Mosaic Boston Vision
September 3, 2023 • Jan Vezikov
Audio Transcript:
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Our Heavenly Father, you are a holy God and we marvel at your holiness and we are in awe at your glory. And we stand in amazement that though we rebelled against your reign and your rule, against your dominion over us, you Lord, did not leave us in our ignorance and darkness, but you provided a way for us to be saved. You did it through the life, the death, the burial, and the ascension of your son Jesus Christ. Lord Jesus, we thank you for revealing the fullness of the law of God to us. We thank you that you came, not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it, to ratify it, to show us that the law of God is good, and that we have transgressed it, and we deserve the wrath of God for that transgression. But Lord Jesus, you and your mercy and your love and your kindness went to the cross on our behalf. And today, as we remember your sacrifice on the cross, let us never lose sight of the fact that you were motivated by love toward God and neighbor.
This is the epitome of what it means to love, Jesus. Thank you for defining love for us. That love is to lay down your life for those whom you love. And Lord Jesus, we thank you that you taught us the holy scriptures, and you expounded on the holy scriptures, and then you gave us the Holy Spirit, the indwelling power of God who is with us. Holy Spirit, today I pray that you light our hearts on fire for the mission that you have before us. The great mission and the great commandment and the great commission, empower us to fulfill your will here in the city. Give us a vision of what it means to be a city within a city, a humanity within a humanity, a people within a people, a people who submit to you, submit to your word and do everything that we do out of love for God and neighbor. And Lord, continue to use our lives to build up your kingdom. Show us how you have called each one of us individually to build according to the blueprints that you have given us.
Lord, bless our service and bless the sermon, and we pray this in Christ's holy name. Amen.
Today is our annual Mosaic Boston vision sermon. And every Sunday we meet here at this wonderful temple, Temple Ohabei Shalom. I always know who's new because they come in and they're mesmerized by the building. They haven't learned to see the flaws in the building as I have. I look at the roof and I'm like, "Oh, please don't collapse on us." Or the seats, that they're not the most comfortable. But it's a wonderful building. And temple Temple Ohabei Shalom means, the temple of the lovers of peace. And every Sunday we here open up Yahweh's holy word, God's holy word, which outlines the plan of God's peace, the plan of God's true shalom, which is universal flourishing. On our branding, we put our values which are love Jesus simple. Love, why? Because that's the point of the whole thing. God is love. And then God, out of love, gives his son, Jesus, motivated by love, lays down his life on our behalf, and God extends that love to us in forgiveness and by grace through faith in Christ.
And then Jesus Christ is the word of God. He's the one that reveals God's word to us, confirms God's word. He shows us that everything that preceded him was true. And he does that by coming back from the dead. And what Jesus does is he shows us though God is love, love is not God. Jesus defines what it means to love God, what it means to love neighbor as self. And then by simple we mean that the Holy Spirit loves to simplify. Truth is simple. Satan loves to obfuscate. Satan loves to add rules upon rules, human tradition, manmade rules, and people lose sight of what it means to love God. And by simplicity, we have a very simple method of ministry here at Mosaic, we do what the early church did, we gather for worship publicly in the temple and then we meet in small groups around the city during the week. And that's how we practice community.
And then service, we volunteer here and we volunteer our time, and we do want to see the next generation of believers built up. We volunteer at Mini Mosaic. A little more later on that. We are recruiting more volunteers for Mini Mosaic, which is a crucial ministry. But what is our vision? Where are we going? And by vision, I do not mean I foresee the future. By vision, I mean I believe that the Lord has impressed on my heart and mind blueprints for how we are to operate, how we are to build this church, how we are to build the kingdom. And this is how often God works. Moses goes up on the mountain and he is given the blueprint for the law of God, the 10 Commandments, the moral law. Moses goes up on the mountain again and he's given the architectural plans, the blueprints for the tabernacle. How are we to build the tabernacle? David, in the same way, receives from the Lord, the blueprints for how are we going to build the temple of God.
Ezekiel gets a vision of the temple in the city, of the land and he gets blueprints. And then God's spirit comes upon God's people and God says, "I've given you opportunities, talents, I have given you skills, I have given you resources." And then the Holy Spirit helps you find your place in how you then practically build the kingdom of God. Our vision, and I'll unpack every word, "Mosaic Boston aspires to joyfully become a worldwide kingdom building force by proclaiming, believing and obeying the whole council of God, and thereby building men and women of God committed to the great mission, the great commandment and the great commission." So first of all, we aspire to do everything we do joyfully. Psalm 100 verse one and two, "Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into his presence with singing."
Philippians 4:4, "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice." There's this one episode in holy scripture where God gives the power of the Holy Spirit, to the disciples and they go and they're doing miracles, and they started casting out demons in the name of Jesus Christ because the name of Jesus is above every other name. And then they come back to Jesus and they're like, "Jesus, even the demons obey us." You know what Jesus says? "Rejoice not that the demons obey you, rejoice that your names are written in heaven." So everything we do, we do as propelled out of the outflow of our joy, in that we get to be the children of God. We were adopted into the family of God and he's given us a wonderful mission. We aspire joyfully to become a worldwide kingdom building force.
One of the reasons that God puts Israel, the people of God, in the Promised Land initially was because of the geographic location. In many profound ways, Israel, the promised land stood at the crossroads of the whole world. Israel stood at the crossroads of continents and of historic empires. Israel is right in the middle, connecting Africa, Asia, and to a certain degree, even Europe. It's a land bridge and that's why it's called the cradle of civilization. And some of the most important trade routes in the world went straight through Israel. And why did God place them there? God placed them there because he wanted them to stand at the crossroads, to shape and influence the cultural forces of the day, and witness to God, witness to Yahweh, witness to the fact that there is only one God and he has created everything and he has given us a law, and we have transgressed that law, and we deserve the penalty for breaking the law of God is death.
So we need redemption. Isaiah 43:10, "You are my witnesses, declares the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He. Before me know God was formed." Exodus 19, five through six, "Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine. And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." So Israel was commissioned by God to testify to the world about who God is and then minister to the world as priests proclaiming the excellencies of God. Jesus echoes the same words to the disciples after his resurrection, Acts 1:8 "But you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth."
St. Peter in First Peter 2:9 says, "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." In Revelation one, four through six, John, to the seven churches that are in Asia, "Grace to you in peace from him who is and who was and who is to come. And from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom priest to his God and father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever." Amen.
And God still wants his children to be his witnesses, to be a kingdom of priests, proclaiming the truths of God's word. And he wants to call us, and he's calling us to stand at the crossroads of life. And Boston, in many ways, is the crossroads of the world. People from all over the world come here for education, career, success, money, opportunities. This week, end of August, beginning of September, this week before Labor Day, I always play the same game every year. I try to count the moving trucks. How many moving trucks can I count? This week, I'm telling you, I don't know what happened, a hundred plus. I stopped counting after a hundred. And the moving trucks, they're all here. And if you know anything about U-Haul, they give keys to anybody. You got a heartbeat, you got a license, 18 years old, just graduated high school, here's keys to a truck. And then they show up in Boston. They don't know how to drive here. People have lived here for 10 years, don't know how to drive here.
You got to know the ins and outs. You've got to be a master driver to make it here. And so it's chaos, but we are to extend grace. But what I'm saying is, is there a more strategic place in the world to plant your life and to commit to serve as a witness to King Jesus? Jesus is Lord, this is what we're... Jesus told the disciples early on, "Go and make disciples of all nations." We live in a place where the nations come to us. And over the years I've got so many stories, but one just came to mind recently. A few weeks ago we had this couple that was with us for a couple weeks and they were just visiting. And what they said was, "We were part of this church seven years ago and God so blessed us seven years ago that we've been following the ministry," and they felt called by God to go to Sydney, Australia and they're part of a church planning team.
And they said, "We have a confession to make all the resources you put online, we just steal it. We just take it." And I was like, "Good, it's not mine. It belongs to the kingdom. Use it for kingdom purposes." Incredible influence worldwide just by preaching the gospel here. And what are we preaching? We're preaching that Jesus is king. Jesus is king above all kings. He's Lord above all lords. And there are only two kingdoms. There's God and his kingdom, there's Satan in his kingdom. There's no neutral territory. It's either you're with Christ and you're in the kingdom of God or you're against Christ and you're in the kingdom of Satan. And what we preach is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Anybody who believes, anybody who receives the grace of God, anyone who repents of sin and submits to Christ, you're transferred from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of his beloved son.
That's Colossians one, 13 and 14. "He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." And once you're in his kingdom, we work the rest of our lives to submit everything in our lives and in our spheres of influence to King Jesus. At every single one of our membership classes, we use the metaphor of cruise ship verse battleship to explain how we view the church. A lot of places where the church has been around for a long time and they're resourced, what happens is you can professionalize every single part of the ministry and you cater to everyone's needs, and you go to the church, it's like a show. You have a good time and then you're gone. It's like on a cruise ship. Why do people go on a cruise? To rest and to be entertained, to eat tremendously, to have a good time.
Well, church is not like a cruise ship. We're not here to entertain you. We're here to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and the full counsel of God. And God has given us a mission. And on a battleship, what unites the people? What unites the people is the mission. Why are we here? What's our purpose? And the Lord Jesus Christ tells us we have an enemy. And if you're new to the city, welcome to spiritual war. There is a battle for the souls. And I feel this every end of August, beginning of September. I feel it. I see it. There's prophetic dreams. It's people from all over the world. Powerful souls are brought here, and now there's a battle for their souls. Which kingdom are you going to serve? Which king are you going to follow? But recently I've realized we're not just a battleship. In my church office, I have a beautiful painting.
It's a sunset in the back, it's gorgeous. And then this is just a massive aircraft carrier, rusted, beat up from battles, but it's going, it's steadfastly, steadily moving, powerfully moving forward. And then planes land on the aircraft carrier and that they descend and ascend. That's how I view ministry in Boston. People from all over the world. It's like their plane lands in our aircraft carrier and then the mechanics go to work. They see what's wrong with the engine, they fix things up, they fuel you up, give you new directions and new inspiration, passion, desire to continue serving the Lord. In a similar way to the people of Israel worshiping in a beautiful temple in Jerusalem at the crossroads of their world, we find ourselves worshiping God the same God at the crossroads of the world here. So we see the strategic importance of a church proclaiming the gospel of God, the full counsel of God here. By making an impact here, we truly are making an impact worldwide.
Now, how do we do that? How do we want to make an impact for the kingdom of God, a worldwide impact? How? By the word of God. Proclaiming, believing and obeying the whole council of God. In Acts 20, St. Paul, after spending some time with believers in Ephesus, he's leaving them, and then he says the following to them, "Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God." What an interesting way of phrasing his ministry, explaining his ministry. Had he not taught them the whole council of God, there would have been some kind of responsibility on him. He would have been guilty of their blood. And he says, "I didn't shrink." Why with that language? Because there is sometimes a temptation to back off from doctrines that make people squirm.
We approach preaching the word of God as we do with the goal of proclaiming the whole council of God. From Genesis to Revelation, this is the inerrant, infallible, authoritative word of God. This is the foundation of everything that we do. Do you not think I know which doctrines make people squirm? Oh, I know. I've done this long enough. I can tell by body language, uncomfortable, uncomfortable. Sometimes people make it very obvious they get up and they're flip me the bird on the way out. You guys don't see that. I see that. My life would be much easier if I did not touch the difficult doctrines. But to remain faithful to God and to remain innocent of the blood of all, I can't but stand on the word of God. This is what we do at the church, we stand on the word of God.
Why? Because we want to deepen in you, not just your faith, but your obedience. And that's what true faith always leads to, obedience to the Lord. And we saw this with Romans, the bookends and Romans one and Romans 16, the phrase obedience of faith. Romans 1:5, "Through whom we have received grace in apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations." And then Romans 16:26, "But has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings, has been made known to all nations according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith." And by proclaiming, obeying and believing the word of God and the whole council, we thereby aspire to build men and women of God committed particular three things, the great mission, the great commandment and the great commission. And I start with the great mission.
It's usually known as the cultural mandate. The word culture isn't in it and the word mandate isn't in there either. And I actually think that this title diminishes the weight of the charge. God creates Adam and Eve, he creates humanity. And then the first imperative that he gives them, the first charge, the first mission, is found in Genesis 1:26 through 28. And because it's the very first imperative, it carries primacy. The creation mandate as some have called it, is rather a dominion mandate. It's a mission to take dominion, commanding human beings to bring every sphere of society, as well as nature itself, into subjugation to Jesus Christ. So this is Genesis 1:26 through 28, what I call the great mission. "And then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them, and God blessed them, God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." There are three questions of supreme importance to every single person. One, who is God? Second, who am I? And third, what does God require of us? And holy scripture here answers these three questions in the very opening chapter, and how you answer these questions impacts the trajectory of your life and eternity. We learn in the opening chapter of holy scriptures that God is, he is the supreme creator of all things seen and unseen, including humanity. And we also learn that man is unique in all of God's creation being made in the image of God.
And therefore God has given us a unique responsibility of doing what? Taking dominion, exercising dominion over the world that God has made. And that's why twice it's repeated. This is why I've created you, to take dominion. This is the blessing, take dominion. God creates man in his image and after his likeness so that man would fill the earth with his offspring, continue to image forth more of God and exercise dominion over the created order. God has ultimate authority and he's given us delegated authority. His authority is absolute, ours is derived from God. He says, let us make man in our image after our likeness. There's a divine counsel. God uses the plural here, let us make. The divine counsel precedes the creation. And it's striking that it's plural, and the interpretation is from the whole council of God that this is the Holy Trinity. It's not a full revelation of the Trinity, but the doctrine of the Trinity makes sense of this text best. And man is to image God in at least three ways.
First of all, God made us rational creatures. We can think, we can reason. We are to understand truth. We are to pursue truth. We are to develop our powers of discernment. God has also made us moral beings, that God has written His law upon our hearts. We know when we sin, we know when we have transgressed the law of God. And then God has also given us the charge of dominion. He's given us a royal office to bring everything in subjugation to him. Let them have dominion, in the Hebrew it's [foreign language] to master, to reign, to prevail against, to rule, to create order where there's chaos. And it begins with what? It begins with taking dominion of yourself. You are responsible for you. That you are responsible to submit yourself to the Lord. And when you do, he fills you with the power of God to continue taking dominion.
He says, let them start with the fish, the birds and the livestock over all the earth. God made life to feed us. He made plants to eat in Genesis 1:29, and animals are given to as food after the flood in Genesis nine. And he does want us to take good care of the animals under our charge. God is a loving God. He even cares about animals. Proverbs 12:10, "Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel." I don't have any beasts at my house, but I have fish. I have five fish, and it is a godly thing to feed your little beast. They get really excited. I feed them. My youngest daughter is four. She's like, "Dad, don't feed them. I want that to be my job." She likes to... We are to master. We are to subdue.
We are to care for what God has entrusted to us, and we are to develop its latent potential. And every type of being is to be subservient to humanity. Humans are not on the same level with dogs. We're not on the same level with animals. We are higher. We're not on the same level as the earth itself. We are beings that tower high above all other creatures. We are to be their king and their crown. We are kings of creation under God, and we have a delegated authority for restoring created and creation order, to rule with benevolence, not like a despot out for his own gain. Fill the earth, subdue, rule over it. It's stewardship. Dominion doesn't mean destruction, it means responsibility. And also it means to create. Genesis 1:27, look, three times the verb create is used. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female, he created them."
It's significant that God, for the very first time we find out that God is a creator. He creates, and he creates us in his own image and we are to be agents of creation and recreation. Man was created to image God, and image God by exercising true dominion under God's authority, for God's glory. We are to promote the worship of God. The service of God is to be maintained. And we are to develop and improve the creation around us. Improvement and development takes place when we're empowered by the king of kings. And then once we do take dominion, we submit everything to the feet of Christ. In order to subdue the earth, we must first understand its processes. This is why research is foundational for fulfilling the divine mandate. And then once we get that knowledge, we must apply in technology and engineering and medicine and agriculture, must be implemented for use, and business and commerce transmitted to future generations via education.
The creation can also be described and praised in the humanities and fine arts. We are to further the good, the true and the beautiful. The dominion mandate thus authorizes all honorable human occupations as stewardship under God. So we must learn how the world operates, which requires expertise and knowledge and engineering and mathematics, physics, aerodynamics and agriculture. And then we teach our offspring to be involved in these areas as well. The tragedy is that leadership in practically all of these fields in our city and in our world has largely been taken over by secularists and humanists. People that don't honor God, they're not taking dominion for God, they're taking dominion for the enemy. So God's primeval commission here, the great mission has been, in many ways subverted. And Christians today need a new renewed vision and commitment, not only to Christ second coming, yes, he's coming.
He's going to fix everything. And not just to the great commission. Yes, that's important. But once people are disciples of Christ, we are to teach them to obey everything that he taught us from the very beginning. So we need a renewed vision of the great mission of responsible world stewardship. So whatever your chosen field, you should aspire to be the very best. The mindset is whatever your job, whatever your field, I'm not just here to take part, I'm here to take over. I'm here to take dominion of whatever God has called me to. In Colossians 3:17, "Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God, the Father, through him." First Peter 4:10 and 11, "As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace. Whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of God, whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies, in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen."
So as we study creation, as we use our talents in creation to subdue it under the feet of Christ, we become agents of this common grace. We are to make the world a better place by using our skills and talents to build things that are beautiful and useful, while countering the forces of evil and sin that oppress and distort creation. We live in a fallen cursed world, and it's only by the power of the Holy Spirit can we seek to reverse the effects of the curse. And Genesis 1:28, at the heart of the great mission, "and God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, over every living thing that moves on the earth." The primary purpose of marriage is given here in Malachi 2:15, it's reiterated, "Did he not make them one with a portion of the spirit in their union?
And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth." If God's will is godly children, then of course it makes sense that Satan would do everything in his powers to prevent this, from sexual perversion to gender confusion, to abortion to divorce. And men and women of God must carry this work out. We must work together and have children who are then trained in a godly Christian fashion to carry out the dominion mandate. Overpopulation is not a concern for God, nor should it be a concern for us. The very idea of depopulation is demonic because Satan came to steal, kill and destroy. The words, fill the earth, incidentally suggest that fears of population explosion are much overdrawn. Evidently the world is well able to support a large population. And Satan's always behind depopulation.
Why? Because Satan's not omnipresent. Satan can only be in one place at one time. He's not God. And the demonic, well that's numbered, they're numbered. And the more godly people there are, the more the demonic forces are outnumbered. It's the same power, the strategy over and over. Remember in Egypt when Israel was in the captivity, they were enslaved by Pharaoh. Now Pharaoh realized that they were multiplying so much more than the people of Egypt. What does he do? Force depopulation. We're going to kill the children of Israel. And Moses was saved by his mom. This mandate to be fruitful and multiply, this mission, is so important God repeats it twice after the great flood in Genesis nine. And how are we to go about this whole process of subduing and taking dominion and being fruitful and multiplying? It's all to be done with love, never harshly, but always tenderly, carefully and faithfully.
The nature of man's dominion, if he is to be Lord of all, he must be servant of all. This was true in the garden before the fall as it is today. Remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ concerning the exercise of authority in Matthew 20:25, "But Jesus called them to him and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave. Even as the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom." For many godly authority is true authority, but it's not based on force or coercion or manipulation. And to understand dominion, we can look at Ephesians five and draw analogies there.
That dominion is not exploitive, it's not oppressive, it's always loving. Christ in the church, for example. Christ is the head of the church and Christ's headship of the church leads the church to thrive, to be fruitful, to become evermore lovely. Or the relationship between husband and wife, also Ephesians five. Under her husband's righteous headship, a wife is to thrive and be fruitful and become evermore lovely. And we've been given dominion over creation. If we exercise godly dominion over creation, under the lordship of Christ, creation will thrive and be fruitful and become evermore lovely. Knowledge and appreciation of our fellow creatures is essential. And it's all to be done in love. Romans 5:17, "For if because of one man's trespass, death reigned through the one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ."
Romans right there, he says, if you've given grace, God gives you grace to save you. You're in the kingdom of God now, and now we are to expand God's kingdom by taking dominion. We are to reign in life. And it's a mindset shift. If you think about everything you are and everything you have, where in your life is there chaos? And where in your life do you need to take dominion, that you need to take responsibility? You know those days where you do not want to work out, it's the last thing... Instead of working out, you just want a large cheese pizza. And at those moments you got to remind yourself... Once in a while you got to take a break. But as a pattern rhythm of life, we have to take dominion of our bodies. I will tell my body what to do. Take dominion of your health.
Take dominion of your mind, as much as you can, take dominion of your soul. Now I started thinking about just even house chores like this. I see trash and I'm like, "Ah, got to take dominion. That's my job, those dishes to do. I'm taking dominion of these dishes." But if you start thinking like that, I'm like, "Huh, all right, where in my life is life out of control? Where do I need dominion? Holy Spirit, give me strength." So take good care of what God has given you. Take good care of your possessions, of your finances. Take good care of your relationships and desire greater influence. Desire greater dominion. Seek to expand your domain of dominion. First Chronicles 4:10, there's a gentleman named Jabez and he prayed the following, "Jabez called upon the God of Israel saying, oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my border and that your hand might be with me and that you would keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain. And God granted what he asked."
Do you ask God, "Lord enlarge my borders, Lord, give me more influence. Give me more of a domain to take dominion of?" Adam was given the charge to do this, the great mission, but he was given the charge of the perfect world. Therefore, his job was a gardener in the perfect world where everything was perfect. He didn't need a house in the garden of Eden, they lived outside. They didn't need air conditioning. Everything... The temperature was perfect. For Adam, it was 67. For Eve, it was around 73. God kept everyone... But everything was perfect. And God gave Adam a job. In Genesis 2:15, the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it, work it and guard it." So Adam's task was given to him before the fall. Before the curse, there were no weeds.
He didn't have to toil by the sweat of his brow. Pregnancy or childbirth did not come with pains. Yeah they lived in a different world. There was no need to build shelter to survive in a harsh environment. And Adam did not do his job even in the perfect environment. He did not take dominion. He abdicated his responsibility. When Satan came and tempted Eve and him, he did not fight Satan, and therefore dominion of the world of the created order moved from Adam to Satan. That's why Jesus, when he came, three times in John 12, John 14, John 16, calls Satan the ruler of this world. This was supposed to be man's role, but Adam's willful sin led to him forfeiting the dominion. And then Jesus Christ comes and he comes to destroy the works of the evil one. And I find it fascinating, how did Jesus take dominion up until age 30?
Jesus started his ministry at age 30. That's when he started teaching the word of God, telling everyone the kingdom's at hand, repentant and believe. But Jesus Christ, in crucial years of his youth, what did he do as vocation? He was a carpenter. He was a builder. Adam lived in a perfect world. He didn't have to build houses. Everything was perfect. Jesus Christ comes in the fallen world. How is he taking dominion? He is building. He's building structures in the real world to house real families. And that was part of God's blueprint. How do you expand the kingdom of God? By building, in order to house, to house families and house people and house the church. So now we are tasked with the same work, take dominion, in a fallen world, and we take it from Satan, we take ground for Jesus Christ. And real estate is part of it.
We, as a church, we do have a vision of taking dominion... Yes, I want to take Boston. This is the reason why I moved here in 2009. My pitch to everybody was, we are taking Boston and we're going to proclaim the gospel of God until we fill Fenway Park with converts. Everyone in Fenway Park is going to get saved. Everybody. That's the vision. We want to take this city. But part of taking the city is taking dominion, getting rooted, getting real estate. And just one example of where I see this in scripture, Jeremiah 29, God sends the prophet Jeremiah as a prophet to proclaim to the people of God in captivity. They were taken from the promised land to Babylon. And he says, this is God's plan for how you are going to build the kingdom in Babylon. Everyone knows Jeremiah 29:11, it's on every Christian mug that you find. "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare, not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." But the plans are actually outlined in the same chapter.
That's why I'm like, you can't just pick and choose verse. He gives us the plan. He gives us the plan in verse four and seven, Jeremiah 29:4, "Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters and take wives through your sons and give your daughters in marriage that you may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there and do not decrease, but seek the welfare of the city where I've sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf for in its welfare you will find your welfare." So we do pray for the Lord to give you a vision, to be rooted here, to think about, "Okay, what's it going to take?"
And I will tell you, I've been trying to do this 14 years in Boston. Trying to take dominion in Boston, you know how people say if you make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. If you make it in Boston and take dominion here as a believer, you can do it anywhere. You know real estate prices, and I know how hard it is to be fruitful and multiply and have children. You know what that takes. But the vision is still before us. And then whatever gap we have in our resources, we say, "Holy Spirit, we need you to supernaturally provide." And the Lord does that over and over. One way, if you are single or if you don't have children, if you have a love for children, one way that you can take part in this great commission here at Mosaic is joining mini Mosaic, volunteering at Mini Mosaic.
We don't take anyone, by the way, we only take the best. There is a Navy SEAL tryout process. But this is one of the ways that we build up the future generation of believers. And then also we do recognize, statistically, 90% of people who become believers become believers before the age of 18. So we are to build up the kingdom of God and we do that through the great commission without forgetting the great commandment. God gives his people a moral framework to navigate the entire breadth of life, and he does that in the 10 Commandments. Adam was put in the Garden of Eden to work it and guard it. And the word guard means keep evil out. And he failed, and evil entered the world. So God gives his law to his people to show them the ways of life and to guardrail against death.
You ever hear of getting Storrowed You know what that is? It's when... Remember the 18-year old who was just given the U-Haul truck keys? It's when that 18 year old follows Google Maps instead of the huge signs right before you enter Storrow, and they're just driving, they hit through the sign, and then they get stuck under a bridge. I view that as that's why God gave us the 10 Commandments. God doesn't want you to get Storrowed. If you break the commandments, the commandments end up breaking you. And yes, in the faith there are moral obligations. The 10 Commandments are still in force. This is how God wants us to frame our lives.
Next week we're starting a very new sermon series through the Gospel of Mark. We're calling it Kingdom Come. It's going to be a tremendous series. But I write my sermons a week ahead, so next week's sermons already written, it was written on Friday. And last time I preached through Mark was in 2012, and I still got all the word docs. And I went back and I read my sermon from 2012. The introduction was great. It was like what's the best news you ever heard? And I had my classic joke in there. It's a girl, it's a girl, it's a girl and it's a girl, because I have four. But then I got to this point where I wrote this, and I got to confess because it's terrible. I said, "Jesus doesn't teach on morality in the Gospel of Mark. The point of the faith isn't morality, it's not morality, it's just about relationship. It's not religion, it's a relationship."
Jesus Christ was Jewish and he was a Jewish Rabbi, he's the son of God who became the son of man. He said, I didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it, to ratify, to show you what the point of the law is. Jesus Christ lived his life perfectly under the 10 commandments, offers his life as a sacrifice for our lawbreaking of the commandments. He gives us grace, saves us and empowers us in the Holy Spirit, to then live a life of obedience of faith according to the commandments. And then Jesus comes and he summarizes. He says, the first four commandments are all about loving God. And the next six are all about loving neighbors. So God defines what it means to love. Deuteronomy five gives us 10 commandments. "And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, hear O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them.
The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb, not with our fathers, did the Lord make this covenant but with us, who are all of us here alive today. The Lord spoke with you face-to-face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire. And while I stood between the Lord and you at that time to declare to you the word of the Lord for you were afraid because of the fire and you did not go up into the mountain. He said, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.
You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain, observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.
You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath, honor your father and your mother as the Lord your God commanded you that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. And you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. And you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field or his male servant or his female servant, his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbor's." The Sabbath here is a commandment given and is a commandment that transcends time.
The Sabbath is a reminder that the purpose of life transcends work. The Sabbath is the only element of the creation that's explicitly marked as holy. The Sabbath belongs to God. Stress and burnout are hazards for driven people and the Sabbath is the best antidote. And God gives us the Sabbath that's still enforced. We do not Sabbath on a Saturday. We Sabbath on a Sunday. Why? Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is... This is one of the great proofs for the resurrection of Christ. What would it take for Jewish people who for thousands of years were taught the Sabbath is on a Saturday, the Sabbath is the seventh day, the Sabbath is on a Saturday. This is the day that you commit to the Lord. And then all of a sudden these same people are now taking the Sabbath on a Sunday. Why? Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
God built it in to the calendar. Religious people added hundreds of manmade rules to the 10 commandments, to the law of God. And they obfuscated the whole point. The whole point was this is how we love God. This is how we love people. And when Jesus came, he reminded us that the whole point of the law is love. Matthew 22:34, "But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law. And he said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets."
So what do we do here on Sundays? We gather to worship God. Why do we worship God? Why do we sing to him? Because we love him. Why do we hear from His word? Because we love him and we love what he said. And then we pray together and we celebrate Holy Communion. These are essential practices of the means of grace and the life of a believer. All of our service follow the basic pattern of meeting together that's traced back to the early church. We sing, we pray, we teach from scripture and we respond by taking communion. And our goal isn't to manufacture particular feeling or experience. We want you to meet Jesus Christ. And when you meet Jesus Christ, that changes everything, and that leads to transformation. We're passionate about the person and the work of Jesus Christ. We long to see the message of the gospel, that Jesus Christ lived the life that we were supposed to live in obedience to God's commandments.
And then Jesus dies the death that we deserve to die for our lawbreaking, and he goes to the cross, bears the wrath of God, takes the curse upon himself in order to extend mercy and the blessing of obedience to us. Every single one of us, we've broken at least one of the commandments. Not one of us has truly loved God from the heart or neighbor as self. We deserve eternal damnation. We deserve to be banished from the presence of God. But Jesus fulfilled all the commandments from the heart perfectly and then offers himself as a sacrifice to pay the penalty for our sins. When you look to the cross and you see Christ dying on behalf of you, on behalf of your sins, to redeem you, your soul, your body, your heart is filled with love, love for God, and then your heart is filled with love for neighbor.
And we do practice loving neighbor as self here, beginning with believers, beginning with Christians. The way that we practice community is in our community groups. We have 20 plus community groups that meet different places, different homes around the week. What do we do in the groups? We open scripture, usually the passages that were associated and read on Sunday. We study the scriptures, we have conversation about the scriptures, and then we pray for one another. We do take membership seriously. At Mosaic membership, we hold in high regard. What's membership? It's a commitment, a mutual commitment. When a church commits to take responsibility for a person and a person commits to take responsibility for the church. And membership is a commitment and a covenant to further the mission, the vision, and the life of the church. How do we become members at Mosaic? The first step is to take a membership class.
We will have the dates of the next one advertised soon. If you are new to the faith, perhaps you haven't been baptized as a believer, we practice baptism as believers, because Jesus Christ was baptized as an adult and we follow his example. And what is baptism? It's a public symbol of the spiritual death and resurrection of the believer who's died to their sin and resurrected to new life and Christ. If you have not been baptized as a believer, as an adult, we'd love to have a conversation with you about that. And then if you truly love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, you love your neighbor as yourself, what do you want to do? You want to share the gospel with those who don't know the Lord yet. And this is the great commission, Matthew 28, Jesus before his ascension, verse 16, it says, "Now the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.
And when they saw him, they worshiped him. But some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age." So we're not only supposed to take dominion over the physical realm, but we're also to take dominion over the spiritual realm as well. And we do that by proclaiming the word of God, proclaiming the gospel, and making disciples of all nations, spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. Baptism is done in the name, that's singular. And then we're given three names. In the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit to show us that there's unity in the Godhead, although there are three different persons.
And in this charge where we see that God is community. In the very beginning when God created everything he said, let us make man in our image. The God who is community, the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit and perfect love, creates humanity for community. So God who is community here is telling us, community of believers, to go and welcome new members into the community. I love on the outside of the temple, if you haven't seen it, you can see on the way out, it says "A house of prayer for all nations." I love that. I do pray that Mosaic continues to be a house of prayer for all nations, and for as long as you're here, I pray that you are blessed. And then we are to take the message of the gospel and the kingdom building word wherever we go.
And then we are to make disciples. We are to preach the gospel. We are to teach people that there's only one way of salvation. There's only one name by which we are to be saved. And the task of evangelism is so important that Christ gives us the great commission five times, in each of the gospels and in the Book of Acts, Jesus commissions us to go and tell the world the message of salvation. That though we are at war with God, he is giving us pardon, he's giving us amnesty, he's offering us forgiveness. And then we're ushered into the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Jesus calls his followers to give their lives in service of others and to take the gospel to the ends of the earth and make disciples. And whether you've spent your whole life in church or if you're just beginning to investigate the claims of Jesus, there is a place for you here. You're welcome to join, to serve and to expand God's kingdom in Boston, beyond, into the ends of the earth.
Mosaic Boston aspires to joyfully become a worldwide kingdom building force by proclaiming, believing and obeying the whole council of God, and thereby building men and women of God committed to the great mission, the great commandment and the great commission. Praise be to God. This time we're going to transition to celebrate holy communion. We do this the first Sunday of every month at Mosaic. For whom is holy communion? It's for followers of Jesus Christ who are living in humble repentance. So first, if you are not a believer in Jesus Christ, we ask that you refrain from this part of the service. Or if you are living in unrepentant sin, we ask that you refrain, instead just think about the gospel and spend some time in repentance.
If you would like to partake and have not received the elements, please raise your hand, and one of the ushers will give them to you. And as they do that, I'll pray for our time in communion. Oh holy God, we thank you that though there was a chasm between us and you, that you sent your son Jesus Christ, the perfect lamb of God, the Passover lamb, and Jesus, you were slain, and from your wounds you bled. Your body was crucified, and the word tells us your body was broken. And the greatest pain that you experienced on the cross was not just the physical, excruciating anguish, but the greatest pain you felt was the separation from the loving Father. When you cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Lord, you went through that, you went through that experience of drinking the wrath of God, the whole cup. And you did that for us so that we wouldn't have to. And Lord, right now, as we remember your sufferings, we rejoice that you did that because you love us. You did that because of the joy that was set before you. So we thank you Lord and we pray that you deepen our love for you, even now, expand even our capacity to love you and to love neighbor, and as we meditate upon your suffering on the cross. Lord, we repent of all sin of folly. We repent of insubordination, we repent of building our own kingdoms. And Lord, we receive mercy, we receive grace. And we pray that you continue to fill us with the spirit, continue and empower us to do your will. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. If you're new, there's two lids.
First lid up top, you open up gently, and that opens the cup. And then there's a lid at the bottom. And that's how you receive the bread. "On the night that Jesus Christ was betrayed, he took the bread, and after breaking it, he said, take, eat, and do this in remembrance of me. Then proceeded to take the cup and he said, this cup is the cup of the new covenant of my blood, which is poured out for the sins of many. Take, drink and do this in remembrance of me." Lord Jesus, we thank you for washing our souls with your blood. We thank you Jesus, that by your wounds and the wounds of your body, we can find healing, healing for our souls, healing for our minds, healing for our bodies. Pray Holy Spirit, now send us that healing. Send us your power, send us your anointing.
And Lord I pray that you continue to fill our hearts with the fire of your Holy Spirit for the great mission that you have for us. And to all do it with love according to the great commandment, love for you and love for neighbor. And Lord then empower us to your witnesses and to fulfill the great commission by making disciples. Give us opportunities to share the gospel with friends, family, neighbors. And I pray, Lord, in this season, save many people and draw them to yourself, draw the elect, and continue to convert and continue to build up your kingdom. And I pray, Lord, that you give us all grace now as we continue to worship you because you are worthy of all worship. And we pray this in the name of the Father, of the Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
