
What I can feel is that there were things in the house that I shouldn't have seen.
We must be ready to meet the Lord whenever He comes. You shouldn't be told to wait on the Lord.
Second, you must be doing what pleases the Lord.
The Lord said to the disciples, “How many fish have you caught?” You asked.
The Lord does not judge our profession according to the nobles. You do not discriminate or set values based on whether you are a company president or a security guard. However, the Lord judges the good and evil of our profession. We must not do what is evil in the sight of the Lord.
We must do what is good in the sight of the Lord.
Third, you must have an appearance that the Lord will praise.
The disciples in the text have been fishing all night long. I did my best to catch fish. He worked hard and did his best in his job. The disciples met the Lord in this way.
There is a saying that even if you forgive a soldier who loses a war, you cannot forgive a soldier who fails to keep vigilance.
Even if you fight hard and lose and cause great damage to your allies, you did your best and you have no choice but to forgive.
However, if the guards are vigilant and cause great damage to the allies who are stationed there, he cannot be forgiven.
We must meet the Lord in sweat with sincerity doing our best.
2. The risen Lord helps us in our daily life.
In verse 3 of the text, the disciples labored all night, but did not catch anything. In other words, it has failed.
In fact, our daily life is full of failures. After the IMF, there was a boom in entrepreneurship for a while. According to one media report, after 5 years, the results show that if 100 people start a business, 90 people fail, 7-8 people maintain the status quo, and only 2-3 people succeed. Indeed, our reality is full of these big and small failures.
The important thing is that failure doesn't end failure. Taking advantage of that failure, the shadow of death comes to us. These are things like desperation, depression, and despair.
These make us taste the agony of death in the midst of our daily lives.
According to media reports, the number of suicides has been on the rise since the suicide of actress Lee Eun-joo.
According to the results of the investigation by the Seoul District Prosecutors' Office, the number of suicides increased by a whopping 2.5 times after Lee Eun-joo committed suicide.
In particular, as for suicide methods, 80% of those who commit suicide follow Eun-ju Lee's suicide method.
And what's even more serious is that the share of suicides in their 20s and 30s has skyrocketed to 50% of the suicides.
These are the people who are caught in the shadow of death in our daily life.
That's right. The shadow of death hangs long in our daily life, which we build alone. If you do not cast it off, you will lead a painful life, and furthermore, if you are caught in this shadow, you are actually a slave to death.
But thankfully, the risen Lord comes to our daily life and enables us to cast away these shadows of death with the power of resurrection.
If we look at verse 6 of today's text, it says: “They said, “Cast your net on the right side of the boat, and you will find it.” The Lord came to the scene of the disciples’ failure.
And you helped them. It was through the power of the resurrection that the disciples were able to live powerful lives.
Like the pronoun of Korean ballpoint pens, there is a ballpoint pen that is loved by people all over the country. That's the MonAmi 153. This ballpoint pen first appeared in 1963. It was the first time to make a ballpoint pen in the situation where there was no technology or factory to produce ballpoint pens at the time. Chairman Song Sam-seok, who first developed this ballpoint pen, named this ballpoint pen himself.
MonAmi means “good friend” in French. But this 153 is important. This man is a devout Christian who got the idea from our text today and gave this number to the title. It was given this name in the hope that the blessings contained in this event, in which the nets were torn by the power of the risen Lord, were caught.
As the name suggests, this ballpoint pen was a huge hit. There is hardly anyone who has not used this ballpoint pen.
That's right. We must have this kind of faith. We must believe that the Lord of the Resurrection is with us deep in our daily lives. You must believe that He blesses you.
So, we must succeed and shake off all the shadows of death that hang in our daily lives.
3. The risen Lord encouraged the disciples.
This is recorded in today's text 12-3. “Jesus said to them, ‘Come and eat breakfast.’ But no one dared to ask who you are, because they knew that the disciples gave it to them. Jesus went and took bread and gave them to them, and so did the fish.” He told them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat so they could catch a lot of fish, and now he called them to the shore. And he prepared breakfast and fed them.
This event reminds us of several facts.
First, the resurrected Lord gives us new strength.
How hard must it have been for the disciples to fish all night long? Moreover, the fatigue must have been incomparable to that of catching a large number of fish, as not a single fish was caught all night. And how much market would you have? So they were in a state of exhaustion. The Lord has carefully prepared breakfast for them. You fed them.
They must have gained new strength.
In 1 Kings 19, the story of the prophet Elijah receiving great encouragement from the Lord is recorded. Elijah was victorious in that spiritual battle on Mount Carmel, but when Jezebel rushed to death, he was frightened and fled to the south toward Beersheba. He left his servant there and fled by himself for another day into the wilderness. Now, exhausted, I lay down under a rosemary and prayed to God to die. So, I was in such a state of exhaustion and suffering that I wanted to die.
Then God sent an angel to Elijah. And he touched the sleeping Elijah.
And you fed me with charcoal-grilled bread and a bottle of water. After eating and sleeping again, he came again to caress me and feeds me again.
He ate the food and gained strength, and Elijah walked another 40 days and 40 nights to reach Mount Horeb.
That's right. There are times when we are tired and weary while living in this world. The Lord knows our plight. The risen Lord visits us and gives us new strength. With the power that the risen Lord gives us, we can stand up again. We are able to handle the work entrusted to us again.
Second, it is the fact that the risen Lord promises to be with us.
The disciples, who were fishing among themselves, must have felt again that night how painful and difficult it was to do something without the Lord. Up to now, I have lived with the Lord for three years. I was able to do all these things in real peace. But last night they did something among themselves without the Lord.
It made me realize deeply that it is very difficult and difficult.
Then the resurrected Lord came to them. It's not hard to imagine how much comfort it was.
They must have been able to deeply feel how precious the promise the Lord said, “I will always be with you, even to the end of the world.”
In Exodus 33, Moses prays earnestly to the Lord. God was angry when the Israelites made a golden calf and bowed down. In verse 3 he said: “I will not go up with you...” It means that God will not be with the Israelites in their march in the wilderness.
When the people of Israel heard this, they were sad and said that not a single person was adorned. Moses prayed very earnestly before the Lord. In the end, in verse 14, “I will go by myself, saith the Lord,” was a new promise.
That's right. The Lord must be with you. A life without the Lord is itself a curse. The march in the wilderness without the pillar of fire or cloud is itself a curse. A march in the wilderness without manna is death itself.
The risen Lord has promised us.
“I will always be with you!” We earnestly pray that this promise will be fulfilled in our lives.
The disciples in today's text met the resurrected Lord in their daily lives and gained the power of resurrection.
But there is one thing we need to think deeply about here. This incident in today's text is very similar to when Peter first received the Lord's call. In Luke 5, when he first met the Lord, Peter failed to catch fish, and the Lord told him to go out into the deep and let down his nets.
Then the Lord spoke to Peter. “From now on, you will catch men...” He gave him the mission to become a fisher of men. Peter must have thought of that time. So, they would have restored their mission again.
That's right. The risen Lord comes into our daily lives to help us and encourage us.
That's when we realize that everyday life isn't everything. We discover that we have a mission.
And we will move on to that mission.
Dear all! Please welcome the resurrected Lord who comes to our daily life again at this time today.
So, live a victorious life in everyday life. And we wish you to move forward in our mission.