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. I will explain my t-shirt in my conclusion so you have to keep listening.

As I was worshiping, I remembered that even just a little while ago, I used to rate our house bands. I used to rate them. In my mind, there was the A team. There was the B team. Once in a while, there was a C team. I think all our events are A team now. And that's saying a lot.

I'm not a musician but like music, it's saying a lot because Caleb's not here and that was just tremendous so praise God.

If you watch online, you don't come in person. Let me just tell you what you're missing. You're missing the live band. When you go to a party, there's good parties and there's better parties and the good parties have a DJ. The better parties have a band. It's a live band. And what I'm saying is if you watch online, you don't come in person. I am calling you to repentance. If you're in sin, if you're in sin. If there's other reasons, we can talk. I'm calling everyone. Everyone should go to church.

How's your Thanksgiving?

I had a really good Thanksgiving. My Thanksgiving just to tell you perspective, every single Sunday, I don't know why the time works like this but I get a notification from Apple that tells me about my screen time and it's always right before I go up to preach. My screen time for this week was one hour and 27 minutes which is significant to me because it went down by 71% from last week. So I'm saying I had a tremendous Thanksgiving, spent time with family at my dad's house, there's 21 of us, 21 eternal souls.

My sister, Aida, brought her dog Zuma. So now my daughters want a dog. I'm praying for the Lord to change everyone's heart in the house to want a dog. So I ask that you pray with me.

I like Thanksgiving. This is why I like Thanksgiving. I like Thanksgiving because everyone now has to be thankful. Unfortunately, most of the nation doesn't know who to be thankful to and I just want to tell everyone, you got to thank Jesus. You got to thank the Lord. The Lord is so good to us. So with that said, would you please pray with me? I prepared a little pastoral prayer.

Lord, we're thankful. We thank you for being the best God ever. Thanks for being so loving. Thanks for being so forgiving. Thanks for being so merciful and thanks for ever being present with us. And thanks for giving us the greatest gifts, love, grace, wisdom, strength, courage, family, friends.

And we're thankful for this church. If we didn't have this church, I have no idea where I'd go to church. We've got the best worship music. We've got the best kids in youth ministry. We've got the friendliest greeting. The hospitality is tremendous. This church has helped me raised my daughters. This church has grown my faith like no other, like no other. Thank you, Lord.

Heavenly Father, we pray that you give each one of us a heart for the lost, break our hearts over the fact that we have siblings or parents or children or spouses or friends who don't know Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior.

Lord Jesus, give us courage to do everything we possibly can to help them finally see how awesome you are, that there's nothing more meaningful, there's nothing more significant, more transformed, more exhilarating, more joy filled, more hope filled, more peace filled, more love filled than to believe in you and obey you. Obedience of faith. What a gift. Thank you, Jesus. Holy Spirit, we welcome. You magnify God, the father, God the son and God, the Holy Spirit. Amen.

So I was at my dad's. He lives in Jamestown. It's an island which is a boss thing to do like I'm just going to live in an island. He does. And while we were in his backyard and he had not a fire pit because he's Russian, we had a bonfire just in his backyard and I was like, "Hey, is that even legal?" He's like, "Well actually I went to the town hall and I asked can I have a bonfire and they said no one's ever asked the question." So he just took that as an answer that he can.

We're sitting around the bonfire and it's tremendous and he decided to start burning just broken branches and leaves and as he is doing it, he's making fun of Americans for bagging leaves. That's my dad.

We're sitting there. It's him, it's me, and it's my daughter, Sophia, we're sitting there. Every once in a while, my dad just out of nowhere, he just starts reciting poetry, Russian poetry.

He likes this guy Yevgeny Yevtushenko and he likes the guy because the guy wrote in Soviet times and the guy was a genius. No one knew that he was a genius until actually the Soviet Union fell apart because as then he could actually put his name on his stuff to get it published so he would publish everything anonymously.

One of the things that he published anonymously was he wrote a poem but he couldn't call it the monologue of a Russian or a Soviet writer so he called it a Monologue of an American Writer as if he's making fun of Americans. It's an American writer making fun of Americans but it's really a Soviet writer making fun of the Soviet Union. It's tremendous, it's genius. It's genius. So you should look it up.

But I'm going to cite a little bit to you in Russian and then I'll translate. And so you get the point, okay?

Мне говорят — ты смелый человек. Неправда. Никогда я не был смелым. Считал я просто недостойным делом унизиться до трусости коллег.

It's a poem about courage and people tell him, "You have courage," they tell me it's not true. I was never courageous. I simply felt it unbecoming to stoop to the cowardice of my colleagues.

Устоев никаких не потрясал. Смеялся просто над фальшивым, дутым. Писал стихи. Доносов не писал. И говорить старался всё, что думал.

I like that because it says, "I've shaken no foundations. I simply mock that pretense and inflation. I wrote articles, scribbled no denunciations. And I tried to speak all on my mind." Liked that.

О, вспомнят с чувством горького стыда потомки наши, расправляясь с мерзостью, то время очень странное, когда простую честность называли смелостью!

And that's his punchline and it goes like this. "Oh, our descendants will burn with bitter shame to remember when punishing vile acts at most peculiar time when plain honesty was labeled courage."

I want to meditate today on the word courage. Boldness. Are you courageous? Can you stand up and speak the truth to people who don't agree with you? Actually, people who despise the fact that there are even any people who believe what you believe. Imagine true Christian courage.

Like when the Pope... Bro, you are the boss of all the church, you're the Pope. You're the head guy and then you meet with the leader of the free world, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, and you do not call him to repentance. Bro, that's the easiest... That's your only job. And he didn't.

So I'm calling the Pope to repentance. Both of them. And I'm calling Joe Biden to repentance. And Trump for that matter.

Here's how I view a good president. You know what my test is. Would I let this guy babysit my daughters? We haven't had a good one in a while. I want a president that cares about children, that cares about families, that cares about what's most important in life.

So I'm calling everyone to repentance. I'm on a mission. I'm calling the whole nation to repentance. Everybody. We all need to repent of our selfishness and our self-absorption because every single one of us we live as if this movie called life is about us, that you're the main character of the movie, of life.

You're not the main character. Maybe you're in the supporting cast. Jesus is the main. He's the point. He is the point of everything. We need to repent and follow Him.

Many of you are courageous when it comes to secondary issues. No, I just wrote a few down. Politics, COVID vaccines, the economy, deep state, big food, big pharma, big tech, big banks, all that stuff. You're very passionate about it which is good and I respect passion. I really do. Whatever your passion, I respect it. But I'm also passionate and let's have a conversation.

But the main thing I want to talk about is Jesus Christ. I wish you would channel some of that courage of speaking truth. I wish you would channel to speak a truth to yourself. Speaking truth to your family members.

I have a dream. You know what my dream is. I have a dream that every single man and woman in this church on a daily basis gets up wherever you live in your house, you take out a Bible, a really big one, not on the phone because your kids think you're watching YouTube. You take out a Bible visually, it's important, and you read something and you read it with conviction and you explain it to the people that you live with. "This is what it means." And then you talk about it and then you pray for each other.

If every single one of us did that in our homes on a daily basis, everything will change. This is how I parent my children. And then I turn on my little Bose speaker and then we have a worship dance party. That's what we do.

That's how I teach my girls that worshiping Jesus is awesome. Why wouldn't you?

So courage. Imagine if every single one of us viewed ourselves as missionaries, full-time missionaries, not mercenaries, missionaries who transform the world.

Practically, what am I saying? What am I saying? I am saying everyone should start throwing tremendous parties, house parties. This has been on my heart for a while because I wanted to do this thing where I want to invite the whole neighborhood to party so we have tremendous food and there's live band and then I get up and just tell a few jokes and call people to repentance. I have that dream.

But I do that in my house already. I invite people in and you say, "Do you have a verse, Jan?" Yeah. Look at Luke 14, 12 through 14.

He said also to the man, this is Jesus. He said also to the man who had invited him. So some rich guy invited Jesus to a party and Jesus, it's kind of savage, because the guy invites Jesus to a party and then Jesus is preaching to the guy that invited Him to a party and this is what Jesus said.

"When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you'll be repaid. But when you give a feast..." When. What's the assumption, dear church? "When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just."

Did you even know that was in the Bible? If someone told me when I was a kid, "Hey, Jesus, just wanted everyone to have a good time. Jesus just wanted everyone to have fellowship, friendship. You will be blessed." I challenge you, church, resolved to throw great parties.

You know who's really good at this? Tyler. Tyler and Allison Burns.

I was at their party for Thanksgiving. You got to talk to Tyler. You know what the first thing he said when I came to his house? You know what the first thing he said. He said, "The fridge's over there, the bathroom's over there. Make yourself at home." That's all I needed to hear.

Oh, and he has this couch that reclines. That was awesome. And we watched football and we had fellowship.

Music, food, drink, dessert conversation, warmth, love, destruction of strongholds, fire pits, bonfire, scripture, laughter, reflection. Let the word of God flow like wine. Make memories, bless people. And you say, "Oh, that's expensive." I know. I throw parties and whenever I throw a party, I got to feed at least six human beings to begin with.

Have you taken five females to the movies for a date? Have you ever done the calculation of how much that comes out to? With two tubs of popcorn? Have you ever? We watched Clifford The Big Red Dog. It was awesome. That's how my daughter at Ekaterina is sneaking a dog into our house.

This is how I grew up. The best part of church for me was the parties. The sermons were all in Russian. I didn't understand half of what was going on and we had a choir, which I...

You know what? I've been thinking about choirs. Choirs are awesome. I think we should bring them back. I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud. Nate Young doesn't like that.

The parties were the best part of church. Every time we'd go to the park, we'd go to Lincoln woods. We throw a party after church. That was the best part because I was like, "Oh, this is what church is."

But they didn't call it a party. They call it общение, which is the most buzzkill kind of word that you can think of, which means fellowship. But it was actually a party.

If you remember the church when we got started, this is how we started the church we threw parties. We did apologetics the way apologetics was supposed to be done in the context of fellowship and friendship. When you could have a long conversation with someone, when I'm not just trying to win a debate and lose a friend, I want to continue the conversation at the next party where we can have full hearts of fellowship.

Dear Christian, people like to hang out with you. I say that because we live in a city of nerds which is awesome. When the nerds... You ever watched those old movies from the eighties when the nerds do awesome things? That's what I want this church to start doing. When the nerds start having a good time.
Where was I going? Oh, yeah. I want to call you to repent of your being introverted, church. "Oh, I'm so introverted." I am too. If you really know me, this is hard work for me. And then I have to go home and sit in a room by myself and listen to Russian Orthodox chants.

There's no Bible verse being an introvert. Jesus literally said love people and have conversations with them. Get to know them, have parties. So I never want to hear the word introvert-extrovert ever again. I'm just going to gauge people about how faithful they are as Christians.

Okay. Now it's time for the text. 2 Corinthians chapter 10. And I assume you've done all the homework. I've created another study guide this week and if you follow along the study guide, everything else will just make so much more sense. If you didn't get the study guide, go to mosaicboston.com. There's a blog section. I've got the study guide in there in a link as well. It's in the newsletter. If you haven't subscribed. I did all the exegesis and now we'll just talk through the text.

2 Corinthians chapter 10:1. "I, Paul," St. Paul, "I treat you," the church that he started, "by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. I who am humble when face to face with you but bold toward you when I am away. Exclamation mark."

What's going on here? What's going on here is that St. Paul has changed his tone because sometimes if you want to be heard, you have to switch things up. You have to switch up your tone especially if you're talking to different people.

In chapters eight and nine of 2 Corinthians, he was talking about generosity. He was talking about gathering, a collection, finances for the herding church in Jerusalem. And so he was talking of faithful Christians because that's who loves to hear about giving. And now he switches his tone because now he's talking to the wolves in the church, the wolves who crept in in sheep's clothing and he's speaking differently to them because they are trying to undermine everything that he has faithfully done. So that's the tone change.

He starts by saying... Before he talks about boldness. He says, "I entreat you, I plead with you, I compel you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ." I want to come to you with gentleness. I want to come to you with meekness. I don't want to come with boldness, I can and boldness is the rail to have certainty in a matter, be confident, be courageous. Courageous to do what? What's Paul doing? He's taking on the wolves in sheep clothing.

In Clifford The Big Red Dog, I will allude to that movie because I just watched it and it's a classic. But there's a mean sheep. There's a sheep that looks really nice but it wants to kill you. It's a mean sheep.
Well, St. Paul biblically speaking that's wolf in sheep's clothing, but St. Paul, this is fascinating to me, he doesn't just shoot the wolf. He pleads with the wolf. He tries to convert the wolf from being a mean sheep to a holy sheep. That's what he's trying to do.

Paul was meek and he was a gentle guy. Why? Because meekness and gentleness was Jesus' natural demeanor. Jesus was just a chill guy. He had a calm masculine presence that brought order to a chaotic world.

People like this when you're with them, just their presence calms everything in here. You have peace inside and you can create peace around you. That's why people wanted to hang out with Jesus. He was gentle. He was meek. That's why kids wanted to hang out with Jesus. Kids all the time saw that guy and say, "That guy's having a good time. I want to be close to him."

There's something about being a man of God or a woman of God where kids just want to hang out with you. You know me. I have a spiritual gift called being a baby whisperer. I said, "Give me a baby. I will put it to sleep." It's a calm presence.

But Jesus Christ could like... When Jesus would hug people, you knew that he really meant it and he could also suplex you. That's why the hug actually meant something more.

Jesus is bold. He is bold because he's gentle and when he sees someone hurting, the weak, he's bold in speaking and standing against it even to the point of death and that's why Jesus Christ died on across for us. He went to war.

Look, in a perfect world, you wouldn't need courage. But we don't live in a perfect world. If everyone was just a navy seal Christian, we could all just relax and just have a good time. They wouldn't have to be...

This is why I tell my girls. I'm like, "Can you just grow up a little? Because I can be more of myself around you if you just grow up a little, if I don't feel like I have to parent you all the time."

That's what St. Paul here is doing. He's like, "I want to come with meekness and humility and gentleness so we can just have fellowship. I don't want to come bringing discipline."

Meekness, gentle, humility. They weren't seen as virtues in Paul's day and the same today. But if you combine meekness and gentleness and humility and you also... A lot of us have that. But if you also add courage to actually say what everybody is thinking, to actually address the elephants in the room. If you know me, this is how I operate.

I was at Cane's Chicken yesterday, Raising Cane's. I wanted to finish off Thanksgiving well so I took my girls on a walk. Mom didn't know. I took them on a walk. "We're going on a walk. It's exercise, it's healthy." And then we got fried chicken.

But as we're in Raising Cane's, it's tremendous and the sauce, ah, slaps every time. I'm in line for 45 minutes because apparently you got to do the mobile order thing and people coming in and out and just grabbing stuff for mobile order. I'm like, "I should have... ahhh. Now I know."

Finally, the lines I move, I go up to the guy. I'm like, "Hey, man, can I help? Anything I can help with? I can't cook chicken, but I can pray for you. Can I..." And the guy's like, "Oh, the girl cashier, she just started." Oh my God. Okay.

But there was a guy next to me who had three kids and he was waiting for an hour and he was like, "Hey man, you just said out loud what everyone's thinking?" Like, "Yeah, that's what I do." It's my job to speak the truth with love and then I gave her a tip after. It's hard, I know.

But the point is you need courage. That's what he's saying. Verse two. "I beg of you that when I'm present I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some of you who suspect us of walking, according to the flesh."

He's like, "You've seen the boldness. I can be bold. I don't want to use that tone. So please put your lives in order. Please put the church in order." That's what he's saying. And the more you submit, dear church and dear Christian, the more you submit your life to Christ, the less energy your spiritual leaders have to invest in leading you to follow Christ and the more energy we can focus on reaching the lost.

I view much of what we do here as defense. Defense. Defense. COVID, it was all defense, defense, defense. Can we just protect the church, protect the church, protect the... Defense, defense, def... I'm sick of playing not to lose. Can we actually score? Can we actually throw some touchdowns? You know what I'm saying? Can we actually run the ball? Can we actually see our relatives get saved? Can we see our colleagues, our neighbors, everybody, everybody around us, people we interact with? Can we just share the gospel with them? Throw a party.

And the reason why we could do a lot more being on the offense if people just didn't get so offended, no offense. Imagine how sick our offense could be if people in the church didn't get offended when Pastor Jan with his t-shirt. I don't know. "What was he saying? Is that political statement?" If you know me, that's not a political statement. But if you know me really well, you're like, "Yeah, that's probably a political statement, double meaning. I don't know. I'll get to it."

I am doing this intentionally. I want to ruffle all your feathers. I want offense so we can finally get past defense and we can actually go on offense.

Yeah, you see Hebrews 13:17. "Obey your leaders." I love this verse. I really do. Would you pray this verse over me and you? "Obey your leaders and submit to them." What a word.

Americans don't understand this verse. Slavic people understand this verse. Basically, people from any other part of the world except for America, they get this verse because we don't do honor here.
"Obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping over your souls as those who will have to give an account."

Pastor Shane, Pastor Andy and I, we take this seriously. I know I will stand before God and God will say, "Jan Vezikov, did you care for the souls, those I've entrusted to you?" I pray for you every day. I pray for you every day. And if you have a prayer request, text me, email me. I will pray specifically. I pray for you every day. I pour... My whole life, it revolves around this. My whole life. Every single waking second. Even when I sleep, I dream about church. Every single second, I'm like, "Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, please bless your church. Let them..." Yeah, we'll go there.

So if you have criticism, critical spirit, you can bring constructive criticism. You can coach... Coach me, coach me. I welcome the coach. If you want to criticize my question is, are you responsible for the church? Will you give an account to God for the church? And if you want to be in that position, I can help you get there. If not, well, no offense. Let's see some people get saved and then you continue to let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that would be no advantage to you.

That last part really blesses my soul because there've been seasons in my ministry where there's been a lot of groaning like, "Ah." People that know me now realize I have so much joy in this season of life. I think this is my favorite time of my whole life. I think if Jesus came back today and be like, "You know what? Good. Okay, my screen time was only an hour 27. Sweet. I think I'm ready to go, Jesus."

The point is just follow the Lord. And if false teachers continue to bring destructive diabolical, demonic, critical spirit into the church undermining, St. Paul says, "My reputation, my integrity. I'll come at them with spirit filled power and boldness. Courage." Do you have courage?

Hebrews... I'll do 2 Corinthians. There's the same word for boldness he uses earlier in the letter, 2 Corinthians 6:6 through 10 where he talks about dying. He says this. "So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body," while we're still here, "we are away from the Lord for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord." Because I'd rather be dead because I'd be with Jesus, but I still have work to do.

"So whether we are home or away, we make it our aim to please Him for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body whether the good or evil."

Have you done enough for the Lord in the body that you're like, "Yes, Lord, I am ready for that second judgment?" First judgment is, did you believe in Jesus Christ? That's the first judgment. If you believe in Jesus Christ, repent of your sins, you will spend eternity in the house of God and a feast. And there's a work as well, but it's a party. Heaven is a party. Joy.

If you reject Jesus Christ, you will spend eternity in a place called hell. Hell, eternal, conscious suffering. I don't know how to make it even more clear than that. Fire and brimstone is that... Are you a Bible thumper? Fire, brimstone. Yeah, I am. It's in the Bible.

I believe in hell. This is why I weep over my lost friends. I weep over my lost family member. I weep. I weep because hell is real. People die on a daily basis and they're eternity apart from God. So have we done enough to get as many people in the house of God as we can?

Hebrews 13:6. "So we can confidently say," that's the same word, confidence, courage, it's confidence in the Lord and His word, "The Lord is my helper. I will not fear what can man do to me?"

I haven't done a C.S. Lewis quote in a while. So C.S. Lewis in Screwtape Letter says, "This courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty or mercy which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions." Pilot was merciful till it became risky.

Lot of you are tremendous Christians in church and then you forget when you leave church.

By the way, I think church would make a lot more sense if people thought about church as like I was thinking about this as we were worshiping as an Irish bar. You ever been to a good Irish bar where they have a live band and a violin? They literally sing and there's people at the bar who are... Men sing from their bellies.

I was listening to Mark Driscoll. So I do this every single Saturday night. If you want to know what rhythm Pastor Jan gets, I listen to Mark Driscoll servant, every single... Because I'm in the ministry because of that guy. If you don't like that guy, he... I'm a church planter because of that guy because that guy is like, "Hey young men of the nation, we should plant churches to take over the nation." I was like, "Oh, that sounds like a good idea." And that's why I went to ministry.

I listened to that guy. He's in Arizona and he was talking about men in worship, men singing, and he said, "Men who can't sing at worship, they don't sing because they're emotionally constipated." I like, "Oh, that's a good way of thinking about it."

You can't express what's in here unless there's other spirits. Well, we have the Holy Spirit so why can't we express?

And Martin Luther says this, "If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition, every portion of the truth of God except that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking. I'm not confessing Christ however boldly, I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved. They have to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point."

This is why I do not get why people go to seminary and then go take pastoral jobs down south. I don't get that.

Why aren't the best of the be... I'm not even... I'm trying to be better. I'm not even that good at it. There's people who are so much better at preaching. There's people, there's some Christians who are so just phenomenally talented and they're in places where it's saturated with churches. There's more churches down south than there are Dunkin Donuts in Rhode Island.

I just want everyone to move to Boston, that's what I'm saying.

2 Corinthians 10:3, "For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh." That's what the critics were saying, the false teachers. They would come in and St. Paul here is saying, "They think I'm walking according to the flesh. They, my critics, think that what is happening, what I'm doing in my ministry is according to the flesh because they have in their mind, this idea of what it means to be a spirit filled person."

Oh, yeah, my dad told me to wear a tie today. I told him I'm going to wear a t-shirt. He said, "You got to wear a tie." Say, "I'm not going to wear a tie because it points people to hell. I want to point people to heaven." If I'm going to wear anything, it's going to be a bow tie. It's funny. He said, "No, it's a noose. It's a noose that you are in submission of Jesus Christ." I said, "Oh, in that case, I'm going to put a yoke on me," because Jesus said, "Take my yoke upon you." Literally, he said that.

So what I'm saying is there's no picture in the Bible of what it means to be a spiritual person. That's why these false teachers who had an idea of a religious person, they've got the garb, they've got special hairstyle, and then you see someone who's not like that and you're like, "Ah, you're probably in the flesh and you're just doing what every other person does. You judge a book by its cover."

St. Paul uses the word flesh, sarx, and he's like, "I'm not living a rebellious life. I'm living a spirit filled life." And yes, St. Paul did have a sinful flesh and he would ask himself every morning, he'd get up and he'd say, "Am I in the spirit right now? Am I in the flesh or am I in the Holy Spirit?" And then from the outside, he just looked like a regular guy.

I think if St. Paul walked in, you look at him. Oh, that's a nice congenial gentleman. You would not think this is the guy who influenced the world like no one else after Jesus Christ. He just looked like a normal dude and that's why his words, written word, was more compelling to people because he communicated with such depth that it takes time, energy, humility, prayer, and meditation to understand and receive.

And the only way to win spiritual battles, this is a lesson here, is not to wage war with the flesh. A lot of us, we see everything that's going on around us. They're like, "Yeah, I'm going gun shopping." That's a different conversation for a different day.

That's not the real war. The real war is men and women of God on their knees, begging God for the Holy Spirit, studying scripture, just eating up... A lot of you don't understand scripture I've realized because you're not a big eater because you don't really expend a lot of energy. There's a lot of people like that. I've never had...

My kids, they just eat everything. Everything you put in front of them and then they go and expend all the energy, studying and running and playing music, making jokes, writing. They just work all day. I like living like that.

Well, when you actually do the Christian stuff, you expend energy and then you get really hungry and then you take the scriptures and you devour it, chapters at a time. You devour sermons, you devour worship music. You are in the spirit all the time.

I was re-listening to last week's sermon and I realized in the same way that I have typos in my newsletters. That's why I send them to my brother who caught two typos and then one he missed. But I realize when I preach, when I verbal process, I have typos that come out sometimes and I need to edit them. I said that David took on Goliath and 1 Kings 17, it's actually 1 Samuel 17. But in my mind, I mix them up 1 Samuel, 1 Kings because in the Russian Bible, there's no Samuel. There's 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 3 Kings, 4 Kings that's why.

What I'm saying is you got to be in the word. You got to study the word. I dare you. I want you to know the word better than I do. I want you to know the word better than I do. I challenge you.
2 Corinthians 10:4 and 5, "For the weapons of our warfare," weapons, strateia in the Greek, we get the word strategy from it. We get stratagem from it, strateia, warfare. He uses that word, warfare. It's a military campaign designed to achieve a specific objective in a foreign country. Huh? That's interesting. In a foreign country.

And then he uses the word power. "For the weapons of our warfare, not of the flesh, but have divine power, dunatos..." You know what power is in the Greek? Skills or qualification to do something well. Power is skills or qualifications to do something well.

I pray, dear church, that you developed a skillset to dismantle strongholds that people have against believing in Jesus Christ. power to destroy. Destroy.

This is a fascinating word, katharsis, because we get cathartic from it. It's interesting because the word destroy is cathartic and that doesn't really make sense to you if you've never did demolition.

You ever watch like HDTV and they demo a house? I've demoed a house where I live. I demoed it. I know the satisfaction that you feel when you have a sledgehammer in your hands.

I think the church would really bond if we bought a big house that we demoed together. I think we would really bond over that just to see how people work together.

"So destroy strongholds," he says. A stronghold is a strongly fortified defensive military structure. So he says, "People have in their minds strongholds, in their hearts strongholds to keep them from obeying Jesus Christ, following Jesus Christ." So we, Christians, need to go to war against the strongholds. We need to destroy them with divine power. That's what he said.

"We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ."

What a rich text. He's saying, "The strongholds are any idea, any opinion, any ideology, any world view that stands against Christ, that keeps people from obeying Christ, knowing God. Anything that gets in the way, anything that obfuscates faith in God."

To do this, we must know the word of God inside and out. "Wield the holy sword of God's word against the demonic ideas."

Some ideas are fully true, those ideas are from God. Some things are fully true. A lot of things are partially true and those things are from Satan because Satan presents half-truth as a full truth which makes it a sinister lie.

Lessons start with yourself on a daily basis. "Take every single thought captive." You're listening to the radio. A song comes on. You're like, "What is that song about?" Just imagine if one of my daughters was in the car when you're listening to that song and my daughters very inquisitive and they say, "Dad, what is that song about?" They listen to the words or a show or a movie or a book or your favorite pundit.

Be very careful of who you let influence you, of what voices you let into your house or what voices your children are listening to or what voices your spouse is listening to.

Adam. Adam, you should have been careful. You shouldn't have let Eve listen to that podcast run by Satan. That's what he's saying.

And let me give you a weapon real quick. It's an Uzi. This is a submachine gun. Warren W. Wiersbe, 699. That's the price in the back. It's probably cheap on Amazon. Read this. The Strategy of Satan: How to Detect and Defeat Him. This book is really, really tremendous. This lady from my CG, nice sweet lady, gave this to me.

Chapter one, the deceiver. Satan's target, your mind. Satan's weapon, lies. Satan's purpose, to make you ignorant of God's word. Your defense, the inspired word of God.

It's everything I'm saying. He just says it better. So I challenge you to read this and talk about it at your CG.

You know what's a fun game to play? I play this game all the time. One second. Hydration's really important.

I play this game all the time of I think through non-Christians in my life who have influenced me like no one else. I think about the strongholds in their mind and in their heart and I think about how I would dismantle those strongholds. I think about that. I think about that with my best friends.

One of the reasons I became a church planner is because I wanted a church that I could invite my friends to and my best friends growing up...

Let's start with my roommate from college, Dave. I won't say his last name. But we lived in a Jewish fraternity together. He was a brother and I was a cousin because I'm not Jewish.

So Dave and I, we lived together for three years in college and I would share the gospel with him all the time. I still do. Whenever he calls, I'm like, "Dave, can you just repent and we can be brothers for eternity please?"

I want to say to Dave, "Dave, man, you're not really Jewish. You're Jew-ish. You don't even know your own scriptures, man. If you're really Jewish, can you please read your own scriptures so I can talk to you about Isaiah 53? So I can talk to you about Psalm 22, about Psalm 110, about Psalm 16, that they all point to Christ. Can we just talk about that? Dave, you are the smartest person I've ever met but can you please do some homework about the most important question that there is." So that's why I would say to Dave.

My friend, Keith, we grew up together. We wrestled together and we were co-captains of the wrestling team together. When you wrestle a man, you really get to know him. You feel their power. Keith, he was always the man. This guy grew a beard in sixth grade. He was Irish. I always coveted that and I broke all kinds of commandments. I was like, "I want a beard..."

He looks like Matt Damon. He looks like Matt Damon Good Will Hunting. So I would say... Now he lives in California. I watch him on Instagram. He does CrossFit workouts. He's got two beautiful boys. I pray for his family. And all I want to say to him is like, "Keith, you're the man. You are such a good person. You are a better person than I am in many ways." I'm working on it. "Imagine how effective, how powerful you would be if you submitted your sword to Jesus Christ."

Craig, my boy, Craig, we grew up together. Another Jewish guy who... A big heart. Loves people. Just loves people. And I just want to tell him, "Craig, you're almost there. You just need to welcome in Jesus Christ into your life. That's the missing piece."

My friend, Narath, Narath is funny because Narath made me the president of the national honors society as a joke. I'd say this because Narath, we gathered together senior class and the teacher just got up and she said, "Who you nominate to be president of the national honors society?" Narath just got up. He said, "I nominate Jan Vezikov." I was like, "What?" And then all my friends were like, "Yeah, Jan would be a great pre..." And that's how I got into college. So Narath, thank you.

Narath is the kindest guy I've ever met. He's so kind. I just want to say, "Narath, you're not the kindest person in the world. Jesus Christ is. You need to repent of your sin."

I think about my cousin, Serge. He's the smartest guy I've ever met. If Elon Musk for Russian, that's my cousin, Serge. I pray for him. I pray... He's such a great guy. He bakes bread. Just a great guy. He works for Amazon. I want to tell Serge, "Hey man, if you came to church, man, we probably could figure out a way to take over the world for Jesus Christ. You got to set your ambitions higher. You got to get in the word."

I think about other voices that influence me, Jordan Peterson. I figure out if I sat with him how could I help disciple him. I don't know if he's a Christian. I heard he recently became...

Dave Chappelle. Dave Chappelle is a Muslim. He's a Muslim. He's a genius. I want to sit down with him and like, "Hey man, can you just be a true Muslim? Because you know what the Quran says, the Quran says to actually listen to what Jesus Christ said. Can you just do that? You can't be a true Muslim if do not read the New Testament. You can't do it. You can't do it, Dave."

Biden, I wonder what I would say to Biden. Let's not get too political.

Tom Brady. This is what I'd say to Tom Brady. Maybe like, "Hey man, how's your marriage? Because I get it, man. You're married to a beautiful strong-willed international woman. She doesn't want you to play football anymore and you just keep..." That's the angle that would take.

The thing is I do this all the time. I do this just for fun.

Last one, last one. I've got a whole list here. My favorite Russian rapper is Oxxxymiron because he's actually a philosopher. He went to Oxford and he got a degree in literature and then he just started doing philosophy with rap, Russian rap, which is really difficult to do.

I've known him. I followed his work. He stopped producing in 2015 and then two months ago or a month ago, he came up with a 10-minute song talking about the past 10 years of his life and that was meaningful to me because I was reflecting on the past 10 years of my life in ministry at Mosaic and I was like, "That's weird."

He has this song where he's got this one line and first of all, this is how I share the gospel with him. His dad's name is Jan and I'd be like, "Yo, Oxxxy, Jan Vezikov Ян, как твоего батью. Слышь."
He's got one line in that song where he says, "Я так не хотел стоять десять секунд на коленях Что в итоге стоял на них десять лет ."

He talks about the fact that because he didn't want to stand on his knees for 10 seconds he's been standing on his knees for 10 years. I just want to be like, "Hey man, can you just get on your knees for 10 seconds, repent of your sins, and then you can get up. Jesus just forgives you all of your sins, shame, guilt, everything."

I think about these people and I'm like, "What would it take for them to hear me out? What would it take for me to end up on a Joe Rogan podcast, tell them about Jesus Christ and have three hours to do it?" That's what I pray about. This is the things I think about. This is how much I care about evangelism.

So I've got home work for you. Your homework is this church. Send me an email with how you would share the gospel with the most influential non-Christians in your life. Would you do that for me in the email with one, two, three, I don't know. It doesn't matter. Non-Christians in your life and how you would share the gospel with them. This is serious. This is really serious so that I can start speaking to them with your language so that you can actually start bringing your friends to church. You got it? Write that down. Homework.

Okay. 2 Corinthians 10:6, "Being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete." He talks about church discipline here. I don't have time to get into it. But church discipline, there's positive church discipline. This is what we're doing, teaching, exhorting from the scripture. We're teaching, teaching, teaching. And then there's negative. There's negative discipline. There's actions that spiritual fathers need to take because they love their spiritual children.

A lot of fathers don't understand fathering, if you don't understand the concept of discipline, but there have to be consequences for rebellious behavior. Meditate on Hebrews 12 where he talks about God being a loving father who disciplines His children. That's an important category.

2 Corinthians 10:7, "Look at what is before your eyes. If anyone is confident that he is Christ, let him remind himself that just as he is Christ so also are we." He's saying, "Look at the data. I'm a Christian, you're a Christian. Don't just judge me by looks, skin color, ethnicity, background." The whole world wants to do that. He's like, "Can you just look at the heart like God does not at the outward appearances?"

2 Corinthians 10:8-9, "For even if boast a little too much of our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for destroying you, I will not be ashamed. I do not want to appear to be frightening with my letters."

This is fascinating because he talks about influence and he talks about authority that God gives spiritual influence, God gives spiritual authority and we are to use it to build people up, to build up their souls, to build up their faith, to build up their heart, to build up their families, to build up their life. We're called to be builders. A lot of Christians don't understand Christianity because they don't understand building.
The gospel is like demo. You go in, you demo everything, and then you rebuild that. A lot of Christians stop there and they're like, "Okay, we did the demo. Now we're going to live in a house that's down to the studs." You can't live in a house like that. That's not comfortable. And then you rebuild. That's what he's talking about, that we are given authority, we are given influence.

Over whom has God given you influence? There are people that you can speak to that I can never speak to, there are people that you just know their language. You're just on the same wavelength with them in waves that I will never be so use that influence to destroy strongholds. Do you use the authority God has given you to build up those under your authority?

2 Corinthians 13:10, "For this reason, I write these things while I am away from you that when I come I may not have to be severed in my use of the authority that the Lord has given me for the building up and not for tearing down."

So what he says at the end of the letter? He's like, "I want to build you up. I want to build you up."
2 Corinthians 10:10, "For they say, 'His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak and his speech of no account." What's fascinating here is they judged his power by his looks and that's not how the Holy Spirit works. He says, "Don't look at my outward... Listen to the words, listen to the heart. Focus on the ideas. Focus on the truth."

Verse 11, "Let such a person understand that what we say by letter when absent we do when present. Not that we dare classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding."

Saint Paul says, "I do not care what people think about me." That's where his courage came from. "I don't care. I don't care what people think of me. All I care is about what God thinks of me. I want to submit completely to the God of the universe, the king of king." St. Paul just says, "I'm good soldier. I don't care about self-commendation because self-commendation is self-condemnation." Or you look for praise from people. "What are people going to think? What are people..." Who cares? Who cares?

When you worship, I pray that you, at Mosaic, you worship the way you worship at home. If you want to get on your knees, get on your knees. If you want to just exuberantly worship, exuberant... If you want to just scream at the top of your lungs, you just tone it down a little bit or come up here and then the music rounds you out and it's awesome. That's what he's saying.

2 Corinthians 10:13, "But we will not boast beyond limits, but we'll boast only with regard to the area of influence God assigned to us to reach even you." So God assigns the influence. Many of you haven't asked for more influence. "God send me more influence. God make me a person that when I speak, people hear my words, they hear my heart so I can communicate from my heart to their heart."

Verse 14, "For we are not overextending ourselves as though we did not reach you, for we were the first to come all the way to you with the gospel of Jesus Christ."

What's fascinating is that St. Paul every once in a while reminds people of how much he sacrificed for them to become Christians.

You know what kind of church I want to go to? I want to go to church where the guy up there is the guy who sacrifices the most for the church. I want to go to church like that. "Oh. Oh, you really believe in stuff?" Yeah. "Oh, you made life decisions where you sacrificed things." Yeah.

2 Corinthians 10:15, "We do not boast beyond on limits in the labors of others. But our hope is that your faith increases and our area of influence among you may be greatly enlarged." That's all. He's like, "All I want is your faith to grow. I just want your faith to grow. I want your faith in God to grow. And when your faith in God grows, then the influence of spirit filled Christians grows in your life because you begin to sense that when they speak, they speak from a place where they're filled with the Holy Spirit, spiritual influence grows to the degree that you help people grow in their faith."

Verse 16, "So that we may preach the gospel and lands beyond you without boasting of work already done in another's area of influence. Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord."

Historically, St. Paul wanted to go to Spain. That was his great ambition. He was ambitious to go preach the gospel where it was never preached and he wanted to go to absolutely the Western point of Europe and Clement of Rome. Writing at the end of the first century claims that Paul traveled to the furthest point limit of the west which is how people refer to Spain in those days. He's just want to do something great for God.

2 Corinthians 10:18, "For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends." So the only approval that matters is the Lord's.

I read from Luke 14, I'm coming in for a landing, I'm doing a text and then conclusion. Luke 14, we read that in the beginning, verse 15, "When one of those," Jesus at the feast, "who reclined at table with Him heard these things. He said, 'Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.' But he said to him, 'A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time..." it's like if we threw a member's party for Christmas on December 4th and we got brisket and all that and it's like if the members just don't come, it's like that. That's a nice plug for that members' party and for you to come. It's going to be tremendous.

"At that time for the banquet, he sent a servant to say to those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything's now ready,' but they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, 'I bought a field. I bought a field and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused."

I don't know what the real estate market was back then but maybe it's like today where it's like you like a place and there's 14 offers on the first open house. So like he bought a field and he didn't even go see the field which is a terrible excuse. So that's the first thing he did. "Please have me excused."

"And another said, 'I've bought five yoke of oxen. I go to examine them. Please have me excused." Buying a car that you've never seen?

"And another said, 'I've married a wife and therefore I cannot come." That one I get, I understand that one. I don't want to go to that party. Okay. All right.

"So the servant came and reported these things to the master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, 'Go out quickly to the streets and the lanes of the city and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.' And the servant said, 'Sir, what you commanded has been done and still there is room.' And the master said to the servant, 'Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in," Compel, persuade people to come in, "that my house may be filled for I tell you none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet."

That's how Jesus Christ talks about evangelism. He talks about evangelists throwing a feast and inviting everyone who can never return the favor. Imagine if we caught that vision.

I challenge you this week. Invite someone over who cannot return the fa... And let me just say a word. If you live in Boston, a lot of us, we struggle with this thing called real estate shame. You're ashamed of your place. You're ashamed of your kitchen. You're ashamed of your bathroom. You wish it was bigger. You wish it was nicer.

Let me tell you something. I was talking to an old brother this week and he said, "None of that matters." I was like, "Oh." He's like, "Yeah, yeah. It's just a fellowship that matters." Like, "Oh." "Yeah. Yeah. Who cares?"

Okay. Now I'm going to, in conclusion, explain my t-shirt. It's not a political statement because I'm a pastor. It's a prayer. I can't do this. Make America born again? I can't do it. So I'm begging God. Lord, send Your Holy Spirit. Regenerate souls. Lord, make everyone a Christian. You've done it before. You've done on a day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit just comes. Fire from heaven. Lord, make America born again.

And so this is my campaign. If I were ever president, I would run a campaign called make America born again. I can't be president because I wasn't born here so unless we change some rules, if you know some people.

This would be my campaign speech. I would say this. I'd say, "America, we're not having a good time. A lot of you just aren't very fun. America, can we all just be people that people want to hang out with? Can we all just be kind and gentle and humble? Can we all just hang out together?" That's what I'm saying.
I was watching an Asian comedian this week. He was hilarious and he said that his mission was to reconcile white people and black people and that's meaningful to me because God said our job is to reconcile all people with God and that's where world peace begins, where people repent of sin, and they stand before God, they humble themselves and God fills your heart with love and then you can love people.

You know who I like to hang out with? I like to hang out with people who let me be myself but they don't keep me there. They challenge me to grow, to grow in my love for God, understanding of God, love for people, love for the gospel, love for the kingdom of God.

I like to hang out with people who have the courage to challenge me and whenever anyone does, I say the Russian word davai. Davai means let's go because I want to feel your power. I want to feel your influence. I do want you to change my mind.

That's why I like parties where you can just talk about everything. Politics, religion, everything, just everything. You love the people. You talk about family, how to raise son and daughters, how to invest, how to increase your bench, how to build a business, how to build empires and submission to the king.

So if I were running for president, my only agenda would be America, would you do me a favor and invite your neighbor over for a party. That's my only agenda and invite Jesus too.

Some of you are great at throwing parties but you forget Jesus. So invite Jesus too and have Jesus be the king of that party and pray for the people that do come before the meal. It doesn't have to be awkward. Just get up and say, "You know what? In this house we worship Jesus Christ and we love you so much that we invite..." They're going to eat your food so they're going to bear with you for a little bit and you say, "Don't hold the hands thing." I get sweaty palms when people... Just raise your hands man of God and women of God and just pray for you, pray for everybody by name.

You came to my house. Yeah, I'm going to pray for you. I'm going to pray for you to get saved. You can repent of your sin. And if it comes in a prayer, it doesn't feel like it's evangelism so you can go as long as you want. And you like, "Lord, I know that this person's stronghold and they don't believe in Jesus Christ because they have all these issues," and you just dismantle them in the prayer and you're saying Jesus' name and then you eat the meal and they're like, "Hey, what did you just do in that prayer?" And you're like, "Oh, let's talk about it."

That's my only agenda. How do we make America born again by making America pray again, getting on our knees as a nation, on both knees, and begging God, please forgive us of our sins and when you do, God forgives you and He's awesome and following Him is tremendous, but it's also the hardest thing you'll ever do because anything worth doing is difficult. But by the divine power of God, you can do it. I believe in you. If I can be a Christian, anyone can be a Christian. That's what I'm saying. And it's a miracle. And the Holy Spirit is with you.

Would you rather hang out with someone who makes things sad or do you want to hang out with someone who makes things fun?

There's a lot of people that can make fun things sad but Jesus Christ is the king of making sad things fun. Satan takes fun things, he just ruins them. He ruins sex. He ruins money. He ruins a good tie. He just ruins everything. He makes good things sad. Jesus Christ makes sad things fun. He's the king of it. Jesus is the master of taking the saddest moment. Good Friday, Jesus Christ dies on a cross and he's put in a tomb, cold, dark, dank tomb and He turns Good Friday into Easter Sunday.

He's the king of turning sadness into fun. He turned the cross into conquering power, conquering death with resurrection power. He's the master of turning what is meant for evil into good. He's the master of turning sinners into saints. He is the master. He's the boss of turning destruction into rebuilding. And he's the only doctor who can heal our broken heart. Let's pray for healing.

Heavenly Father, we thank You for this time and the holy word. Jesus, we love You. We thank You. You gave everything to love people so that they could meet God, have their sins forgiven. I pray for our city. I pray for our state. I pray for our nation. I pray for the world. Pour out your spirit in a way that You have never poured it out and use us in the process. Ignite a fire in our hearts, burning zeal, to share the gospel, share our lives, and share our hearts with the people that You have given us into our lives, under our influence. And we thank You in advance. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.