Audio Transcript:

This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit Mosaicboston.com.

Good morning, church. Welcome to Mosaic. My name is Jan, one of the pastors along with Pastor Shane and Pastor Andy. If you're new or visiting, we'd love to connect with you through the Connection card. If you fill it out legibly, just leave it at the welcome center. With that said, would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's word?

Heavenly Father, I pray that you reveal your heart to us, the Father's heart, that everything you do and everything you say comes from a place of love. Because you love so much, you allow yourself to be grieved. You do experience anger. There is a jealousy. There is a wrath, but it's all there because of your love.

I pray that you make us a people that understand your heart, a people who are willing to share our hearts with you and share our hearts with one another. Only when we can do that can we encourage each other's hearts, infuse faith in hearts.

Then Lord, I pray as you knit our hearts of faith together, set our hearts ablaze with your faith for the work that you have called us to, to proclaim Jesus Christ, who because of His great love for us came, lived, and died, and said, "Whoever would believe in the heart, have faith in the heart, not in the mind but in the heart."

I pray, Holy Spirit, stir our hearts. I pray, engulf our hearts. We pray for anointing, a special faith, a faith for revival because we love you, because we love each other, and because we love the world, because we love people. We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen.

Title of the sermon is The Heart of a Man. I am going to primarily focus on 2 Corinthians, chapter 2, 8 through 16, from our text from last week. Then as I was preparing the message for this week, I realized, "Yeah, I preached an expository sermon that exposed the text, but I didn't show you how the text exposes my heart."

If you don't know how the text exposes my heart, you don't know my heart. If you don't know my heart, you can't know my faith and my vision. I'm going to read 2 Corinthians 2, 8:16. Then I'm going to meditate on what it means to share what God put in your heart.

I had a question from a brother after the sermon. He said, "What do you want us to talk about in CG? The sermon was so different." I said, "2 Corinthians 2:8 through 16. Talk about what God has put in your heart."

One verse... I'll go as far as I make it. "But thanks be to God, who put into the heart of Titus the same earnest care I have for you." This is the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word. May He write these eternal truths upon our hearts.

If you have been at Mosaic the last month or so, you realized things are different. It's because God has something put on my heart that I don't even know what I... It took a lot of time just reflecting. It's like, what is going on in here? Because I'm naturally wired to get up here with a huge machine gun of biblical truth, and just shoot you up, sit down, worship Jesus, go home, because that's the way I'm wired. It's all mind, mind, mind, mind, mind.

My mind thinks a million things at the same time. That's why I'm all about know God. SDG, Soli Deo Gloria. It's all for God's glory. Get to know God, get to know God, get to know God. Then I'm like, once you know God, GSD, GSD, GSD. Get stuff done. SDG, GSD. This is like, it's on my heart.

In order to live like this, you got to know what's in there. This week, I got hacked or something. I don't know. Someone set up a fake email and a fake Facebook and asking people for money. I had to send out a newsletter. I did that. I didn't want to do that because I don't like sharing all of the demonic attack that happens over the course of the week on me, on my marriage, on my family, on the staff.

It's like ah. We're moving the church toward real talk as part of our culture. Well, you got to talk. I did that. I kind of exposed. Then I was like, all right. Saturday comes along. I'm like, "Gosh, everyone knows something's up. Everyone knows something different. I'm going to send a newsletter, and no one's going to know what's up."

I'm going to write a joke that's only funny to me and God, partially because I'm trying to speak from the heart, expand the heart, and no one really knows who I am unless I speak from the heart.

I was talking to my wife about this. I was like, "Why can't I bring humor into the church, laughter into this church, sad times? People need to... " She's like, "Because you have a crazy laugh. You have a maniacal laugh."

I laugh like that. Then she's like, "Don't do that, please." My laugh comes from the heart. What I'm saying is no one got that joke except for the people that really, really, really know me.

Tyler, who runs our youth ministry... He came up to me after one of the sermon. Holy war, I think. He's like, "Bro, you freaked everyone out." He's like, "I know what you meant, but they don't know you."

That really stuck with me. I'm like, "Oh, why don't they know me? Why don't they know that everything I do, is I do it because I have a big heart. I love this church. I love my family. I love my wife. I love my daughters. It's all coming out of here."

I got a verse this week, John 5:4. I was like, "Yeah, that's what I'm doing. God, thank you for the anointing." John 5:4... It says an angel comes down to stir water, just stir things up. I was like, "Yeah, that's what I'm doing. I'm stirring things up, getting the church to a place of authenticity. It's just real talk all the time."

Then it says for healing. I was like, oh, I've been wielding my sword. Everyone walks out of here just caught up. They're like, "What just happened to me?" I am here today just to expose a little of my heart. I've been trying to do that in this season.

It's hard. It's not natural to me. I've branded myself as a Russian from New England. It's a miracle that I have any emotions at all, but I have so much in here. It's just that when I begin to share, my brain begins to glitch out. Then also, my wife doesn't like that I show emotion. I'll get into that.

To really get 2 Corinthians and then why I have been doing it because St. Paul... Verse by verse by verse, he's like, "I love you. I'm proud of you. I boast about you. You're the greatest church that I have ever planted. I have so many big visions for you. I believe in you."

It only makes sense because they know that he loves them. You can't have direct talk, real talk to people unless they know it's coming from a place of love because this is how I disciple my daughters. I get down to their level.

When I do this, when I do this, and you're like, "He's freaking me out again," I'm just saying, I want to have a one-on-one conversation with every single one of you. I know, logistically, it's Boston. I've got an opening in February.

I'm just going to pretend this is the one on one. I want to bring this voice into the culture of the church where we bare our hearts. St. Paul is speaking as a good father. He wants to be helpful. He's not criticizing to criticize. He's coaching them.

If you ever played sports, even kid sports... I was at my daughter's soccer game yesterday, Elizabeth. The coach is yelling at them. He called my daughter angry Elizabeth. That's her nickname because when she's angry, she scores goals. I'm like, angry Elizabeth.

She's like, "Dad, don't scream. Don't scream. You're freaking me out. You're embarrassing me." I'm like, "I'm screaming because I love you. Put your heart into your foot." She scored two goals yesterday, and her team won 5 and 0. They went undefeated in the whole year. Praise God.

When I'm speaking like this, it's not because I am mad at you. I'm trying to stir your heart up for great work for God. Without real talk, there's no real life change. We can theoretically talk about God and the scriptures. We walk away, nothing changed. It's just information, information, information. That's how the world works.

Scripture isn't given for information. It's given to change the heart. Scripture is supposed to change the heart. True expository preaching is exposing everything in here. Stir it up. Yes, there's sin. Yes, there's sadness. Yes, there's grieving. Yes, there's anger.

There's all kinds of stuff going on in here. To really read scripture, you got to allow it to read you and to respond. People are like, "Is this different than what Mosaic is about?" Mosaic was always about this. We put it in our core values. Love Jesus, simple.

By the simple, the heart... When we started the church, simple was never simplistic. It's not baby food. It's not breastfeeding. It's get to the heart of the matter because the matters of the heart are what matter.

You can't get to the simplicity of Christianity if you do not know each other's heart. I know the challenge is in the city. I feel like every time I get up here, we don't know each other.

There used to be a song called We Don't Talk Anymore. I used to sing it all the time. Whenever something would happen in the church, I would be like, "We don't talk anymore." That's what COVID felt like. We just stopped talking heart to heart.

I would get up here. I'm like, "This is what God said. That's what God said. Just do that, do that, do that. SDG, GSD." I'm like, "How do they understand what I'm saying if they don't understand the heart?"

I got to take it from God's heart. I got to download it into my heart. I got to do the hard. This is hard. This is hard. This is hard. I don't even know what I'm doing. I'm going to write. I wrote. I wrote 14 pages.

Then I was like, you know what? I'm just going to stand up here and speak from the heart because I want to connect not just with your mind, but with your heart, because true faith isn't in the mind. A lot of you know God with your mind inside and out. You have books of the Bible memorized, but do you believe in your heart?

Scripture says, "Confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe," where? With your heart. Believe with your... from the depth. God, I love you. I talk about the love part. I'm like, love, love, love, love, love, love, love. I just assume you believe. I assume you believe. You don't truly believe unless you believe with your heart.

There's stuff in the way of true faith. Sometimes I get up, and I talk about faith. I talk about the vision. My vision for the church, my vision for the world... I just want to fix everything because that's how dads think.

I have fears in my heart that I don't want to be there. I have fears in my heart about my daughters. I have fears about my daughters going outside and things happening to them. Then I say, that makes me sad. That grieves my heart.

It transitions to anger. Unless you stop there and say, "Is this from God? Holy Spirit, sanctify all these emotions. Holy Spirit, baptize these tears. Baptize these feelings. Baptize whatever I'm feeling." Only then can it turn into zeal and resolve to fix things.

One of the reasons why I am doing what I'm doing is because I knew this was coming when we were like, okay. The 10th anniversary party... I got to meditate on what just happened the last 10 years. I'm like, I don't want to even go to... I got up.

I was like, there's years of my life missing. 2017, I have no idea. Part of it is that this is the way I work. If a year is painful, if a moment is painful, if it's a moment that I'm... It feels awkward. I don't want to be here. I shut the heart off. I turn on the mind. I turn on the strength. What are we going to do about it?

Then I do that for a while. Then a year goes by. I'm like, "What just happened?" For me to get back into the heart, it's very painful because it forces me to feel what I didn't feel at that very moment. Then I'm like, "What just happened, 2017? I don't want to feel any of that. I don't want to feel any of that."

Partially, this is the way I work because this is the way I got through my childhood. I never bring up my childhood. I never bring up my mom because there's a lot of very sad memories in my life that shaped me to be who I am. My mom and dad moved here when my dad was 30, my mom was 27.

My mom got married at 19 just to get out of her house because she was the ninth of 11 children. She's like, "This is crazy. I'm out." She just got married. She had me at 20. In her heart, I know. She had pain from her childhood. She brought that into child rearing. Then we moved to the States. Now she's a foreigner.

A lot is going on there. I grew up as an immigrant kid in an inner city public school system in Rhode Island, which is how... When people talk about race and things like that, one of the things that people don't realize is I was the minority, always, in every single sense. The way I see the world is very unique than other people.

My wife told me. She's like, "Why did you write that you love people? I love you so much." She was like, "Why are you using that language?" She's like, "No one believes you anyway." The reason why she says, she knows I love... The people that know me, they know I'm a loving person. Everything that I do, it comes from here.

She says, "Because you walked on the street, and you're scary. You laugh like a maniac. You like to growl and things." I'm like, "Oh." My personality doesn't make sense to anyone unless they really understand the missing link. The missing link is I love Jesus. As crazy as that, I love God.

I believe in God. I really believe in the God of the Bible. You don't understand how I read holy scripture unless you understand how I love, how much I love God. When I read scripture, I read scripture in 4D. I read scripture, and I see the movie in my mind as I read the words.

I don't just understand the ideas. I see it. I see myself in the role. Whatever role, whatever story, I'm there. I'm inside. I always want to do the greatest thing. In the story of King David, I want to take Goliath down.

In my commissioning sermon to become a pastor, I got up. I was like, "I am going to take Boston." You hear me say that right now, and you're like, "Oh yeah. That makes sense." Back then, if I could go back in time in a time machine, I would go back and eat that guy. Very different because Boston changes a man, because war changes a man.

Where was I going? I called my mom. This is really important because I do not call my mom, because my mom wants to talk about feelings. I call my dad because my dad just wants to talk about stuff, get stuff done. He just wants facts.

I called my mom. I haven't called my mom in so long that I didn't even know her number. Changed her number. She was in my speed dial. I was like, "Ah man. That's why." I called her. We had a nice conversation. It just felt good.

I'm here to encourage you. If you want to work on heart things, call your mom. Call your mom. I called her. I missed her. I told her I missed her. We talked. We could talk for 33 minutes and 30 seconds. That's meaningful to me because I think that's the longest we've ever talked. Had a really heart conversation.

She watches my sermons. She's like, "Something is off." This is why I called her. She sent me a sermon, and she's like, "This is my favorite sermon. You should listen to it." I'm like, "Oh." What did she say?

I'm listening to the sermon. I'm like, "I don't even know what this guy is talking." It's a Russian sermon. He's not expositing anything. I'm all technical analysis. I'm like, "This is a terrible sermon. Get that sermon out of here."

I called her. I was like, "Why did you like that sermon?" She's like, "Well, he said good things." I said, "What did he say?" She's like, "I have no idea." Then I went back, and I listened to him. I'm like, "Oh, he was just speaking from the heart, and it connected to her heart." I'm like, "Oh wow."

Then I was like, "Mom, look. I'm changing things up in the church. It's kind of crazy. Everyone thinks I'm a nut, Mom. Can you please speak into this?" I'm not crazy. I just want to say.

Some of you are psychiatrists. You're like, "Well, I am analyzing Pastor Jan. What is wrong with this guy?" Especially if you listen to last four or five sermons, you see just a different person up here every single time.

I talked to Pastor Shane. Pastor Shane's like, "Hey, man. Everyone's freaked out. Can you just connect everything and do it in one thing?" That's what my wife says. I'm like, "All right."

I called my mom. I said, "Mom, what would you recommend I do?" She said two things. She said, "Tell everyone, especially the sisters in the church, that you're not fighting them. You're fighting for them. You're fighting for their faith."

I was like, "Oh, that's a good thing to say." I'm not fighting. This is what Adam should have said. "Hey, Eve, baby. You're offering me an apple. I'm going to go have a steak. I don't want to fight you about it. I'm going to go to war against the serpent who's offering you," right?

That's what should have happened. Then she said this. She said, "Also, can you slow down your pace because I no speak English good." That's true. Just bear with me. I'm trying to expand. I got a big heart. I'm trying to find my range of voice. I have all kinds of something.

2 Corinthians 8:16. It's the heart. "Thanks be to God." God, thank you. Paul believes in God. When Paul talks about faith, we're saved by grace through faith. He understands. Yes, I believe in God. Yes, I believe that God puts things into a person's heart, things to do for God.

"Thanks be to God, who put into the heart of Titus the same earnest care I have for you." When God saves a person, He puts into their heart not just salvation, not just forgiveness of sins. Unfortunately, that's where a lot of Christians stay.

This is my challenge to you, church, my appeal to you. Do not just stay at the place of, my sins are forgiven. If your sins are truly forgiven, your heart is transformed. You have a deep passion and love for God, for people. You care. You care for people.

When God saved me, He... This is why I found the newsletter so funny, because I find my life so funny. I find it ridiculous that God has placed me in the position that He's placed me.

Whenever I talk about wins in my past, I'm not saying it because I'm awesome or because I'm so capable. I'm telling you those wins are important to me because it was a miracle. It was a miracle that I ended up in this country. It was a miracle that I grew up in a Christian household. It was a miracle that I got into college.

Anytime I share any of that, I'm like... If you knew little pepperoni-faced me in middle school, you'd be like, "Oh." It's all a miracle. When I see things that I hope for the church in the future and they sound crazy to you, well, it's because I've seen miracles of God in my past.

I've seen God work over, and over, and over. When we started the church, Pastor Andy reminded me of this in staff meeting. He's like, "Remember that time you got up in the library of the YMCA, and you said that we are starting a church that one day is going to fill Fenway Park with a worship service?"

I was like, "Oh yeah, I did say that." Here's why that hit me. I'm already past that. This is the way my heart works. Because I really love, I just assume that God is going to bless us so incredibly because God loves us so much. I'm like, "Of course, we're going to fill Fenway Park."

I'm already onto the church building. When are we going to build the church building for everybody? This is the way my faith works. When I said, "Hey, everyone, can you please just catch up?" I said that last week. Everyone's like, "Oh, chill out, bro."

I'm saying not just catch up in knowledge. I'm saying catch up in faith, but for you to catch up in faith, you got to catch up with your heart, not just with your mind. To do that, I got to share what's on my heart.

When God saved me, He really made me work to love, love Him, love His word, and love His mission. I want to do something really significant with my life because I read the Bible. It's like, I see Christians nowadays. They live biblical lives, with small, small B, small letters, biblical.

If you read the Bible, the reason why that word is used in other contexts, it's like biblical... This is biblical. I'm reading the Bible. I'm like, "Why isn't my life biblical? Am I leading a life that could truly be a chapter in the Bible which is legendary?"

Well, how do you live a legendary life? You do what Jesus Christ did, the greatest legend, the greatest man, the Son of God, the Son of man. He lived for people. He cared for people. He sacrificed for people.
I knew I was called into ministry. I was training up for it, and then I met Tanya. I explained the legend part. One of the things that I do to live a legendary life is I live a life that would... when I tell the story so that people would just be so amazed that it's beyond.

I do things where I'm like, "That wasn't me. That was the Lord. That wasn't me. That was the Lord." I'm like, "All right, Lord. I need a pastor's wife. Can you send me a pastor's wife?" I gave God a list of things, a requirement, a list.

She needs to be a woman of God. She needs to know the Bible better than me. She needs to actually care about evangelism because that's what real Christians do. I threw in freckles and green eyes just for fun, just to see what the Lord would do with it.

I met Tanya. I'm like, that's the one. That's the one. She didn't know it yet. I had to convince her. I did. We were called together to ministry. We went to seminary. In seminary, I thought I was going to go to Russia.

From seminary, I realized Lord stirring something in my heart to go to Boston. I'm from the area. I want to go to Boston. I want to plant a church. Tanya didn't want to go. She didn't want to go. She cried. She cried her first vision trip.

Well then, she's like, "You know what, baby? If you believe, I'm going to pray about it. Our hearts are bound together." Just to show you how we love each other, this is why when everyone is freaking out, when my wife and I... We just go at it. We go at it because we love each other. There's no exit ramp. There's no... It's like, we're going go duke it out because we're got to live together anyway.

At home, it's the culture of real talk most of the time. I have one story to explain how different we are. Everyone assumes that Jan and Tanya are Slavic. Therefore, they're exactly the same because everyone assumes that if you're Russian, Ukrainian, whatever, from all these countries, that you're just Russian, which is kind of racist. No offense. None taken.

She's from Ukraine. I'm from Estonia. I grew up here. We are very different, including our senses of humor. When I was trying to communicate with the joke thing, it's like, you really got to love someone to know what makes them laugh.

She's found out what makes me truly laugh. I'll give you one example of when she made me laugh harder than I've ever laughed in my whole life. It was my 38th birthday. She got me a little gift. I take it out of the little gift bag. It's a T-shirt. It's a black T-shirt.

On the front is a picture of Michael Scott. She's going to hate this story. I love the story. Under the picture, it's a very famous phrase that he says. I was dying. I was like, "This is the funniest thing I've... " to the point where she's like, "What's going on? Why is this that funny?"

I was like, "Do you know what it says? Do you know what that means?" She said, "It's like when I tell you to do something and then you go do... " That's what she said. She has no idea, but she knew that was going to be funny for me.

What that showed me is that woman does not get me at all, but she gets me on a level that nobody does. That's what love is. That's what love in a family is. You get to know each other's idiosyncrasies, just things that are weird about you.

I say that because we have this at staff meeting. The staff of Mosaic... We have a group chat that is absolutely hilarious. None of you will get it. We get it because we have a language that connects our hearts.

St. Paul says, "Look. Before you tell people about care you have for them, hey, can you tell them what's in your heart? Can you tell them how much you love before you tell them information about God?"

Here, I just want to pause and talk particularly to men because this sermon is about a heart of a man. I want to address, specifically, gentlemen. Hey, I don't know if you notice, we have hearts.

Ladies, just as FYI, we have hearts. We have feelings, a broad range of feelings. I have to mention that because we... Number one, we live in a culture where that's not that important. Men aren't welcome to share their feelings because that doesn't do anything because it's all about skills, and what you can do, and making money, and executing.

What is the heart? It's the center of emotion. Men have emotions. We have to process and feel things. Men do it differently than ladies. Men, when we're really growing together, we're growing together because we connect our hearts. For men, it's different.

Ladies... They go out for tea. They go for a walk. They read a book together or things like that. Gentlemen... We don't really connect like that. We connect, like, "Hey, man. You want to do something? What do you do? Do you build something? Hey, teach me how to build. Show me your skills. Show me what you're good at."

Then shoulder to shoulder, as we're learning, our hearts are connected. We connect at a much deeper level than we would otherwise. That's why for gentlemen, community groups, sitting around the circle... I tell people that community groups are kind of the... It's the gateway drug to the church.

Maybe worship service is, but what I'm saying is to go really deeper, community group is just there for you. Open the Bible. You pray together. You get connected with your hearts on mission for the Lord.

Don't just share wins because if you share wins... This is a lesson I'm learning, is if you keep sharing wins, just, people think you're just super human. As a believer, we believe in the Holy Spirit, don't we? We believe that the Holy Spirit sometimes anoints people.

When you share wins, when you share a vision, when you share faith, when you share from the heart, you're not saying, "I'm awesome." You're saying, "This is very important. This is very different. I want to explain this to you because that's not me. I'm actually kind of pathetic, but it's the Spirit of God in me."

I'll just give you one story of when my mom... Since I'm on this throne. My mom really ministered my soul. The very first time I was called to preach the gospel, to preach God's word, I preached in my home Russian church in a tie. I got up there with a Bible. I didn't want to preach. I'm like, "God, did you want me to preach? I don't want to preach. What am I going to preach on if I don't want to preach?"

I preached on Jonah because Jonah didn't want to preach either. I got up there. I had the sermon memorized because I had to preach in Russian. I got paralyzed. I turned beet red, cotton mouth, everything.

If you don't understand that point, you don't understand why this is hilarious. I got down. It was the most uncomfortable sermon for everyone in the church. I got down. My mom's like, "Hey. Hey, what happened?"

My dad's like, "This is what you should fix next time." Then my mom is like, "Oh, what happened?" She's like, "Oh, you're afraid. You're afraid of people." Then this is the way she does. She called everyone is село, which is a village.

She's like, "They're just people. They're just people. You're a person. They're a person. Just share what's on your heart." I was like, "Oh, you can't share what's on your heart if there's fear of how you will be misinterpreted."

That's the day and age that we live in. It's all just information, information, information, mind, mind, mind, mind. That's where we go to war. We don't really share what's on our heart, what's really going on because we're not sure that people will understand.

One thing men don't do enough is to really talk about how they feel things. In this season where I'm trying to reshape the culture of the church, what I'm trying to do is just to bring more people in. I have a really big heart. I love all people, all kinds of people. I can relate to all kinds of people.

That's why people that know me know I can connect because of my very diverse experience. I can connect with people from everywhere. That's why at this church, we have people from all over the world because one on one, I know how to speak to different people.

When I get up here, all of you are in the room at the same time. I'm trying to have a one-on-one conversation. My mind just breaks. What I'm doing is I'm trying to expand the culture of the church to include speaking from the heart. To speak from the heart, you got to be honest about what's going on inside.

How are you? You know what? Things kind of did not go on well. There were seasons in my life where there's deep, deep sadness, grieving, that I'm like, "Yeah, this isn't helpful to anybody. I just need to encourage everyone from God's word when I don't really want to feel."

Did I get to the Tanya story yet? I've got a lot of Tanya stories. I'll tell you one story. During COVID, I choked up for the first time in a sermon because I'm like, "This." I'm preaching to a camera downstairs. Pastor Shane, Chloe handling logistics. I'm looking at the camera, empty room. It hit me, just overwhelm hit me, how long this is going to be.

I just saw that this is going to be part of our life for a long time and that the church was going to be gutted through it. I got choked up. Then I went home. I forgot about it because that's what I do. I went back to work.

Then Sunday comes. I preach on Thursday. Sunday comes. My wife and I... We watched the livestream in different rooms because we tried watching the livestream once together, and my wife is like, "Oh finally, I have an opportunity. I'll finally tell you everything that you should have fixed in real time."

I'm like, "This isn't helping, baby. I'm going to another room." Then she saw me get choked up. Then she's like, "Never do that again. People need strong leader." If you know my wife, that's what she says.

I was like, all right. I packed on 50 pounds of muscle and figured out how to grow a beard. Here I am. You're welcome, Tanya. Thank you, Tanya.

This week, I had time to process. I went back to that moment. I was like, "You know what? That's messed up, that you can't share what's on your heart. How am I supposed to lead people into battle if they don't know I care so much that I'm willing to lead the charge and die? How can I say that from the heart if people don't know I really love them?"

It does grieve me when sad things happen. That was a sad time in my life. I remember Julie Busby came up to me. She's like, "Hey, man. Wow. Pastor Jan does get sad." That really hit me. I'm like, "Why don't people know that?" Oh, because I'm a tremendous actor, by the way. I can get up here, and I can do the whole joyful thing.

Every once in a while, men, we have to share what's on our heart, and we have to connect at a heart level because no one really cares how much you know until they know how much you care. If you care, then you can give them what you know. If you care, if they know your heart, then when you speak of what faith God puts in your heart... That's really my gift.

A lot of people don't know that. My spiritual gift is faith. That's my superpower, very illogical faith. When none of the data makes sense and everyone's like, "Why are you doing what you're doing?" I'm like, "It makes me sense to me because the Holy Spirit made it make sense to me."

It doesn't make sense to anyone else around until I really share my heart. That's what St. Paul says in verse 16. We're talking about Titus. Titus is his disciple. Titus became a Christian because St. Paul shared his life and heart with Titus. He's like, "Hey, Titus. Let me tell you my story."

That's the most powerful way of doing evangelism, is just telling your story. Let me tell you about all the miracles God did in my life. Let me tell you who I was before I met Jesus on the road to Damascus. Let me tell you what Jesus did. He revolutionized my life. He put me in a place where I am supposed to do the same for other people, share the gospel in a way that connects to their hearts so their hearts are changed.

I'm thankful for St. Paul for preaching the gospel and sharing his heart. I'm thankful for Titus for sharing what God put in his heart. I'm thankful for Jesus Christ, with whom it all starts, for coming and sharing his heart, what's on his heart, speaking truth in love because everybody knew that He loved them. Everything that He did was motivated by love to the point that He was willing to die, and He sacrificed Himself on the cross.

He's like, "This is how big my heart is. Everything I do, I do it because I love God and people." Paul influences Titus, and the influence is not just with truth but with love, with his heart. He says to Titus, "Hey, Titus. Do you understand the world?" Do you understand who your master is because if you don't understand that Jesus Christ is your king, that Jesus Christ is your master, you don't understand anything.

If you think you are your own master, that's when you will understand that you're not a very good master. Either you become a despite to yourself and just drive yourself to produce, produce, produce, or you allow your flesh to take over. You allow your passions, and your lust, and your greed, and everything inside that's sinful, all the evil in here, to take over, Titus.

You need a master who can put everything in here in order and tell you what to do, give you marching orders. Young man, do you know who your master is? Do you know who your king is? Do you know who your God is? If not, you don't know what your purpose is in life. It's definitely not just, have a good time until you die. That's a very meaningless way to live.

Movies are not made about people like that, that inspire. We're inspired by legends, by legendary movies where people submit to a greater, higher calling. Who's your master, Titus?

Then once you know who your master is, hey, Titus, young man, what's God calling you to do? What's the very specific mission that God has placed in your heart? It's very specific. God does have a very specific plan for every single person.

To understand your mission, you got to share that with people. You say, "I feel like this is... God was place." Share it with your community because I have people that come to me all the time. They're like, "I feel like I'm called to international missions." I ask them, and I talk about it.

Then I say, "Okay, why don't you start now in the city where there's people from all over the world?" We are together, are to shape each other's mission, whatever that mission is.

Before you think, gentlemen, especially young, single gentlemen... Before you get to know someone to marry, before you find a mate, you got to know who your master is. You got to know who your mission is.

Then once you know your mission, then you know how to meet someone that can help you in that mission, that we're partners together, someone you can lead in that mission. Too many men are lost, young men in the nation. That's why we look to voices, young men, like Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson, to teach you about manhood instead of looking to Jesus Christ.

Those voices are helpful as long as you know that Jesus Christ is the master giving you a mission. Before you think about dating, get that ironed out. Then when you meet a girl, you're not just saying, "Hey, I'm looking for a 10, physically." I'm looking for a 10, holistically, so that we can be on mission together and be as effective as possible.

Let's do another verse. We're on a run. Verse 17, "For he not only accepted our appeal, but being himself very earnest he is going to you of his own accord." His own accord because God put it on his heart. God, I'm ready. I'm ready. Put me in. Put me in. What do you want me to do?

St. Paul says, "Seasoned, mature Christian." "Hey, Titus, you have eagerness to serve God. Now I got a job for you." He appeals. One of the things I noticed is that I make appeals. I'm like, "I have this vision for a church building with a school." No one really understands because no one really understands the heart. That's why I'm trying to share the heart of the Father.

Before I appeal, I need you to be on the same page of, "Hey, are you asking God, 'Hey, God. What did you put on my heart? What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do?'" Then when I stand up and I make appeals, it makes sense.

Church, I will make appeals. I will challenge you and not because I'm mad at you, but because I believe in you. I want the absolute best for you. If you're not sure of your specific mission, well, until God calls you elsewhere, I am here to tell you. Your mission is to take Boston. This is our town. This is what it means to be a man of God.

You walk into a place. You say, "You know what? God has placed me here. I'm taking responsibility for this town." We're going to change things from the inside out. Lord really spoke to me this week when I read... For the very first time, it hit me, what's at the bottom of our license plates.

What's at the bottom of our license plates? Spirit of America, Massachusetts. How's that going? Kind of demonic, if you ask me. It's a demonic spirit that's coming out of here, a spirit of criticism and condemnation, judgementalism. Certainly not a spirit of true, sacrificial, authentic, real love.

God is calling us into this place to change the spirit. To change the spirit, we got to plead with God, "God, anoint us by the power of the Holy Spirit to exercise the demon," that is the spirit of America, that is Massachusetts. I welcome you into that mission.

Verse 18, "With him we are sending the brother who is famous among all the churches for his preaching of the gospel." It's Titus. This brother is famous for preaching the gospel. There's no need to be famous for preaching the gospel. Some people do preach the gospel, and they're more famous for it, but that's not really the point at all.

The point is always to make the gospel famous because Jesus Christ is to be famous. We are to worship and glorify Him. There's lots of lessons in that text, but the point that I want to bring out is when God calls you to something, He's going to build a team around you, brothers and sisters.

The bigger the calling, the more people God is going to bring into the call. It's just a matter of finding your position on the team. Being in one position doesn't make you better or more significant than any other. Some positions are more visible than others, but they're all equally important.

One person is the quarterback. Another person has to be the lineman. They're friends at the end. The wins are wins for the team. We are to be hard workers at whatever we do. This gentleman wanted to preach the gospel. He was famous for it because he did it well.

One of the things that I'm telling you I'm doing is in this season, I'm pushing myself to become a better communicator of the gospel, that after 10 years, I look back, I'm like, we did some great things. We did some great things.

I'm so proud of this church. I'm so proud of what we've accomplished together. I'm so proud of your sacrifice, and your service, and your generosity, of your faith, of your selflessness. I'm so proud of you.

I'm doing soul-searching. For me, I'm like, "There's things I should have done differently." I'm saddened by the fact that I did not stir hard enough, partially because when I stir the church, the church stirs back, because when I switch things up, people get freaked out. They're like, "Are you crazy?"

I'm switching things up. I'm stirring things up because I want more healing. One of the things I wish I had done, I wish I had stirred people up sooner. I wish I had invited people into the heart, into the vision of what we're trying to do at this church and calling people to make hard sacrifices.

I'm making heart sacrifices. Staff is making heart sacrifices. People have planted their life here. I'm stirring you up, church, to make those sacrifices, to look into the heart. I stir myself up. That's what I'm trying to say.

I preach the sermon. Then every Sunday night, I watch it. The last four have been riveting for me. The reason why I started switching stuff up is I got to a point where my preaching, where I would get bored watching myself. No one wants a sermon like that because it wasn't from the heart.

I've been sharing what's on my heart, but I'm freaking people out because they're not used to what's on my heart. That's why this is different. I watch the game tape, what I did well. I invite feedback, but here I just want to mention something.

I have concentric circles of feedback. When people send me feedback, I have a question. Are you a fellow soldier? Are you here for the long haul? Do you have vision in your heart to help us raise sons and daughters of God? Are we in this together? What are we doing?

To the level that you're like, "Yeah, I'm in... " My wife... Yeah, I'm here. I'm here. I don't like when you switch things. I'll tell you. Tanya believes. She's got the gift of faith just like I do. The thing is she hears a sermon, and then she's got to go back to the guy who preached it and live with that guy.

It's not that she doesn't believe in what God's doing. She's just not ready for the man that I'm becoming. If you know anything about me, I go through a season where I'm just different. I just change. There's things that never change. You get an anointing. You got a vision to do something great.

She's like, "Oh, I got to live with that guy. He thinks he's going to rebuild the world." We're here. We love each other. When you give me feedback, I ask, how close are we? Tanya, Pastor Shane, Pastor Andy, Raquel, Chloe, Tyler, Caleb, my friends, my CG, my family... I receive the feedback. I receive when you coach me.

I know it's hard to get through to a person like me, but I receive it, and I welcome it. I want you to know, I process all of it with the Holy Spirit and the holy scriptures. At the end of the day, I got to put it altogether. I do receive it. I do love you. We're doing this together. I receive the feedback.

One thing about the staff, I just want to say. A lot of people don't understand how much we love each other. When we got beef, and you're like, "Something's up between Pastor Shane and Pastor Andy... " I'll say that hypothetical because that's not real.

I just want to say the reason why we do what we do is because we love each other. We're like, "Yeah, we're called. We're called. All right." You can be direct. You can say what you need to say. You can knife battle it out sword to sword. As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. You got to duke it out.

I say, I love it. The Holy Spirit courses through our meetings. We love each other. We're just going at it a thousand miles an hour. If you were in the room, you wouldn't even understand what's going on because we have years together of relationship and love. We just communicate in ways that a lot of people do not understand.

Then we pray. We hug it out. We go home zonked because if you've ever spent four hours in a room with me, you get zonked. That's just how we work. We're in this together.

Verse 19, "Not only that, but he has been appointed by the churches to travel with us as we carry out this act of grace that is being ministered by us, for the glory of the Lord himself and to show our good will." Last week, we were talking about this act of grace, this generosity.

The generosity isn't just money. It's being generous with your life, with your home, with your lessons. There's people in the church that... You know Christianity. You know life better than younger people or people younger in their faith. We're to share life with brothers and sisters and minister to them.

Verse 20, "We take this course so that no one should blame us about this generous gift that is being administered by us, for we aim at what is honorable not only in the Lord's sight but also in the sight of man."

St. Paul says everything we do, we want to honor people. We want to honor God, honor people. He's taking precautions to do that. Here, I just want to pause and say, yes, we want people to honor everything we do. They don't have to understand what we do, but they have to honor it.

Honor is a very cultural aspect. Different people from different cultures come in, and they show honor in different ways. Thus, the challenge of planting a church in Boston, Massachusetts, in 2021. We come in, and we don't really know how we are to honor. What is honorable in other cultures is not honorable here.

There's a melting pot even within the church as the church continues to grow, and as new people come in, and as people move away. The only way that this melting pot works is if there's someone here just stirring the pot, stirring the pot, stirring the pot, so we understand each other. That's my calling. I want to stir in a way that brings healing. I want you to know that I'm cooking with love. Everything that we're cooking here, we're cooking with love.

Verse 22, "And with them we are sending our brother whom we have often tested and found earnest in many matters, but who is now more earnest than ever because of his great confidence in you." He talks about this guy who comes. He has a vision. He has a plan.

St. Paul is... Let me test you. Are you ready? We in the church need to have real talk, to have hard, tough conversations because we're testing each other. We want to strengthen each other to be a church where we experience life together, have real life and have real talk because that's what leads to real faith and real love.

Don't be soft-minded and hardhearted. That's what the world wants for everybody. Soft-minded... This is what you're to think, not how to think. That's being soft-minded. Hardhearted... If you don't agree with me, I don't love you. We're to be tough-minded in that, hey, is this true? Is this really true? Is this true from the perspective of God's word?

Be tenderhearted even to people that we disagree with. The pushback is always, but there's always two sides to the issue. You got to equally represent both sides of the issue. Why? One person has to. The truth has to be truth.

We are to be willing to engage and say, "You know what? I might be wrong. Hey, change my line. Hey, can you convince me? Show me the data? Where from scripture is what you're saying true?" There's two sides to whatever issue, but there's only one truth.

I found that this is Satan's current strategy. Just keep everybody divided, divided, divided. They never talk. They never really connect on a heart level, so no one ever really understands each other. Instead of being united and building together, we are being divided and destroying each other in relationships, in families, in the nation.

I've really grown in this awareness of what is happening in the world. I used to never pay attention to the politics and all this stuff partially because I'm a child of the '90s. I grew up in the United States in the '90s.

You know what? I didn't even know who president was most of the time. Freshman year of college was 2001, which is absolutely different from the world today. Today everybody knows everything that is going on everywhere.

Then you never want to talk about it because you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Then we never really take time to figure out, "Hey, what is true? Hey, what resources are you reading? What sources are you reading? Hey, let's have difficult conversation."

I used to do this. I used to say, "What's the left saying? What's the right saying?" Yeah, the truth is kind of probably in the middle, until I realized, "Oh, nothing ever gets better." It's kind of all moving in the same direction.

Now this is my working theory of politics in the United States. It's like fake wrestling. I grew up watching fake wrestling. This is where they hit people in the head with a chair, and drop them on a table, and things like that.

You're like, "I think they're hurting each other." Well, little bit. They're a little hurting each other. They're kind of duking it out, but then they go into the locker room. They shake hands. They hug. They pick up their checks. The checks are all signed by the same person: Satan or someone. I don't know, whoever's funding them.

I'm saying this to say, now that we are creating a culture of real talk from the front, I want to share something that still grieves my heart. It still grieves my heart that I have not spoken directly into difficult situations in our nation as they were happening.

Primarily, I didn't do that because I was like, "They're not going to get me. The church doesn't understand." You just won't understand the perspective that is in my heart because I don't just analyze what's happening with my heart. I analyze everything that's happening with my heart, with my soul.

Yeah, it grieves my soul, what happened to George Floyd. That grieves my heart. I put a lot of thought into this newsletter because I sent it at 8:46 AM. Well, 8:46 was long as the knee was on George Floyd's neck.

I never really spoke into it because it wasn't really clear what was happening out there in my heart, so I never really addressed it the way I should have addressed it and said, "Hey, hey, nation, church. You can't just think about this from a position of feelings. That's what the enemy wants. The enemy wants to get you to feel something so that then you act on those feelings, and you destroy things."

From a biblical perspective, we got to... Yes, that's what we feel. Let's sit here. Let's lament. Let's grieve together and then process what is it that's going on in the world. Then from perspective of the soul... You do the heart. You do the mind. Then from the soul, it's like, what does this do in my soul?

Oh, that's what matters. It's people's souls. Well, that's what Satan wants us to not think about, is people's souls. Before we muster all of our strength, we got to say, "Look. We got to think about this from four-dimensional love."

Love God with all your heart, soul, strength, mind. From each perspective, you look at the issue. Once you start doing that, once you start realizing that this is how God wants us to process things, through the heart, through the soul, through the strength, through the mind, and then you meld those together.

After a while, you begin to see things differently than perhaps others. God's really been working this in my life because God sent me four little Tanya's who help me process things very differently.

Sophia processes things with her mind. Elizabeth, with her heart. Ekaterina... It's all strength. Can I outrun you? Am I stronger than you? Can I out-eat you? We lift weights together. She loves when I pick her up from school because she's like, "My dad's stronger than the rest of the dads. Yeah."

Then there's Milana who's all soul, all soul, all soul. She just wants to have a good time. She doesn't even pay attention in community group unless you mention the word fun at least once. At least you laugh at least once.

I have to learn how to love each one very differently, but then when we're in the car together or at home together, they're all speaking at the same time. I have to do all of this all at the same time. That's why I have a hard time sharing what's on my heart. I have gotten better at the four-dimensional loving, of loving holistically. This is what the Lord calls us to.

I'll close with this. My wife and I were having a conversation this week. The conversation was like this because I had this vision from the Lord. The vision was very, very clear. I was like, where am I going to be in 10 years? I'm going to be here. Well, if I'm going to be here, my family is going to be here. How old's my daughter? She's going to be 23. My oldest daughter is going to be 23.

I asked my wife. I was like, "Where are the husbands coming from of these men? Where are the men coming from that these ladies are going to marry?" They might have the gift of singleness. Statistically, probably get married. I'd like for them to get married because I want grandkids.

My wife said, "Probably coming from Russian church where they produce real men." I said, "First of all, do they? Apparently, we still have to nail that one down. Number two, why aren't they coming from Mosaic? Why aren't these sons coming from Mosaic?"

She said, "They can't handle down." Mosaic, I'm welcoming you into my Father's heart so you understand what's going on in here because I think by God's grace, I have been anointed to raise daughters, spiritually.

Because I've been raising daughters, I know how to raise sons. You're like, "Why do you say that?" I say, "Because most American men are raised like daughters." I'm sharing. I said it lovingly, so you can't do anything.

I bring up this topic because it does stir stuff in my heart because I really wanted a son. This is why Tanya and I... With our fourth, we were like, "All right. This is a son." It was Milana.

This week, I wrote a letter to my future son. When I'm speaking, I'm speaking to the spiritual sons. If you are a spiritual father, this is the vision that I'm casting. We're to raise spiritual son and spiritual daughters, men and women of God. This is what I wrote.

I wrote, "Dear Son, I love you. I'm proud of you. I loved you before you were even born. I longed for you. I love you with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength, with all my mind. I tried to raise you the way I wish I had been raised. I revealed truths to you that have taken many hard years to learn. Here's just a few.

SDG, Soli Deo Gloria. Live for God's glory alone. Only when you live for God's glory alone, audience of one, following Jesus Christ who is the man you'll become, the man, because your faith, your love casts out fear so the opinions of people are just the opinions of people.

DBG... Love someone more than yourself. Don't be greedy. That's the world tell you to live for yourself. Pleasurize yourself. Just do whatever's fun. Good times. No, no, no, Son. That's not a legendary life.

LFG is let's fervently go, fervently. Just everything you got. GSD is get stuff done. Actually work with your hands. We are men to serve God with our head, heart, and hands. What are we doing with our hands?

DBAB is don't be a baby, brah, because to be a man of God that actually does something of significance, you got to be able to take pain. A lot of this is spiritual war that's going on. Just, body is falling left and right because you don't have the pain tolerance, so do things that are hard. Deadlift or squat, just things that are like, wow, yeah, I've been through something.

Son, play games, sports. Learn strategies. Apply them to real life and real battle. Pick up your sword. Learn it inside and out. Wield it powerfully against the enemy in here, in here, Son, and then out there. I'm here to help. With love... I mean it. It's how I lost. Dad."

Let's pray to our Heavenly Father. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you love us with a Father's heart. Jesus, we thank you that you are the Son of God. You came to reveal the heart of God the Father.

Holy Spirit, we thank you for these holy scriptures. We thank you for the many lessons that are here. We thank you, Holy Spirit, that you don't just want us to exposit the scriptures, but you want the scriptures to expose what's going on in our hearts, in our souls, in our minds.

I pray that you continue to make us a church, Lord, that's real, where we can have real talk about real life to develop real faith and all from a heart of real love, the love of Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.