 John chapter 21 verse 15 it says the following so when they had eaten breakfast Jesus said to Simon Peter Simon son of Jonah do you love me more than these and he said to him yes Lord you know that I love you and he said to him feed my lamps I want to speak today about a topic of our vision missionary mindset a missionary mindset every regularly we have to remind us our church of why we exist as the church what is our vision what is our focus and what is our direction the verse that we've read today as a proof text we see that Jesus comes to Peter and he asked him a question it's important to understand that most of us have asked God questions it's okay to ask God questions but you also have to be a completely okay with God asking you questions in the Bible we see that there is about 3,000 something questions that were asked the first time we read is when God comes to Adam and he asked him a question Adam where are you Jesus asked questions and in here we see that Jesus asks Peter a question I always say to people that your questions determine the quality of your heart always pay attention to people's questions because they determine a lot about who they are and what's going on inside of them and Jesus asked this question of Peter he says do you love me he's not asking you know are you educated he's not asking you know about his godliness holiness his disciplines he asks about do you love me I want you to notice that he doesn't ask him even do you believe in me he's not asking him this question when he met him he asked this question three and a half years after he has been with Peter and he has shown many infallible proofs of the love that he has had for Peter Jesus first convinced Peter of his love for him and then after he has shown his love for Peter now he asks Peter do you love me Jesus didn't ask this question to everyone and today he doesn't ask this question to every person sitting here he only asks this question to those people who have experienced have seen God's love in their life firsthand Peter had the opportunity to experience God's love in his life when his business was failing and he couldn't cash any fish and he was extremely discouraged mending the nets didn't even pay attention to Jesus's sermon and Jesus took Peter's boat and went on and preached and after he was done he tells Peter I want you to go cast the nets into the deep and you will catch some fish and Peter said no Lord you don't understand you're not a fisherman I'm a fisherman you're a carpenter and you're a teacher stick to your business I stick to mine you borrowed my boat let's leave it at that but he says I'm gonna do it through the teeth I'm gonna do it he goes in cast the net and he catches so much fish and he gets blown away that Jesus cared so much that Jesus loved him so much that even when he didn't want to catch any fish that Jesus wanted him to succeed he was so taken just breathtaking by this love that Jesus had that he comes to Jesus and he falls on his knees the scripture says and he said Jesus I am a sinful man depart from me I got an encounter with your love you have touched me you've shown me how greatly you love me and then you see later on when Jesus cared for Peter here we see when Jesus comes and finds Peter and Jesus showed his love to Peter and that is where Peter began to understand that his love for Jesus has a chance to grow your love for God begins at the knowledge of his love for you when you know how much he loves you only then you can love him back Jesus wouldn't expect you to love him if you first do not understand receive experience his love for you it is impossible to love God if you first have not grasped how much he loves and cares for you in Greek language there's four words for love and most of us in our language we only have one word for love it's love you use word love for your car the same word you use for your pet and the same word used for the couch and the same word used for a TV show and the same word used for your children and the same word used for the weather it's the same love and the same word you come to church and you say Lord I love you too you know and sometimes the Lord like which love the same love you love the weather the same love that you love your pet or the same love you love your spouse but Greek language is a lot deeper and richer and and since the Bible was partially written in that that first love which is only found in the New Testament and most of you heard of it it's called agape love it's unconditional it's divine it's God's love it's a love that's not dependent on the lovingness of another person it's the love that loves the unlovable it's the love that loves people when they don't deserve to be loved cannot ever repay for anything of that it's almost like this unrealistic it's inhuman love and this love is only found in God then we also know that there's a torguer love there's the love in the family where mother loves her child the child is disobedient and rebellious and the mother still loves the child or the father there's the filial love the love among friends where you know what you respect me I respect you we have a certain bond we do favors to one another it's called a filial love and then there is we know one love that people use all the time doing people say you know we make love arrows love it's erotic it's a sexual physical love and most people they do not know the first kind of love the agape love but Jesus has demonstrated to Peter and to each one of us and through the Calvary of his unconditional love in the Old Testament God related to people through the law when God gave the law it was about 50 days when they got out of the Egypt and this 50 days it was called the Pentecost the celebration of the harvest the celebration of God giving the law at the mountain of Sinai Moses comes down with the law he was just gone for some time he comes down with the law to the people of Israel and they already made a cow that they worshiped and Moses breaks that law in front of those people and the Bible says that 3,000 people died when they received the law it's interesting that pay people died left and right in the Old Testament you read the Old Testament you read the journey of Israel to the Promised Land and you see it's either this many people died that many people that it was death because any time that God related to people through the law it resulted in people's death who did not live up to that law but in the New Testament we see our God he begins to relate to us not through the law but through his love because on the day of Pentecost it was 50 days from the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the death of Jesus Christ 50 days there was a celebration and the Holy Spirit comes down but this time it was the love of God poured out the grace of God poured out and we don't see 3,000 people die we actually see 3,000 people get saved and in the book of Acts it's a chronicle of 5,000 people being saved that person being saved that person being saved and that person being saved it's not a coincidence that salvation's healings and deliverance were happening in the book of Acts it's only because of one thing God has chosen to view humanity through his love if you want to receive from God his grace you must understand one thing you have to switch your way how you see God that will relate with you he no longer wants to relate with you through his commandments and through his law and through his even moral character he wants to relate with you through his mercy and through his grace every ounce of mercy every ounce of healing everything that we receive from God is only because God chooses to relate to us through his love he chooses to forgive us of our sins that has opened the door to the devil he chooses to forgive us for the times that we've dumbled into a cult which brought demonic generational curses he chooses to overlook our ancestors who maybe did human or animal sacrifices which allowed legion of demons to torment our life he chooses to overlook the fact that the age of 14 1317 we stole we hurt people we abused people and we lost our virginity and live sexually immortal lives God chooses to churn his back on our sin bury it in the sea of forgetfulness and put aside no fishing over our past and give us a bright future because of his love you can never truly God love God if you don't truly first grasp receive understand and know his love for you Jesus comes to Peter and he says do you love me that question is only asked of people who first have experienced the love of God in their life you may say well Peter experienced God's love I haven't there's two ways you experience God's love is when you begin to see the marks God leaves on your life the marks God leaves on your health on your family you may not even be a Christian you may not even be a dedicated follower of Jesus Christ Peter wasn't always a believer and a follower of Jesus but Jesus marked his life many times with his grace and with his mercy if you look at your life today right now maybe with the struggles that you have with the problems that you have in that kind of life that you have there's already marks of God's love there's already marks that God has left many times where he protected you many times when he blessed you the fact that you've never paid a rent for breathing the air God gives you air every single day for free God lets the Sun rise and he doesn't collect payments God lets the rain come down so that we can have you know moisture and so we can have things for agriculture and God never charged for rain God lets you wake up and both of your legs walk your arms they work and your mind your eyes they see the ears and yes you have other challenges but there's many gifts God has given freely and never once he asked for a payment he has to say thank you and sometimes it's so hard to even do that look at your life and see God's grace don't focus so much on what God has not done today look at what God has done and see that as an expression of his love see that as an expression of his grace and use out of that faith to believe for the things he hasn't done that he will do and finish things that pertain to you in Jesus name but another way we see God's love for us is that not only the marks he left on our life but the marks we left on his because when Jesus was there with Peter and Peter probably noticed very quickly as Jesus was giving him the fish and giving him the bread that there were marks on the Jesus's hands there were marks on Jesus's feet and there were marks on Jesus's side which simply means that Peter I left a mark on your life by blessing you but you also left a mark on my life by hurting me I died on the cross for your sin that is the mark you left on me and that is a symbol of my love for you be reminded today of God's love for you be reminded today that God unconditionally loves you maybe nobody loves you in your life maybe you feel you're unlovable maybe you're unapproachable you like this tumbleweed anything you come close with you poke and people run from you maybe there's a spirit of loneliness and rejection that pushes people away from you and you are you feel like you know what I'm not a loving person God's love is not for loving or lovable people God's love is for people who don't deserve to be loved cannot receive that love and they reject that love God's love is still available for them but God's love like a paint it can't change your life if you don't receive it if you don't open your life to it you can buy a bucket of paint and if you don't open that paint and remove that paint from the bucket on the walls the walls in your house will still remain the same color so is the love of God you have to receive that love when you receive communion today when you receive Jesus Christ today you have to receive that love for you and you will see that love will change you somebody say man there's a love of God and there's also love for God because Peter replies back he says yes Lord I love you Jesus asked him this question three times and in our English Bible or Russian Bible or Spanish Bible it uses only one word it uses word love when Jesus says do you love me in original language it doesn't say that it says do you Agape me means do you unconditionally love me and you know what Peter replies back he says Jesus I feel you you means I love you like a friend I don't love you unconditionally Jesus asked him a question again he says Peter do you Agape me do you love me unconditionally and Peter replies back again he says I feel you you means I I don't love you like that Jesus I only love you like a friend and Jesus asked him a question third time but now he switches the word and he says do you feel you me he comes down to his level and he says I know you can't love me here but do you still at least love me here and Jesus Peter says Jesus you know all things and you know that I feel you you know that I don't have this love like a parent for a child for you I don't have this unconditional love for you but I have this third level of love like a friend and and that's all I have because see about 10 days ago Jesus when you asked me that everybody will betray you I said that I will never betray you I am on here but I recognize Jesus my love for you is not here my love for you is here and that's all I have and that's all I'm gonna give you an interesting part is that Jesus accepted the love Peter had to offer to him and Jesus took that love and he multiplied that love because in the book of Peter when Peter writes an epistle eight times he mentions word love and you know the kind of love Peter writes about not feel you not storage not arrows he's writing about Agape love I'm gonna give you a little secret of how to increase your love for God give him the love you have and God will give you the love you don't give God the love you currently have and God will multiply that love and give you the love you wish to have many people only give God the love they wish to have instead of giving what you have if you can come and pray three times a week you come and pray three times a week you may say well I want to pray every single day two hours a day that's not how this works you give God what you have God will receive that it's not enough he knows that but Jesus has this powerful thing in his hands when you give him what you have instead of keeping it back he will take what you have and he will multiply it and give it the love that you dream of having for God same thing when it comes to your reading of the Bible maybe you recognize that you fall asleep reading the Bible and you say well I could just read half a chapter give God the love you have and he will take it multiply it and give you the love you wish to have same thing when it comes to fasting you may say man I wish to fast I wish so I could have a discipline stop wishing give the Lord what you have you say Lord I can miss a breakfast once a week that's all I have I don't have capacity for anything else if you do that Jesus will receive that feel your love and then he will multiply it and touch it God can't change the love you don't give God can't increase the love you keep the love you only pray for without surrendering and giving it to God it is the dream of every person sitting here to have a deeper growing more fulfilling relationship with God I believe it is your desire to spend more time in prayer your desire yet like you heard a brother share today to be able to give more to God to be able to serve more and how that happens is that you start with giving what you have you start with being consistent in church you start with saying you know what if I can't make every morning to prayer I'm gonna make it three mornings a week but I'm gonna be there I'm gonna give God what I have and God in return will multiply that love and give me the love that I wish to have somebody say amen and the last thing is that love from God is Jesus replies back he says Peter do you love me Peter said yes Lord you know that I love you and the Lord Jesus Christ tells him now I want you to express that love for me by feeding my lambs feeding my sheep taking care of my children taking care of my people Jesus demonstrated his love for you by dying on the cross Jesus has demonstrated his love for us by giving his life for us the way you and I demonstrate our love for the Lord it's not just by Jesus didn't tell Peter well Peter great since you love me I want you to not smoke not drink don't hang out with those who do don't commit adultery on your wife and Peter please don't hate the Pharisees Jesus doesn't tell him moral requirements for expressing his love for God the mistake people make today is they think the way I love God is I don't cheat my taxes I bring my tides once in a while I attend the church I avoid doing immoral things I avoid compromising my Christian faith and that is the way I love God that is the way I show that is the way I express my love for God but in here we see the opposite that Jesus says your expression for the love for God is what you do to people who know Jesus and what you do to people who just meet Jesus in our church in the church of Jesus Christ the mission to reach out to people who don't know him comes not to grow the numbers in the church but the motivation for that vision comes out of our love for God we don't spend our time our finances and fill up our schedules with trying to reach out to people do special services send a lot of money fast and pray come to morning prayers so that we could feel the big building and maybe flash in front of somebody that hey we have a lot of people who have this awesome thing going that drive behind that is the love that we have for God we don't find another expression for that love but in saving and discipling people when we meet with our home group leaders sometimes they come and they come discouraged they say I've been praying for this person I've been working with this person I've been inviting this person and they don't budge I want to give up you know what this is kind of hard this is kind of tiring we always go back to this you're not doing this for them first you're doing this for him them is because of him and this is what we have to catch today is we have to raise a standard higher don't live your life trying to be good live your life to change the world you see today if you aim at impossible you'll reach maximum if you aim at maximum you reach minimum if you aim at minimum you reach nothing if the aim in life is I want to stop smoking stop drinking I want to just finally my family to sit behind a table on Sunday after church that's your aim if you aim on that I have a very sad news for you you're not gonna reach that your aim has to be higher Jesus said aim not just Peter don't cast don't curse don't do bad I want you to aim to feed my lambs because my life is a mess my life in shambles 10 days ago I denounced you my faith is not solid Jesus I need to first get stronger in you Jesus says that is too low of an aim that will come as a by product of aiming for something higher than getting stronger aim in your life more than just I want to stop drinking I want to stop you know being weak in my faith I want to aim higher I want to reach people aim in such a way what it right now looks crazy looks just that's not for you you're not there yet aim there and then the things you really want they will become a reality in your life in my life in Jesus name amen we need to dedicate our ministry to Jesus means one of the way we minister to the Lord is to really minister to people but secondly and we already heard that we need to never dedicate our finances to Jesus means our ministry has to be missional and secondly is our money they have to be missional in their essence that means our finances we can't talk about being like a missionary on this earth in tri cities if we do not use our finances for the missional purposes our finances are either an idol that we worship or an instrument that we worship with when Israel received great prosperity from Egyptians when they exited the Egypt we know that God had an intent to bless them but God also had an intent that that money will be used to build an arc of the covenant to build a tent of meeting to build a place where Levites can come and worship and there will be continuous worship to God so God's grace will come upon the whole land the interesting part is that before Moses came down with all those commandments Israel used their money not to build themselves big houses to build a golden cow to worship because this is what we do with our money if we don't use it as an instrument to build God's kingdom the lie of the devil is that well if you don't give money to the church you're gonna get rich you don't we use that money to build a golden cow that we worship they eventually destroys our life most people do not use their extra finances to advance their kingdom they advance some other thing that actually destroys them our finances are either left or right they're either an instrument to build God's kingdom or actually their idol that we worship that eventually destroys us when you build your use your finances to build God's kingdom to win the lost to support the missions to do all of these things God in return will bless you with enough to build your own life in a way that you couldn't do it on your own but if you become stingy you become greedy and you say no no no no i'm gonna go build myself devil is there he will take those finances and help you build a golden calf that you will worship and that golden calf will eventually bring calamity in your life that is one of the reasons we are extremely generous in our church that's one of the reasons we teach our leaders because we know the alternative of not being generous it's not just we're gonna be having more money to ourselves we all know that doesn't work it takes one flat tire one small accident hit the curve it takes one ticket and then you recognize all the money you were supposed to give on sunday you just gave it away to the government three times more and then paying insurance ten dollars ten bucks every single month for the next five years we all know the alternative is not building our life it's building a golden calf and i'd rather build God's kingdom than build calves that are in return going to destroy my life leave your finances focused on missions your ministry to Jesus is ministry to people third thing is our marriage our marriage its purpose is not just to produce children its purpose is not just that we spend so much time together that we don't have time to church we go to so many vacations we don't have time to church our marriage is missional means our marriage is to reach the cause of Jesus Christ when David took the stone to hit the Goliath with the Bible says he went to the river and he took a smooth stone small stones become smooth because of two things they are at the river and they'll rub against another stone what marriage is with God is you are in the river of God's word you are in the church and you have another person that you rub with every single day that's where the when i say rub i mean where you have conflict you rub with every single day and because you're humble because you're in church what happens is that you rub with and you become smoother you become more humble but you don't become smoother and more humble so you can walk around like a saint in church that you are so perfect is so that you can be usable in the hands of God to bring down the Goliaths in a spiritual world that God can use that marriage your wife you as a husband to bring people to salvation to bring people to discipleship to bring people to Jesus Christ people whose aim in life is only i want to have so many children and raise so many children and you will see one thing about that rarely actually their children serve God marriage falls apart by shambles and kids are either on drugs or they're beginning to do bad things and you're like why because the ultimate purpose and assignment in your life as a christian is to bring people to Jesus and to disciple them and to use your family to do that and when you give your kids an assignment only to cut the grass finish school but you don't give them assignment to change the world they quickly go to the world if they're not sent to change it this happens in strong families in weak families without mission families they fall apart just this morning i went to starbucks and i saw a young lady who belongs to a very traditional she worked with my wife a very strong traditional you know family a russian family here and one after another from those daughters in that family sin marrying other guys pregnant without marriage and so many things and you're looking you're looking at that picture and today it's everywhere like that you're looking at that picture and you see one thing families lack purpose church didn't give them mission marriage was given only one assignment are you gonna have kids yes then we're gonna marry you that's good to have kids it's good to have a good house it's good to have a good education but at the end we are christians we're not just russians we're not just mexicans we're not just americans we are not just martinis is lopas is subject smiths or robinsons we are christians we have an assignment from the lord jesus christ and we have to fulfill that and obey that somebody say man my heart breaks today when i see young couples they lose that and they quickly drift to so many things yes our church gets the bad rap sometimes everybody who comes to your church they don't get married young and the problem with that is everyone who comes to your church they get married and they don't have children right the way and the problem with that is our lord jesus wasn't married and he didn't have children guys our main goal is not when you're young and nineteen you need to get married we are main goal even for marriage it's not just i want to live a nice house get a boat rv a dog and go on vacation once a year all of that is great we have an assignment and that assignment to bring down the goliath goliath of suicide goliath of drugs goliath of immorality goliath of abuse goliath of all kinds of things that are happening in our generation you rub against your spouse not so you can provoke them so you can become smoother around your edges to bring down the goliath in your generation somebody say man i want us to um i just want to show you one example right now and then we are going to take time to pray a real mission is to win souls and to make disciples to find the lost and to feed the found somebody say to find the lost and to feed the found i want us to understand right now just it might be a little cheesy example but it's gonna show you the lesson this is what happens just like this fish is meant to be in the water so are you created to live in god every person that walks in tricities those 57 percent of people in tricities who do not serve jesus that 101 000 people in tricities who today claim to be unreligious non-religious they were created to live in church to live in relationship with god but there comes satan and he uses sin he uses curse and through that sin and through that curse what he does he convinces them through different lies the church is boring you don't need god you will get god when you will get 90 you know this whole thing churches people are hypocrites and churches have problems they always ask for your money and he lies to people but his ultimate goal is not to get you just out of the church his ultimate goal is to bring business lies excuses laziness to get you out of relationship with god and selenita in here is gonna represent the devil she dressed in dark and looks not like the devil but as the way satan uses sin to get people out of god she will use her hand to get the fish out of the water and just place it on the floor because that's what satan puts people he puts them in curses he puts them in problems and he puts them in all kinds of issues don't worry it's just the fish i want you to notice that this fish is right now suffocating and this fish is going through a very very hard time unfortunately you can't see it because she stopped flopping already she has about the same life expectancy with the air as you have underwater so how long can you be underwater three minutes five minutes two minutes so this fish we're probably one more minute left and so the interesting part is that all of us sit here and none of us are gonna do anything about it we're just gonna feel sorry for them right we're not gonna do anything about it because that's the way we are we look at the last people and what do we do we feel sorry for them we're like well i wish somebody would do something and that's what all of us typically do but god didn't call us to feel sorry for people god didn't call us to just pray for people god called us to go and do something about it and usually somebody kind of gets up and wants to do something about it i guess this is what we wanted to send a message today every person that doesn't know jesus christ is just like that fish god didn't call you to just pray for them god called you to bring them to his kingdom bring them into the relationship with god bring them so that they will know jesus christ amen