Sent...Into Your Everyday Life (Week 1)

Scripture Reading: John 21:1-17 | Colossians 3:17, 23-24

Where do you expect to find Jesus? In church? In big spiritual moments? What about in your everyday life? In John 21, we see the risen Jesus meet His disciples in the middle of their work. This sermon begins a new series, “Sent Into Life,” exploring what it means that Jesus sends us not somewhere else, but into the lives we’re already living. You are not being asked to add something new—you are being invited to see your life differently.

Transcript

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In Matthew 28, Jesus said, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. He calls you to be that disciple. To hear his word, to receive his promises, to repent, to believe. That Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And that by believing you have life in his name. Now here are the good news of Jesus for you. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. What comes to your mind when you hear this idea that you are sent? What comes to your mind? It's okay, you can shout it out. Okay, traveling. Not the answer I was expecting, but it's good. It works. Okay, what else? What comes to your mind when you hear this idea that you are sent? Okay, you're wondering where am I sent? Okay? What else? What am I going to do? Okay. So we have a list of questions. Okay, what else? Nervous. Okay, in the first service, someone said, uh, excited that you're being sent somewhere. Maybe there's a little bit of excitement, maybe a bit of nervousness. Okay? We use this language of being sent, not just when we talk about the church, but we also use it in other contexts too, don't we? Um a business person is sent on a business trip. All right? A military unit is sent into battle. The coach sends the player into the game. Someone is sent to deliver something, a package, or to deliver a piece of news. All right. And usually when someone is sent somewhere, there's a responsibility that's associated with it. There is an expectation that comes along with it. Uh there's also purpose. It means there's something that is now going to be on you. There's pressure that's often associated with it, hence the reason for maybe being anxious or nervous. And whether it's spoken or not, there's usually a desired or intended outcome when someone is sent to do something. You're supposed to accomplish something, and with that, you're supposed to get it right and not mess up. So when you hear Jesus say, whether that's directly or indirectly, that you are sent, and he does say that, it's not surprising that for a lot of people, that doesn't sound exciting. It doesn't. It sounds heavy. It sounds like there's a lot riding on this. It sounds like one more thing that needs to be added to a life that is already quite full, to be honest. And so most of us hear that you are sent, and we immediately think that I don't have time for that. Because again, my schedule's already too full, or I'm not going to be any good at that. Or if I'm sent, I'm not sure what I'm going to say. Or what if I mess this up? And then there's another part of us that would rather keep this idea of faith, that we'd rather keep it personal and private and not public. Something that we believe, but we don't necessarily live it out in a way that would cause us to feel that we might be at risk or we might be exposed for the things we believe or say. But here's the truth: Jesus rose from the dead. And his resurrection from the dead, the main purpose of that, the main goal of that is that you believe, that's its main purpose and goal, that you believe that your sins are forgiven, and that your life, your future is secure in him. That's the main goal of Christ's life, death, and resurrection for you. That you believe that your sins are forgiven and that your life and your future, your eternity is secure in him. But then the result of that is that you are sent. You are sent with that good news in you out into a world that needs to hear it. And you're sent not necessarily to another place or location, and you're not necessarily sent to become somebody completely different, although you will change as you follow Jesus. But you're sent into the life that God has already given you. He's already placed you. And you're sent there with a clear goal, a clear purpose, a clear desired outcome. And so the routines that you have already established and the relationships that you've already built and the responsibilities that are already on your plate, that's part of where God has already sent you. That's where we find the disciples, by the way, in John 21. They're not in this big dramatic moment. At least it doesn't start off that way. They're not preparing to start this big Jesus movement, even though scripture tells us they've seen Jesus twice at this point. So there should be at least some of that going on. That they desire to start telling people and telling the world about this Jesus who was dead and is alive. But no, here's what they're doing: they're fishing. They're back at the lake and back on the boat, doing what they were doing before Jesus called them to come and follow him. Peter says it. He says, I'm gonna go fishing. And so they chime in, all right, we'll go with you. Just doing everyday life. Things that they were used to, accustomed to. And I think that's where most of us live, isn't that everyday life. Things that we're used to doing, we're accustomed to doing, the responsibilities, the schedules, the tasks that we have. That's life. But it's not away from Jesus, although we sometimes think it is. And here's what we see about these disciples, and they're doing everyday life, that they're up fishing all night, and it's not just that they're doing every life, but it adds this key feature to this text here that they were up fishing all night, doing everyday life, and they caught nothing. Any any fishermen in here? Okay, if you fish for three or four hours and you catch nothing, what do you how do you feel? Frustrated, right? Hungry. Did you say hungry? Yeah, maybe a little hungry too, especially if you're counting on that for your supper, which by the way, they were as well. If you're fishing for a few hours and you catch nothing, you quickly abandon ship, no, maybe pun intended there a little bit, um, and you you cut bait. All right, fine, I promise, that's the last one, all right? And then you immediately start to move on to something different. But they're up all night and they caught nothing. You can just imagine, you can just imagine their level of frustration all night, and they caught nothing. I would ask, have you ever been frustrated like that before? But I think we all know the answer to that. We have been frustrated like that before at work. You put in the hours, you do everything you possibly can do, maybe to complete a project and things just don't go according to plan, and maybe the project stalls, and your effort, no matter how much effort you put into it, it goes unnoticed. And so what do you feel? Frustrated. In your family, you have the same conversations over and over again and again, trying to hopefully make some progress on something, some pain point that you have in your family, and the conversations, they just don't seem to go the way that you think they should. And it feels like even after all the conversation, nothing is changing, nothing's different, everything's the same. And so you're left frustrated. Uh, as a parent, you do your best to guide and to teach and to be present with your kids and still wonder is any of it getting through? Uh in relationships, you try and connect and reconnect with the people around you, and maybe you try and repair those relationships, and sometimes it still feels distant. That's frustrating, isn't it? You do what you do, and you do as much as you can possibly do, and you put in the effort, and still you come up in the same place the disciples did. Empty nets. With nothing to show for it. And it's right there, right in this place of frustration, in these everyday routines of life for these disciples, that there's something deeper going down inside as well. Because it reveals something about us. Because when those nets are empty, so to speak, when our nets are empty and we're frustrated because we haven't caught anything, we haven't produced what we'd like to produce, our efforts don't come up with results that we're looking for, there's something deeper under the surface, and it's frustration and it's doubt, and it begins to make us wonder: is all of this worth it? Am I actually doing things, changing things, accomplishing the things that I wish I were? And then when things aren't working, and things aren't going the way that we expect them to, we have a tendency to divide. We divide our lives into two kinds of spaces. One is where uh the space where God is, and that's on Sunday, and where Jesus is clearly at work, but then there's Monday through Saturday. And that's where real life happens because that's where we see the struggles and the challenges and the frustrations, and we begin to wonder well, if we're having so much of this going on, maybe God is not present there. He is here, he's clearly present on Sundays. We see that, we feel it, we enjoy it. But then during the week, that everyday life, we wonder, is God present there as well? And so we feel overwhelmed and we feel disconnected, overwhelmed because uh life is already full with the schedules, and there's already too much to manage and too much to carry. And then now we're talking about being sent on top of that, on top of all the schedules, on top of all the things to manage. And so that can be really exhausting. And then there's that other feeling of being disconnected because we don't actually see, we don't see how Jesus fits into everything. We see how he fits into Sunday, but we don't see how he fits into Monday through Saturday. And so we stop looking for him. We stop looking for Jesus in those everyday parts of life, and we stop asking the question and wondering how does the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus impact Monday through Saturday? We see how it impacts Sunday because we hear about it, but how does the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus impact the rest of my life, my everyday life? The disciples are not looking for Jesus. So much so that he's appeared to them twice. And he says almost the exact same thing that he says to them when he called them on the boat at the beginning of his ministry. He says, Put your nets in, and then you'll catch something. And that should have been a light bulb moment. But they're not looking for Jesus. And Jesus still shows up. He shows up and he says to them, Hey, do you have any fish? Of course, he knows the answer to that question, which, by the way, he knows the answer to the question of where are the things in your life going awry? Uh maybe different than what you'd like. He already knows that too. And then he tells them to cast the net on the other side, on the right side of the boat, and you'll find some. Again, these are experienced fishermen. And so they've they know where to look, they know this lake, they know this profession, but they do it anyway. And suddenly the net is full, and they have 153 fish, and it's so big that they can barely haul it in. And that's when John recognizes it. He says, Ah, it's the Lord. And that's all it takes. Because as soon as Peter hears that, he jumps from the boat and he swims ashore just to get close to Jesus. And the others follow, and they're dragging in this net full of fish. But that's not even the crazy part. Here's the crazy part that you and I need to see as we're talking about being sent. The crazy part is that when they do get to shore, notice what scripture tells us. Verse 9 says, When they got on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place with fish laid on it and bread. Do you know what that means? That means Jesus just had them catch a miraculous amount of fish. But when they got to shore, he already had everything they needed. That means that even as he sends us, he's already gonna be the one providing. Even before any of our own effort. Because sometimes we hear that you're sent, and we think, boy, this all depends on me. And that if I don't get it right, then my marriage and my family and my children and their future and my life and everything, well, it's gonna be on some rocky ground. And it's gonna go in different places than I want it to go. But Jesus is already providing, and he's already working, and he's already bringing about this outcome that he intends. And so what does he do? He invites them. He invites us, he says, come, have breakfast. And you can imagine how that would feel after such a long night of frustration and disappointment. He invites them to come and sit with him and eat. And that's good because the next part of John 21 is a deeply personal moment for Peter. After breakfast, Jesus says, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Referring to these disciples. Do you love me more than these? And three times he asks him that question, and three times Peter replies. Three times. That mirrors back to what happened with Peter. Peter knows what he's done. He does. He knows that when push came to shove, in the most critical and important part of Peter's life and Jesus', Peter failed. He didn't stand his ground, he didn't speak, he didn't represent Jesus well. No, he didn't do any of that. And so, if there was ever someone who would think, I'm not fit, I'm not fit to be sent out into the world to tell people about Jesus. It's Peter. If there's anyone, it's Peter. And yet, what does Jesus do? He invites him to come and have breakfast. And then he restores him. And he doesn't ignore Peter's failure. In fact, he points it out three times, three times you denied me. And so I'm gonna give you three chances again, so that I can restore you again. So that I can send you. And that's how it works for us too. We're not sent, we're not sent because we've done everything right or because we will do everything right. We're sent as people who have been forgiven. People who have been restored by Jesus, people who have been invited, invited to come and see and be fed and nourished by Jesus Himself. And that means that this this sending, this idea that you are sent, it doesn't start with pressure, it starts with grace. That God's grace is given to you over and over again. And it flows from this point of grace into your everyday life, and that's where you're sent. Listen to how Colossians puts it. It says, Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus. Uh whatever you do. Whatever. So, whatever your job is, whatever uh your family situation looks like, wherever you go to school, wherever you live, wherever you go to the grocery store or to the gym or out to eat or whatever sport or extracurricular activity your kids or your grandkids are involved in, whatever you name it, whatever you do, in your words, how do you speak to one another, how you speak about Christ, in your deeds, how you treat one another, how you treat your relationship with Jesus. These are the places, whatever, wherever, these are the places where you are sent. And so we're called to do it all in the name of Jesus. And by the way, there's gonna be moments where you don't get it right. There are gonna be moments where you don't get it right in your marriage, in your family, as a parent, as a child, in school, in your job. There are gonna be moments where you do not get it right. But remember, Peter failed, and then Jesus still sent him. And the disciples, they doubted, and Jesus still sent them. And so this is ultimately about people who belong to Jesus and they're being sent. They're being sent into the places where God has already placed them. One other thing. Jesus goes on to tell Peter something that's quite difficult, that following Jesus will lead to suffering. And then he goes on to say that at some point Peter won't be doing the one leading, but other people are gonna be leading him. So here's what that means. That means that you don't get to control everything. And that's hard for us to hear. Uh because I'm not gonna say control freaks, but we are. We do like to control things, don't we? Even the quietest of us. We like to control things. We like to control how things are gonna go in our family, how things are gonna go in our life. We like to control the end result of things. And by the way, don't confuse control with stewardship, because we are called to be good stewards, to manage our time and our talent and our treasures, to manage the things that God has given to us, our schedules and our families, to manage those things well, that's stewardship. But control, control is about the outcome. And we do like to be in control sometimes. But Jesus says here that you don't get to be in control. Because ultimately, the desired outcome, the intended outcome that God has in store, which is that people come to believe in Jesus, that they are saved by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. That desired outcome, here's the good news God is going to be the one accomplishing that. God is the one in control. And so we are called to be good stewards. But that control piece, as we are sent, that's in God's hands entirely. And so entrust it to God as you are sent. Go out and entrust the people around you to God because He is the one in control. In your home, in your workplaces, in your families. That's where He meets you, by the way. That's where He met the disciples. He meets you in those everyday places. And then he sends you back to them. And he's already at work in those places. Already at work accomplishing his purposes and his will so that more and more people come to believe and know Jesus and are saved by him. Remember, you go, okay, you're sent. We're going to talk about that over the next three weeks. You and I, we are sent into the world. And that doesn't mean to another country. That means to the places where we already live, work, and sleep, and people around us, we're sent there. But as we go, it starts from a place of grace. You are forgiven. You're fed, you're nourished by Jesus Himself. It starts there. And then it flows into your everyday life. God's grace in your life. In Jesus' name. Amen.