Podcasts about angelous

K. Sparks discusses in this episode artists that sound like other artists. They say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. But in the Hip Hop Industry, imitation is normally frowned upon in a negative light. Individuality is critical to establishing an artists unique story and cementing their place in the music industry. K. Sparks discusses the similarities between Jay Z and Brooklyn New York rapper Angelous that was known to have sounded exactly like Jay Z. Other comparisons made are October London with Marvin Gaye, Nas with Your Old Droog, and Eminem with NF.  Website https://www.ksparksmusic.com/ Twitter https://x.com/Ksparkstv TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@ksparksmusic Instagram https://www.instagram.com/ksparksmusic/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/KsparksMusic/ Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/DiagnosisSuccess/

Would you like to sleep well, relax and change your body? **Join Me on My Journey to Wellness!** https://www.youtube.com/@barossabodybylauren And https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8iR8NUZtQ1CLzWn5U0BoSQ Welcome to my new channel, [Barossa Body by Lauren](https://www.youtube.com/@barossabodybylauren), where I focus on gaining strength, improving health, and enhancing nutrition as we age. This channel empowers you with the tools to live a vibrant and healthy life. Here, I offer a number of twenty-minute user-friendly weight classes. Additionally, I invite you to subscribe to my original channel, [Lauren Ostrowski Fenton](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8iR8NUZtQ1CLzWn5U0BoSQ), which is centred around meditation, reducing anxiety, and coping with grief. Here, I specialize in helping individuals navigate the challenges of anxiety and loneliness, guiding you on a transformative journey toward restful sleep and rejuvenating mornings. Through the power of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and sleep meditation techniques, I share insights on mindfulness that can significantly enhance your sleep quality. Explore strategies designed to address common sleep troubles and discover how CBT can be a powerful tool for managing and overcoming sleep disorders. Join me for guided sleep meditations, where I combine relaxation techniques with my soothing voice to create a tranquil atmosphere conducive to deep rest. You'll learn how to manage anxiety for better sleep and harness the power of positive thinking to promote peaceful nights. **Remember to subscribe to both channels and hit the notification bell to stay updated on the latest videos on sleep, mindfulness, strength training, and nutrition. Sweet dreams and a healthy body await you! For those seeking more in-depth support, I offer online counseling sessions as a certified counselor with a Master's in Counseling. You can book a session through my SimplyBook.me page: [Book a Session](https://laurenostrowskifenton.simplybook.me/v2/). Additionally, I invite you to join the PEACE COLLECTIVE CLUB on Patreon, where you can access meditation classes, free seminars, workshops, and exclusive content that promotes healing, relaxation, and personal growth. [Join the Peace Collective Club](https://www.patreon.com/laurenostrowskifenton).

The Miscellaneous Podcast is a title that says it all. We talk about everything and anything. Sports, Current Events, Movies, TV, Games, and much much more. Hope you Enjoy!Send us a Text, or Leave us Voicemail at our Free Google number 1-(314)-403-0151Email us @ miscellaneouspodcast17@gmail.comTy to music provided Ready-Made https://open.spotify.com/artist/3wWCXXaRMjW2DPpqPSzj5T?si=xRi6Z https://music.apple.com/us/album/self-made/1537705202Reference videos taken from Tiktok. Shout out to Tiktok!Help support our Friends: Fundraiser for George Seifried by Krista Mannino : Raise funds to help pay for medical bills (gofundme.com)https://twitch.tv/repentful_gaming_https:// music.apple.com/us/artist/almightymusicgroup/1593416774

In this episode, we chat about Gregorian chant; what it is, how it's different from modern music, and how it impacts our lives.    Announcements: Support our podcast on Patreon! Production of each episode takes hours of work, filming, and editing. Becoming a patron can help us keep our episode quality high and allow us to continue filming. Become a patron today at https://www.patreon.com/meatsmith. Come to our 3-Day Family Pig Harvest class this November and December and use your hands to turn four lambs into kitchen-sized lamb cuts, sausage, and charcuterie. The dates are November 16th-18th, November 30th - December 2nd, and December 14th-16th. To keep the hands-on experience undiluted, classes are limited to just eight students. Jump on this chance and sign up today! https://farmsteadmeatsmith.com/the-family-pig/ Meatsmith Membership -- a gift that gives all year long! More than 45 Harvest Films, Brandon's Harvest Journal, and our community FaceBook group. 60-day free trial available! Use the Newsletter Special option on our sign-up page and apply the promo code 60daytrial at checkout. Sign up for Meatsmith Membership at FarmsteadMeatsmith.com/product/membership/.   Timestamps/Topics for Episode 88: 0:00 What is Gregorian chant? 12:00 How Gregorian chant is different from modern music 15:06 You will understand even though it's in Latin 22:48 A different way of singing 32:21 Beauty orders the appetites  39:48 Chant appeals to the intellect 44:00 Definition of Beauty 51:34 How chant impacts our lives  1:05:17 Chant in our home 1:11:10 Sound of Music's influence     Links for Episode 88: Good Music, Sacred Music, and Silence: Three Gifts of God for Liturgy and for Life by Peter Kwasniewski https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123001541-good-music-sacred-music-and-silence?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=hVhG76GNXj&rank=1 Dies Irae - Gregorian Chant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OBB5-bP6qs&t=2s The Monks of Norcia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0qVBhp_wJM Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary - Requiem album https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQUVO_gHh6M Monastic Choir Of Our Lady Of Clear Creek Abbey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IseSwHhmLE&list=OLAK5uy_nA_69LfiHPMUAJOt6lOkb-VbTlmnvp_dg Nicholas Lemme - St. John Passion  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gV9LHxkr78 FSSP Requiem Mass https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3RgzZwlpFA&t=667s Lecture with the definition of Beauty by Fr. Chad Ripperger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDSsFn-JaXY&t=996s Timothy Flanders - The Meaning of Catholic https://www.youtube.com/@TheMeaningofCatholic/featured AND The Logos of Music article https://meaningofcatholic.com/2021/10/01/the-logos-of-music/ The Angelous we chant at home https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnfc3RN-BAw Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary - Learn chant http://www.fsspolgs.org/learn-chant/solfege-introduction/ Sound of Music - Do Re Mi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drnBMAEA3AM Gregorian Chant Academy - https://www.gregorianchantacademy.com/

In this episode of Sync Music Mondays K. Sparks and JS aka The Best discuss the music industry with special guest Angelous. Angelous exploded onto the music scene in the 2000's with a string a mixtapes that flooded the streets. The Brooklyn native gained notoriety for sounding like Jay-z, which increased his buzz with features in MTV, XXL, Hot 97, DJ Clue, DJ Kay Slay, and having a record deal for 1 Million dollars.    Are you a musician seeking to get your music in Television & Film? Rhythm Couture is proud to present Sync Music Mondays. A podcast dedicated to financial literacy for musicians in regards to monetizing their music, and how to get sync placements. Music Licensing is a multi-million dollar industry. Sync Music Mondays educates musicians in regards to sync music, music supervisors, performing rights organizations, how to pitch music, and much more! Our mission here at Rhythm Couture is to help purpose-driven musicians  attain their goals doing what they love and making an impact through the power of music. Here are the ways to work with us here at Rhythm Couture: ⚡️FREE TIPS: Download our FREE TV/Film Sync Music Licensing Tips: https://www.rhythmcouture.com/mlb ⚡️RC UNIVERSITY: Check out our online university that provides direct knowledge in regards to music licensing https://www.rhythmcouture.com/rc-academy ⚡️COURSES/ COACHING / MASTERMINDS: Learn about our online courses, coaching, and one on one personal Music Licensing Master Mind Classes designed to help every musician reach their goals. Schedule a consultation via the contact page on our website. https://www.rhythmcouture.com/contact (Host) K. Sparks: https://www.instagram.com/ksparksmusic/ (Host) JS aka The Best: https://www.instagram.com/jsakathebest/ (Engineer) Es-K: https://www.instagram.com/beatsbyesk/

The world famous poet, memoirist, civil rights activist, author, singer, dancer and scholar - Maya Angelou said "When you know better, you do better." Butttttt I think you and I both know that this isn't always the case hmmmm. So this episode I basically give you the tough love you need so you can repeat Ms Angelous quote and MEAN IT. Saying you want better but not actually doing better has detrimental affects on our lives, I know that sounds dramatic but it's true. You rob yourself of so much and diminish your self esteem by continuing to participate in situations that break you down and always resulting in the same outcome. As always would love to connect over on IG and know any future podcast episodes you want to hear and your takeaways! @lovehally --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/necessaryrealness/message

PERFORMER "Jay" TITLE "19:41" FILE "firstup4kay.mp3" MP3   TRACK 01 AUDIO     TITLE "Intro (Clean Album Version)"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Aaron Hall"     INDEX 01 00:00:00   TRACK 02 AUDIO     TITLE "New Jack City (Clean Album Version)"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Posta Boy, The Shells, Cassidy, Grafh & J Hood"     INDEX 01 02:48:00   TRACK 03 AUDIO     TITLE "Untouchables"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Prodigy, Raekwon & AZ"     INDEX 01 04:20:00   TRACK 04 AUDIO     TITLE "Give Me My Flowers Now"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Papoose, Joel Ortiz & Sammi J"     INDEX 01 06:44:00   TRACK 05 AUDIO     TITLE "It's a Brand New Day"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Jon Connor, Big Krit, Reek Da Villian & Tre Williams"     INDEX 01 08:55:00   TRACK 06 AUDIO     TITLE "Freestyle (Clean Album Version)"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Eminem"     INDEX 01 11:06:00   TRACK 07 AUDIO     TITLE "50 Shot Ya (Clean Album Version)"     PERFORMER "DJ Kayslay feat. 50 Cent"     INDEX 01 12:19:00   TRACK 08 AUDIO     TITLE "I'm Gone"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Eminem & Obie Trice"     INDEX 01 14:32:00   TRACK 09 AUDIO     TITLE "Drama"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Lil Jon, David Banner, Bun B & Baby D"     INDEX 01 16:20:00   TRACK 10 AUDIO     TITLE "The Champions (Clean Version)"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Doo Wop, Tony Touch, DJ Clue, Funk Flex, S&S, Brucie B, Kid Capri & Ron G"     INDEX 01 17:57:00   TRACK 11 AUDIO     TITLE "Hip-Hop Icons"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Ice T & Kool G Rap"     INDEX 01 21:15:00   TRACK 12 AUDIO     TITLE "The Truth"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. LL Cool J"     INDEX 01 23:51:00   TRACK 13 AUDIO     TITLE "Where Is The Love"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Conway The Machine, Sheek Louch & Jhonni Blaze"     INDEX 01 26:46:00   TRACK 14 AUDIO     TITLE "This Is My Culture"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Ransom, Papoose, Jon Connor & Locksmith"     INDEX 01 28:00:00   TRACK 15 AUDIO     TITLE "Coast To Coast Gangstas (Clean Album Version)"     PERFORMER "DJ Kayslay feat. Sauce Money, Joe Buddens, Wc, Bun B, Killer Mike & Hak Ditty"     INDEX 01 29:53:00   TRACK 16 AUDIO     TITLE "Through Your Head"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Jae Millz, Angelous, Cashmere, Trife, Maino, True Life & The Bad Seed"     INDEX 01 32:02:00   TRACK 17 AUDIO     TITLE "Respect the Cipher"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Loaded Lux, Mistah F.A.B., Termanology, Ms Hustle, Nicky D's, Oun P & Ras Kass"     INDEX 01 34:43:00   TRACK 18 AUDIO     TITLE "No Problems"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Left Gunz, Nore, Nature & Jaheim"     INDEX 01 37:27:00   TRACK 19 AUDIO     TITLE "Not Your Average Joe"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Fat Joe, JOE & Joe Budden"     INDEX 01 39:30:00   TRACK 20 AUDIO     TITLE "Too Much For Me (Clean Album Version)"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Nas, Baby, Foxy Brown & Amerie"     INDEX 01 41:38:00   TRACK 21 AUDIO     TITLE "Face Off"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Ghostface Killah & Scarface"     INDEX 01 44:39:00   TRACK 22 AUDIO     TITLE "Angels Voice (Clean Album Version)"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Flipmode Squad"     INDEX 01 46:27:00   TRACK 23 AUDIO     TITLE "Can't Tell Me Nothing"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Young Buck, Raekwon, Jay Rock & Meet Sims"     INDEX 01 48:25:00   TRACK 24 AUDIO     TITLE "Living Legend"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Jadakiss, Queen Latifah & Bun B"     INDEX 01 50:56:00   TRACK 25 AUDIO     TITLE "We Get Busy"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. AZ, Papoose, Bun B, Benny The Butcher, Trae Tha Truth, Zone & Ghostface Killah"     INDEX 01 52:44:00

PERFORMER "Jay" TITLE "22:05" FILE "firstup419.mp3" MP3   TRACK 01 AUDIO     TITLE "Intro (Clean Album Version)"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Aaron Hall"     INDEX 01 00:00:00   TRACK 02 AUDIO     TITLE "No Problems"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Left Gunz, Nore, Nature & Jaheim"     INDEX 01 02:59:00   TRACK 03 AUDIO     TITLE "Watch Out Now"     PERFORMER "The Beatnuts"     INDEX 01 04:50:00   TRACK 04 AUDIO     TITLE "Bing Bong (Radio Edit)"     PERFORMER "Nems"     INDEX 01 06:00:00   TRACK 05 AUDIO     TITLE "Uncle Bun"     PERFORMER "Benny The Butcher feat. 38 Spesh"     INDEX 01 06:58:00   TRACK 06 AUDIO     TITLE "More Or Less (Album Version (Edited))"     PERFORMER "Shyne"     INDEX 01 08:34:00   TRACK 07 AUDIO     TITLE "God's Gift"     PERFORMER "J. Cole"     INDEX 01 10:04:00   TRACK 08 AUDIO     TITLE "Dogs Out"     PERFORMER "DMX"     INDEX 01 12:15:00   TRACK 09 AUDIO     TITLE "Barz"     PERFORMER "Jim Jones & Dave East"     INDEX 01 14:21:00   TRACK 10 AUDIO     TITLE "Where Ya From (Clean Version)"     PERFORMER "Mobb Deep"     INDEX 01 16:20:00   TRACK 11 AUDIO     TITLE "The Champions (Clean Version)"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Doo Wop, Tony Touch, DJ Clue, Funk Flex, S&S, Brucie B, Kid Capri & Ron G"     INDEX 01 17:41:00   TRACK 12 AUDIO     TITLE "Untouchable"     PERFORMER "DMX feat. Sheek, Syleena Johnson, Infa-Red & Cross & Drag-On feat. Sheek & Syleena Johnson & Infa-Red & Cross & Drag-On"     INDEX 01 21:17:00   TRACK 13 AUDIO     TITLE "Through Your Head"     PERFORMER "DJ Kay Slay feat. Jae Millz, Angelous, Cashmere, Trife, Maino, True Life & The Bad Seed"     INDEX 01 23:28:00   TRACK 14 AUDIO     TITLE "So Much Pain (feat  2Pac)"     PERFORMER "Ja Rule feat. 2Pac"     INDEX 01 25:33:00   TRACK 15 AUDIO     TITLE "Holiday (Album Version (Edited))"     PERFORMER "Ruff Ryders"     INDEX 01 26:48:00   TRACK 16 AUDIO     TITLE "Apollo Kids (Album Version)"     PERFORMER "Ghostface Killah"     INDEX 01 29:24:00   TRACK 17 AUDIO     TITLE "40-16 Building"     PERFORMER "Nas"     INDEX 01 30:17:00   TRACK 18 AUDIO     TITLE "Quiet Storm (Clean Version)"     PERFORMER "Mobb Deep"     INDEX 01 31:17:00   TRACK 19 AUDIO     TITLE "Brave In The Heart (Radio)"     PERFORMER "Big Pun feat. Terror Squad"     INDEX 01 33:07:00

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. Welcome to Mosaic Church. My name is Jan, one of the pastors along Pastor Shane, Pastor Andy. Thank you so much for coming to worship. If you're new or visiting, we'd love to connect with you. We do that through the connection card and the worship guide to fill it out legibly, just redeem it at the welcome center. They'll give you a gift and we'll get in touch with you over the course of the week as well. One quick announcement for the members of the church and for those who have been notified that you were becoming a member, we have our first quarterly members meeting next Sunday. It's at 1:00 PM. It's right after church. One. Yeah, 1:00 PM. It's a potluck. This is important. This is important. Are you even in the church, if you don't have the potluck?If you are new, it's new for everyone. I forgot. Potluck is where you actually bring food and enough for you and enough to share. The goal is to have food left over to bring people, to bless people with the food. Chips don't count as a meal. Cupcakes don't count as a meal either. If you're like, I don't know what to cook. Rotisserie chicken, Whole Foods. That's what I say. They have other stuff too.With that said, would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's holy word? Heavenly Father, we thank you for the incredible Book of Romans, the Mount Everest, so to speak, of the epistles. We thank you for your choice servant, Paul, the apostle, who saw the resurrected Christ. Lord, we thank you for his zeal, for his love for you. We thank you for his desire to impart spiritual blessings to other Christians. And as we look at this incredible text in chapter one verses eight through 15, give us a vision as believers to become selfless, like the example of Paul, to care about others, to pray for others, to pray for the faith of others, to do everything we possibly can to strengthen their faith and to encourage them. Make us people who have a vision for ourselves to become seasoned, mature Christians, godly saints with years and decades of faithfulness from which we can draw upon and share and bless others. Bless our time with the holy word and make us a people who truly are strength by your spirit.And as we are strengthened, may we strengthen others. Teach us to be a people who love the gospel, who worship you in the gospel, who receive the gospel, preach the gospel to ourselves, and then preach the gospel to other Christians, to remind ourselves of our identity, of our place in you, of our eternal blessing that is to come. Holy Spirit, we come to you and we ask, come to the service, prepare us, take this text, illuminate it, and let us receive it, not just with our minds, but burn it into our hearts and then activate our will to live a life worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We pray all this in Christ's holy name. Amen.We started a sermon series through the Book of Romans last week. One thing I want to point out from last week's text, and this is one of the beauties of swimming in the richness of a text like this is you study and preach and then I keep meditating. Then we have community group. My community meets on Tuesdays and we had this revelation that in verse one St. Paul introduces himself, and he says, Paul, a servant, or doulas, a slave of Christ Jesus called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. We had this meditation of, how do you learn about what God's call is, his specific will on your life? What he wants you to do, what your purpose is? Whom to marry? What kind of job to pursue, career to pursue, where to live. A lot of people want the specifics. God, what's your specific will for my life? Well, the specific calling comes after the submission. This is important. Paul, before he talks about his calling, he talks about his submission of Christ, that he is a servant, a doulas.He submitted his whole life and then God reveals the calling. If we are not obedient in submission to God in this revealed word, and then we come to him and we're God, can you reveal your will? He's like, once you submit to my revealed will, my explicit will, then you'll be ready to steward more. That's important. It brings us to the introduction. One of the greatest joys in life, my greatest joy in life is listening to the testimony of seasoned believers, mature believers. People who have been following the Lord faithfully for decades. Do you know people like this? We don't have enough people like this at Mosaic. I pray for people like this. I pray for seasoned saints in their forties and fifties and sixties. I pray for God to ... Amen. Hallelujah, praise God, praise. We have some representation.I pray for more. I don't know of any other churches that ... I pray for this all the time. I pray that God sparks of movement of people that retire, that I say I want to retire to Boston. I know it's expensive. I know, I know, I know. Retire on the north shore. Just be close enough because there's people coming from all over the world to Boston. Young people coming here to train, get educations, university, college, grad school. They're tremendous at their one little niche in life, but they have zero life skills. We're praying for more seasoned believers. One of the things that I noticed, I've had conversations like this with seasoned believers. One of the things that you see after having hundreds of these conversations is the emphasis on the basics of Christianity, on reading scripture every day, on praying to the Lord. And not just praying for material needs, seasoned mature believers, they pray for spiritual needs not just for themselves, for others.They pray for the faith of others. They have a desire to strengthen and encourage other states, and they have a love for gospel ministry, for sharing the gospel with those who are still far from the Lord. And in our text today, what we see is Paul, as a spiritual father, he hasn't met the Roman Christians yet, but he cares for them. He has a desire to see them, and he has a desire to come and minister to them, to encourage them, be mutually encouraged by their faith. As we look through the text, I pray that you catch a vision as well to live as a spiritual parent, where you begin to notice younger Christians and you seek to mentor them in the faith. We see the building blocks for that in Romans 1:8-15. Would you look at the text with me.First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God's will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. I want you to know, brothers, that I often intended to come to you, but thus far have been prevented, in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. I'm under obligation, both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also, who are in Rome.This is the reading of God's holy and infallible authoritative word. May you write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame up our time. First, thank God for the courageous faith of saints. Second, strengthen and mutually encourage the saints and preach the gospel to reap a harvest of righteousness. First, thank God for the courageous faith of saints. That's verses eight through 10. Paul begins here, in the way that you have to begin everything, if you're going to do anything of kingdom consequence, he starts with prayer. At this point in every single one of his letters after he greets the church to whom he's writing or whoever's writing to, he gives a greeting, and usually in that greeting, he gives a prayer and he prays for the Christians to whom he's writing. The prayer is always about spiritual needs. He does this in every single letter, except for the letter to the Galatians, because the letter of the Galatians is a little unique because he is dealing with the church that is playing with Heresy.At this point, instead of praying for them, he just says, I am shocked. I am surprised that you would so quickly turn to another gospel. You're deserting the gospel. It's different here with the Christians in Rome. Paul is thrilled that though he has not been in Rome, he hasn't done gospel ministry, he's heard that the Christian community in Rome is thriving and people all over the Mediterranean are hearing this report, that there are Christians in Rome. And first of all, he's so shocked by the fact that there are any Christians in Rome, he just pause. He says, I thank God that God saved some Christians. There's Christians who are pledging allegiance to Jesus Christ as Lord, as κύριος, politically charged term, because Caesar wanted everyone to pledge allegiance to him as Lord, as κύριος. Here under Caesar's nose, so to speak, in his backyard, there's Christians pledging allegiance to a higher authority than to the government.Paul is thrilled about that. In Romans 1:8, he says, first, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. The first thing I want to point out is that Paul has a personal relationship with God. He doesn't view Christianity as just a mere religion. He views it as a relationship. He says, I thank my God. I thank my God. It's personal pronoun, possessive pronoun. God is my God. Friends, can you say that? This is really a difference between a Christian and a non-Christian. Paul, doesn't say, I pray to the God of the universal, though that is true. He doesn't say I pray to the king of Kings, though that is true. He doesn't say I pray to the God of my fathers or the God of my grandparents. He said, no, I pray to my God. He's my Lord. He's my savior.Do you have this personal relationship with God? You can go to him and you are on a personal basis. He knows your name. You know his name. Are you known by him? Does he know you? You say, well, how can I know that God is my God? Well, it begins with repentance. And repentance is where you lay down your I. To get to that, my God is my God, you got to lay down your I. You got to get to the point where you realize, oh, I'm not God. I'm not the God of my life. This was the temptation in the garden of Eden with Satan going to Eve and Adam, he's you can be your own gods. That's really the religion of the day. People say, oh, people aren't very religious.No, no, no. People are more religious than they've ever been. The religion is just myself. I do whatever I want. I am God over my life. Well, that's what repentance is. Repentance, you get to the point where it's like that actually is insubordination to the God of the universe. Because of that, I am under condemnation and I need to repent. I need to submit to God, and through Christ, be forgiven, reconciled with God. Now God can be my God. Paul also knows that God is his God because of the work of Jesus Christ. He says, I thank my God through Jesus Christ. If Paul's so supremely aware of Christ's current and his actual intercessory work, that Jesus Christ right now is seated at the right hand of God, the Father, and he is interceding for us. When we come to God, we do not come to God on our own merits.Paul doesn't do that. Paul could have come to God and be like, I thank my God and I come to him because I've done a lot of great things for him because I have followed him so faith ... He doesn't do that. He understands that the only merits on which he can come to God are the merits of Jesus Christ. We can't do a thing apart from God. We can't do a thing about ... Jesus Christ said, you can't do a thing apart for me. Once in a while, I'm reminded of this in silly ways. I have a 2007 Highlander and my Highlander doesn't have the little sensors on the side, like when there are cars, you shouldn't probably merge. But I had a rental like a week and a half ago, a Yukon and it was brand new. I just got used to not checking my blind spot because they had the little sensors and I'm oh, this is tremendous.I'm driving down the road yesterday on Route 9 and I forgot, I'm not in my rental. I just forgot, as I'm merging to the next lane, I forgot that I should probably check my blind spot. In my blind spot, there was a massive truck right behind me, lays down the horn. I felt terrible. I'm oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. God just prevented me from a terrible car accident. You can't do a thing apart from Christ. We can't even worship God apart from Christ. Hebrews 13:15. Through him, Jesus, then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. When we worship God with our mouth, when we sing to God, we're offering a fruit of prayer, but it's only through Christ that that's even accepted.Paul begins with prayer, but the prayer is specifically a prayer of Thanksgiving. If you study the prayers of Paul, he always, always doing this. Before he asks God for anything, he's thanking God for the blessings that he already sees. I would submit to you that this is a discipline that each one of us can cultivate more deeper, live a life of Thanksgiving. Do you want to grow in satisfaction? Do you want to grow in enjoying life? Do you want to grow in noticing God's good gifts? This, in the secular world, they call this presence, like to be present, it's a practice of mindfulness. Do we want to grow in joy and happiness? Well then grow in Thanksgiving. Start prayer with worshiping God and thanking God for who he is and what he's done for you. Paul, here, uses the thanks.It's a very particular Greek word. There's several words for Thanksgiving, but here he uses eucharisteo, which is, we get the word Eucharist from it. It's Thanksgiving for God's sacrifice, for God's blessing. The word also assumes obligation. When we think of thanking someone, we don't usually think of obligation like, I'm obligated to. But when it comes to God, we are obligated to say thank you to God. Then he goes on in the next passage. He's this is the problem with all of humanity, everything that's wrong in the world is really because people will not thank God, will not glorify God for all of his abundant blessings. We are obligated to say thank you to God and that's where Paul starts. He starts with prayer and a prayer of Thanksgiving, in particular for the faith of these Christians. He says, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.he uses the word cosmos. What he means is, the then known world. When we think of world, we think the planet and we think everything everywhere. That's not how they thought about the word world. He says, your faith is proclaiming all the world. He's talking about the Mediterranean world. What he's surprised about is, hey, this church has a reputation for being faithful to God all around the Mediterranean world. People couldn't believe it. People when they heard, oh, there's Christians in Rome, of all places. Why were they so surprised? Because Rome was notorious for being the capital of the world's debauchery. This is where you go to sin. Then sin, egregiously. in this there's den of wickedness, there's Christians. There's Christians who are public about their personal relationship with God. That's how people learned about their faith because they were public about it.A lot of people think personal relationships should be private. No, those are different words. A personal relationship with God should be public. People in our lives should know that we profess the name of Christ, that we follow Christ, that we love God. There's no such thing as a closeted Christian. We live in a world where people are very proud of their sin, very public about their sin. And my prayer is for Christians to be at least as public about their following Christ. Imagine if people are like, oh, the faith of Christians in Boston is proclaimed in all the world. And it's all already beginning. Chloe is our finance and admin person. She sends a power BI dashboard every once in a while so we see how many clicks on the website from other, from where.People are tuning in from all over the world which is incredibly encouraging, because people come from all over the world. They come here, they're in the church and then they go to other places and they still keep up with the ministry here. In our membership, our current membership is 225 members. We have over 34 languages spoken in our current membership. That's how global, that's how diverse of a church this is to show how strategic of a place Boston is. That's how Paul thought about Rome. They were public about their faith. Here Paul says, your faith is proclaiming all the world. He uses the Greek word pistis, which is important because the semantic range of the word, faith or pistis, faith is just a small part of it. Faith is like the beginning of the word pistis. But it has to grow into something a lot greater, and that's faithfulness. True faith always grows into faithfulness and that's usually how the word is used.If you look at Galatians five, is the fruit of the spirit. He says the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. It's the same word as your faith is proclaimed. The idea, and we talk about this, that Paul is given the mission to bring about the obedience of faith. We talked about that last week. A faith without works is dead. When Paul thinks about, it's not just intellectual ascent as like I agree with the facts of the gospel. No, it's, is your life transformed by it? Does your life mirror that you believe in the gospel? True faith must be a response to God's faithfulness. God is faithful to us and the gospel. And my response to his faithfulness is a personal faithfulness of following him. Why does Paul thank God for the faith of Roman Christians?He here is planting, he's building the foundation for the theology of election and salvation, justification, glorification that he's going to expressly speak on later. But here he just wants everyone to know, I'm thankful for your faith. The reason I'm thankful is because your faith is a gift. And you see that all throughout scripture. Philippians 1:29, for it has granted to you. It's been gifted to you, that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake. What he's getting at is, you've been giving a double gift. The first part of the gift is to believe in Christ, that faith is a gift. Then also, it's a gift to suffer for the sake of Christ.Ephesians 2:8, a similar theme. For by grace, you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing this. This, that's the faith part, is not your own doing it. The antecedent to it is faith. Faith is the gift of God. Christians, we should be public about our personal relationship with Christ because of the gift of faith he's given us, but we should be publicly humble about it. Because a lot of people who are public in their faith are also very arrogant and jerks. We pray not to be like that. We want to be humble because our faith is a gift. It's a gift from God. How do you reconcile that with the fact that we said faith is an act of the will? It is an act of the will. It's the act of a will to receive the gift. God is giving the gift of faith.It's available to everybody. You have to receive it. That's the act of the will is, yes, I want faith. Yeah, I want to believe in Christ. I want to believe in God and I'm going to submit my life to it. So it is an act of faith. Then as you exercise your faith in believing in God, then God tells you, yeah, I gave you grace to do that. He gets all the glory and we grow in humility. Paul here, he thanks God for the gift of the faith that he sees, hears of the Roman Christians. He says, your faith is known in all the world. Then in Roman 6:19, just to show you once more that when he thinks about faith, he thinks about faith that leads to obedience, uses the same phrase, except instead of faith uses the word obedience. For your obedience is known to all so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent, as to what is evil.We, as members of Mosaic, and as followers of Christ, we should be thankful for one another's faith. But when you see a brother or sister growing in faith, and when you see them growing in faith, let's let them know, and you say, you know what? I thank God. I see God growing your faith. I thank God for that gift of faith. I thank God for the growth that I see. He continues in verse nine. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing, I mention you always in my prayers asking that somehow by God's will, I may now at last succeed in coming to you. A lot's going on here, but you see Paul's desire to be with them.You also see Paul at peace with the fact that God has not yet opened the door for his desire to be fulfilled. He says, look, I want to come, but I'm going to wait for the opportunity to come from God, in God's way, in God's timing. Paul, when he wrote these words, he had no idea in what manner he would go to Rome and he went to Rome, he got to Rome, but he got to Rome in chains and he was enslaved to Caesar. God did answer that call, but you see that he's at peace here. In verse nine, he says, I serve of God with my spirit in the gospel of his Son. The word for serve here is a powerful word because it shows how far the American church has actually drifted from an understanding of true worship.Jesus Christ, when he thought about worship and the Old Testament, New Testament, worship is so much more than what we have diffused. We think of worship as just singing songs to God. That's compartmentalized. Like this is my worship. I'm going to get my worship on. I'm going to go to church. I'm going to listen to some worship music in my car. When Paul thinks about worship, yes, that's included in singing Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs. When he thinks about worship, he thinks about this word in the Greek, λατρεύω, which means serve and worship. To worship God, in Paul's mind is to serve God and to serve God is to worship God. He says in my spirit, starts in the heart, I am worshiping God, serving God in my own soul with the gospel. Then from an overflow of worshiping God for the gospel of a Son, I then minister out of the gospel.Service to the Lord is part of being a faithful Christian and faithful worship to God. Then he says, it's the gospel of his Son. I serve with my spirit and the gospel of his Son. Here, this is possessive. The gospel belongs to whom? It belongs to God. It belongs to Jesus Christ. Paul didn't invent the gospel. God invented the gospel. Paul's authority doesn't stem from his own person. It comes from the authority that God has infused the gospel with and commissioned Paul to preach it. What's my authority? What's the authority of the leadership here at the church? All our authority is rooted in holy scripture. Everything we do, everything we preach, everything we say, we point you back to the holy scriptures and not ourselves. There is no authority. The authority comes from God.It comes from his word. It comes from his gospel. The gospel though, the word for gospel is εὐαγγελίζω and comes from two parts. Eu means good or pleasant and angelous or angelion, we get the word angel from it, but it angel is just a messenger. Angelous is just the message. It's the message of what Christ did. And in ancient days, it was a military term. If a kingdom went to battle against another kingdom, you send your army. Then one in that town, everyone in the city, they want to know how's the battle going. What they would do is, they would send a runner to the battlefield. Once the runner has some news about how it's going on the battlefield, the runner would run back. This is the very first marathon runners. They would run back to the town to bring news about how it's going on the battlefield.And the watchmen in the towers of the city, what they would do is, they'd watch for the person running. If they see the person running, and as soon as they see the person sprinting, if feet, the legs propel, like that's good news, this person is excited about whatever news he's bring. If the person is jogging, just lethargic, that's usually bad news and the watchman is yeah, I'm going to wait, let that guy share the bad news. But that's really what the word gospel means, it means great news. The great news has to do with the work of Jesus Christ. In scripture there is three ways that the gospel is used. If you're not familiar with Christianity, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, those are the gospels, but that's a form of literature. That's not what Paul is talking about here.Then when Jesus Christ came, the word gospel meant the news about the coming of the king. Jesus Christ is the king. The kingdom of God is at hand. John, the baptizer would preach, repent and believe because the kingdom of God is at hand. That was the gospel message. Then after Christ death, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension, now, the gospel has to do with his life and his work. The gospel is about what he did in life in perfect obedience to God, the Father. And then in perfect obedience, he goes to the cross and dies in atoning death. He didn't just die for the faith, he died for our sins. He bears the penalty for our sins, atones for our sins. Then he is resurrected from the dead, ascended to heaven and he pours out the Holy Spirit upon his church.That's the objective truth of the gospel. We proclaim that. We explain that. That's the objective truth, that it doesn't make any difference unless a person personally accepts it, subjectively accepts it. That I, yes, I am a sinner. Yes, Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins order to redeem me. That's when you begin to benefit from the gospel. Evangelical Christians, this is an important conversation. When people ask you, what Christian are you? What's your answer, especially in Boston? What Christian are you? They always want to know. I hope you're not one of those evangelical types. Because the word evangelical, it's a derogatory term right now. That's like a bad word. It's like those deplorables out there. Those are terrible, terrible people. You're evangelicals. So whenever anyone asks me, are you an evangelical Christian?I always stop and I say, what do you mean by the word evangelical? Because no one knows, no one has any clue what the word evangelical means. Well now, so I don't use that word anymore. I'm just going to start using the word gospel. I'm a gospel Christian. Well, what is the word gospel? You say, the good news of Jesus Christ. That's the kind of Christian, that's who we are as believers. We're good news Christians. This is the message that we proclaim that anybody, any sinner anywhere, no matter what you've done, no matter where you are in life, at any moment, if you submit your life to Christ, you repent of your sin, that Jesus Christ forgives you of all your sin, now you are a child of God forever. Repent and believe. That's what Paul starts off with. Thanks God for the faith of the saints. The faith in what? The faith in the gospel.Then he has the desire to come and strengthen them. This is point two. Strengthen and mutually encourage the saints. And this is verse 11. For I long to see you that may impart to you, some spiritual gift to strengthen you. That is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. He uses the most powerful Greek word he can to talk about desire. He says, I long, I long to come and be with you. It's the same word that's used in First Peter 2:2, like newborn infants long for the spiritual milk that, by it, may grow up into salvation. He says, as an infant longs for nourishing food, he said, I long to be with you. For what? For what purpose? He says, I want to impart something to you. I don't want to just get something for me.I don't want to just be served by you. I want come and serve. This is, as you mature as a believer, this is how you begin to understand that other people need you. Other people need encouragement from you. It's not just you coming and taking, it's you coming and serving. As you grow in the faith, you long to impart something. How can I help you? My parents are my grandparents 10 times over. My dad is really owning the granddad role. He's getting better and better at it. One of the things he does now, anytime he goes to visit his grandkids, he's got pockets full of what? Candy. He loves coming to my place. I got four daughters. He gives them so much candy, huge sugar rush. Doesn't even tell them, brush your teeth right after.Just leaves me to deal with the emotional fallout of their crashes. But he just wants to give them something. How can I bless you? How can I guide you? What can I share with you? This is what Paul wants. He's like, I want to come. I want to impart this. He uses the same word in First Thessalonians 2:8. being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you. That's the same word as impart. Share with you, not only gospel of God, but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. He said, I want to come. I want encourage you. I want to impart some spiritual blessing, spiritual gifts, he says. The word for spiritual is pnevmatikós. It comes from the Holy Spirit, characterized by the Holy Spirit.He says, I want to come and I want you to experience more of the Holy Spirit. I want you to experience the greatest gifts that there are, and that's the gifts of God's presence. I want to do everything I possibly can to help you learn to walk in step with the spirit. That's the same word that's used in Ephesians 1:3. Blessed be the God and father, our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. The greatest blessings that God can offer you are never material. Therefore, our greatest prayer request should be not for material blessings, but for spiritual blessings, to get more of the Holy Spirit, more of the spiritual gifts that the Lord longs to give. The word for gift here is the word, in the Greek, it's charisma. It's used for particular gifts, like explained in Romans 12, we'll get into that.That's gifts of prophecy, gifts of tongues, gifts of miracles, gifts of healing. This word includes all of that and includes just the basics of Christianity, like salvation. Roman 6:23. For the wages of sins is death. But the free gift is the word charisma. Charisma, charisma. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. The greatest gift that we can receive is salvation. Then the greatest gifts after that are strengthening in the Holy Spirit. he says, I want you to be strengthened, grounded, rooted, built up in the Holy Spirit. Then he says, I want you to be mutually encouraged. I want to encourage you. He said, I want you to encourage me. This shows incredible humility on the part of the great Apostle Paul. He says, I need encouragement as well.There will never come a time, dear saints, that you grow out of a need for encouragement in the faith. There will never be a time where you're you know what, I am self-sufficient, I'm just going to encourage myself because once in a while, you need someone else to encourage you. No matter how strong you are in the faith, no matter how long you've been a Christian, every once in a while, you need someone to be like, you know what, how can I encourage you? Paul says, that's what I want. I want to come and I want you to be encouraged by me. I want to strengthen you. I want to be encouraged by you as well. Christians, do you long for Christian community like this? In a place like Boston, you have to long for it and you have to work for it.Christian community does not happen by accident in a city like this. It just doesn't. It has to be a commitment. I personally, my favorite fellowship all week with my fellow believers is for us in staff meeting, incredible time of encouragement. Then with my CG. On Tuesdays, we have a wonderful time. We don't have any space. I've run out of chairs already a long time ago. People are like, how many people are in your CG? I was well, we start with six eternal souls. They're that's a lot. I'm like, that's just my family. The six eternal souls, that's a full couch. And then we have guests. Every time, every time I walk out of community group with just incredible peace in my heart, joy in my heart, incredible encouragement. And it's not nothing, we read scripture, we pray together. We talk through the text and we encourage one another.Regarding the spiritual gifts here, we'll get into this. He includes, yes, includes salvation. Yes, includes just the blessings of being a Christian. But the gifts, the spiritual gifts also include the ones in First Corinthians 12 and Romans 12, the gifts of healing, gifts of miracles, speaking in tongues, prophecy, teaching. It's all included in that. The darker a place, the more you see of those spiritual gifts at work. As I was studying in this text this week, this is what I was praying for. You can pray with me if you'd I'm praying for more of that at this church. We've seen it, the evident work of God, where God shows up, and that is a miracle, and that is a healing. And you see prophetic visions and prophetic.I'm praying for more of that. I'm praying for more of that. I'm praying for God's spirit to just pour out on Boston, just like he did in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. Why not? Why not? Why not? That's what I'm praying for. I know it's scary. Everyone gets freaked out whenever you talk about any spiritual gifts and speaking in tongues and things like that. Whatever. That's what I'm praying for. It's in the Bible. Paul says, I want to come and bring it to you. That's what we go for. But this is what I want to say, it's the same thing that I started the sermon with. It's not until we start exercising the current spiritual gifts that God has given us, if we don't steward what we currently have, if we don't steward that well, we are in no position to ask for more.Whatever gifts that God has given us, let's steward that well and then when God sees that we are good stewards of his good gifts, he's going to give us more. Here, I just want to talk about the basics real quick. First Peter 4:9 through 11, in which he talks about the gifts. He starts with hospitality. He says, show hospitality to one another without grumbling. Why, because hospitality's hard, and as each has received a gift. That's in the same thought. His thought is hospitality, that's a gift. Then he brings in other gifts, each has received a gift, use it to serve one another. Hospitality is a gift. Service is a gift. As good stewards of God's very grace, whoever speaks proclaiming the gospel, God's word, that's a gift, as one who speaks oracles of God. I like that.Maybe I want to stop calling them sermons. It's my oracle of God, my Jan Vezikov. It's in the Bible. Whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies in order then everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ to him being glory and dominion forever and ever. That's just the basics. Showing hospitality to another, serving one another, speaking God's word to one another. Those are spiritual gifts that we can use to strengthen one another's faith. Then 3 is, preach the gospel to reap a harvest of righteousness. This is verse 13. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you, but thus far have been prevented in order that I may reap some harvest among you, as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. He is talking about the Roman Christians as Gentiles, meaning non-Jewish believers.The reason why he doesn't include Jewish believers here is because a few years before he writes this letter, Emperor Claudias actually banned Jews from Rome, including probably Christian Jews. Paul is writing predominantly here to Gentiles, and that's why he grounds everything he says in the holy scriptures because the holy scriptures aren't just for Jewish people, they're all for all Christians. He says, I want to come and reap some harvest among you. And God, all throughout the scriptures, uses agricultural metaphors, metaphors of farming in order to talk about spiritual fruit. Here, the harvest is the spiritual fruit produced by Christians by the power of the spirit, the fruit of the spirit. Then also, that includes souls, a harvest of souls. The first step to producing such a harvest of righteousness is abiding in Jesus Christ. He talks about this in John 15, Jesus said, I am the vine.That's the image of, he's the vine we're the branches. You are the branches, whoever abides in me and I in him, he, it is that bears much fruit for apart from me, you can do nothing. We're not the ones that bear the fruit. Our job is to remain in Christ, walk in him and be in him, and be rooted in him. That's what abide meant in the Greek. Then as we're close to him in proximity, he bears the fruit through us. James 3:18, a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those is who make peace. St. Paul wants to come. He wants to cultivate the ground of the Christians and the hearts in Rome. As he does, he wants to bear a harvest of righteousness from them, then together, bear a harvest of souls from the unbelievers. Jesus' words in Matthew 9:37-38. He said, the harvest is plentiful. He says to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.I challenge you to pray this prayer. I challenge you this week to start praying, Lord, there's a harvest in Boston. Lord, I believe there's a great harvest in Boston. The only thing we're lacking is more laborers. I challenge you to pray that. Would you take up that challenge? And I'm going to tell you what's going to happen, the same thing that happened in Matthew 10. You take Matthew 9 and he says, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers. The very next verse Jesus says, go. So I challenge you to pray this. as you pray this, God's going to be like, oh yeah, yeah, good thing you asked, you're the laborer. I'm sending you. He has sent us to produce, to reap a harvest for him. How can you be more fruitful in your own life? How can you be more fruitful as a Christian?Well, it takes discipline. Any athlete knows this. Any musician knows this. You know this. If you've accomplished anything, it takes sacrifice to accomplish anything. Same thing, spiritually. It takes work. Hebrews 12:11, a text where he talks about God the father disciplining his disobedient children who aren't disciplining themselves. He says this. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Discipline is, it's painful. It's always painful in the beginning, but through the discipline, there's a fruit of righteousness, a harvest of righteousness when, when it comes to training. When discipline, a lot of people have a negative understanding of discipline, he's not talking about discipline as in punishment. He's talking about discipline as in strengthening, like every athlete needs to have discipline in their life to discipline them.I'm not punishing myself when I discipline myself in following Christ's spiritual discipline. It continues in verse 14. I am under obligation, both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I'm eager to preach the gospel to you also, who are in Rome. Brings in the Greeks here. The Greeks are supposed to be, in that day and age, they were the pinnacle of humanity. This is the pinnacle of progress, their language, their culture, et cetera. And he's talking about like ethnically, these people are Greeks. Then he talks about barbarians. It's not a derogatory term. Barbarian just meant a non-Greek. That's everybody else. Both to the wise and to the foolish. He's talking in worldly terms, the uneducated and educated. What he's saying is everybody needs the gospel. Everyone needs the gospel.Every human being needs the gospel because we are all equal in our need for grace. He uses a very interesting term to explain his responsibility to preach the gospel. He says, I am under obligation. The word for obligation is a financial term. He says, I am in debt to Greeks and barbarians, to the wise and the foolish. I am in debt to God. I am obligated. I owe it to these people to preach the gospel. He's not talking about financial obligation. He's talking about this in a moral sense. This is how he viewed his faith. He viewed his faith in the sense that he understood what it cost God to save him. It cost God the sacrifice of his son. It was the blood of Jesus Christ that redeemed us from sin that through which we are purchased. Every person, every human being is in debt to God because God created us.We're not our own. But Christians are in debt to God twice over because we're in debt for being created, and we're in debt to God for being recreated through the blood of Jesus Christ. In Romans 8:12 through 14. So then brothers, we are debtors. That's the same word that he uses under obligation. We're debtors, not to the flesh to live according to the flesh for if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live for all who are led by the spirit of God or sons of God. What he's saying is, we're not in debt to the flesh. We're not enslaved to sin. Now we are in debt to the Holy Spirit. We're in debt to God and because we're in debt to God, we are obligated to proclaim the gospel, to preach gospel.He says, I am eager. I'm more than willing to preach the gospel to you. He starts with Christians. There's two flows here. In verse nine and 10, he talks about serving in the spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And what he is talking about, he's worshiping God for the gospel. Then he's serving God with the gospel by preaching the gospel to believers. The gospel isn't just for unbelievers, the gospel is for believers as well. And then together, the believers, after they've preached the gospel to themselves, to each other strengthening, then they preach the gospel to others. Here, the practical lesson that we can draw to ourselves is, everybody's called to preach the gospel. When we think about preaching, you're probably thinking about like a pastor getting up and preaching a sermon. That's not what Paul's talking about. The word for preaches means to proclaim. It means to articulate the gospel.Paul gives us the example that he himself thanks God for the gospel. He preaches the gospel to himself, and then he wants to preach the gospel to Christians and then we preach the gospel to non-Christians. And that's really the flow. If you want to get really good at evangelism, if you want to get really good at proclaiming the gospel, articulating the gospel, you know who you start with, start by preaching the gospel to whom? To yourself. This is really important. You see this all throughout the Psalms, because you don't know that no one talks to you more than you talk to yourself. The voice in your head is just always going. Are you like that, because I'm like that. There's at least one voice in my head all the time, at least one.I'm talking to myself all the time, even as I'm preaching right now, I'm like, you know what? Super Bowl's today. I'm bummed out. Tom Brady's not playing. The Pats doesn't make it. I shouldn't be thinking about that right now. I should be preaching the sermon. Then I switch over. I'm going to start preaching the gospel to myself. Like Jan, you are a wicked sinner. That's where I start every time. You know how I go? I'm oh, you got to repent. I do that to myself, 10 times over, but I can scream at myself and I don't get freaked out because I know I'm doing it love. So I got to preach to my gospel. Every day I wake up, it's like spiritual amnesia, you forget you're a child of God. I preach to myself, when I get worried about whatever, just whatever. you're hey God is sovereign.Predestined me before the foundation of the world to be a child of God. He saved me radically. Justified by grace through faith. Jesus Christ died for the sins of Jan Vezikov on the cross. When I sin, I accept the grace and I repent, turn from sin, follow Jesus and just preaching the gospel to yourself. If you do this on a daily basis, I'm telling you, you get stressed out, go spend some time in prayer and preach the gospel to yourself. Worries, burdens, anxiety, whatever it is, if there's sin in your life, preach the gospel to yourself. When there's temptation in your life, preach the gospel to yourself. Then once you get this, because you see this all throughout the Psalms, David, the Psalmist, he's like he's writing a Psalm and then all of a sudden he turns to himself and he's like, why are you downcast on my soul? He's talking to himself, like hope in God.Stop hoping in your circumstances, hoping in yourself. Stop hoping and trusting in people, trust in God. Preach the gospel to yourself. Then we as believers, we have to remind ourselves of the gospel. You preach it to ourselves, and now we're in a position to be sharing the gospel and preaching the gospel to people in our lives who are not yet Christians. We need to approach gospel articulation to our non-believing friends with the perspective of its obligation. Paul says, I am obligated to do this. I owe it to people. Very turn these at stake. I owe it to my unbelieving friends and neighbors to articulate the gospel to them. I owe them that debt because I'm not my own. First Corinthians 9:16, for if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting, for necessities laid upon me, necessity. Woe to me, if I do not preach the gospel. That's for each one of us. Woe to us, if we do not preach the gospel, publicly, out loud, using words.In conclusion, a shared testimony of a spiritual father named Augustine of Hippo. Augustine of Hippo was a church father in the fourth century AD. Just an incredible man of God, prolific. One of the greatest minds that have ever served the church. A theologian wrote confessions of Augustine. One of the more readable of his works. His testimony was, he grew up in a Christian family, wasn't raised by a dad. His mom, Monica, loved God and she would pray for him all the time. He was just incredibly talented, even as a child, really precocious, destined to become one of the greatest Latin fathers of the early church. He was born on a small farm in what's now Algeria. During his turbulent youth, he was enslaved to sexual sin, nothing new. He was enslaved to it in all his teens and his twenties. He studied literature and rhetoric and moved from Carthage to Rome, to Milan and then finally came under the preaching of Bishop Ambrose.As he would go to church, God would just convict him of sin. Sunday after Sunday, after Sunday, convict him of sin. And he couldn't free himself from the shackles of sexual sin. It was during the summer of the year, 386, when he was 32, he went into a garden next to where he lived seeking solitude. He writes this in the confessions. He says in the tumult in my heart, it took me into the garden where no one could interfere with the burning struggle with myself in which I was engaged. I was twisting and turning my chains. I threw myself down somehow under a certain fig tree and let my tears flow freely. Suddenly, I heard a voice from the nearby house chanting as if it might be a boy or girl saying and repeating over and over again, pick up and read, pick up and read.I interpret as solely as divine command to me to open the book and read the first chapter I may find. By the book he was talking about the Book of Romans.. He said, so I hurried back to the place where I had put down the book of the apostle when I got up and I seized it and opened it. In silence, read the first passage on which my eye lit. He just opened the Book of Romans and he is whatever the first verse is, that's a word from God. The first verse that he read was Romans 13:13 through 14, where it says not in riots and drunken parties, not in eroticism and indecencies, not in strife and rivalry, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in its lust.Then he says, I neither wish nor needed to read further at once with the last words of the sentence, it was as if a light of relief from all anxiety flooded into my heart. All the shadows of doubt were dispelled. He was converted, then he devoted himself to a life of prayer, strengthening the saints and preaching the gospel and lived a worthy life of service to God as a spiritual father. How to grow into a spiritual father, a mother. Three points. If you missed them, thank God for the courageous faith of saints to strengthen and mutually encourage the saints and then preach the gospel to reap a harvest of righteousness.If you're not a Christian, or you're not sure of where you are in your faith, or if you can't say that God or Jesus is my savior, Jesus is my Lord, today we plead with you. We will call you to repent of sin, submit your life to Christ and follow him.Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time in the holy scriptures. What a rich book, the Book of Romans is. We thank you, Lord, for this reminder. I thank you, Lord, through Jesus Christ for the faith of the saints of Mosaic Boston. I pray strength in their faith. Pour out spiritual gifts by the power of the spirit upon this church, not for our glory, but for yours and for many to know how great of a God you are, for many who are far from you to be able to say yes, thanks to Jesus Christ, my Lord and savior. God is my God. I pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.

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. Welcome to Mosaic Church. My name is Jan, one of the pastors along Pastor Shane, Pastor Andy. Thank you so much for coming to worship. If you're new or visiting, we'd love to connect with you. We do that through the connection card and the worship guide to fill it out legibly, just redeem it at the welcome center. They'll give you a gift and we'll get in touch with you over the course of the week as well. One quick announcement for the members of the church and for those who have been notified that you were becoming a member, we have our first quarterly members meeting next Sunday. It's at 1:00 PM. It's right after church. One. Yeah, 1:00 PM. It's a potluck. This is important. This is important. Are you even in the church, if you don't have the potluck? If you are new, it's new for everyone. I forgot. Potluck is where you actually bring food and enough for you and enough to share. The goal is to have food left over to bring people, to bless people with the food. Chips don't count as a meal. Cupcakes don't count as a meal either. If you're like, I don't know what to cook. Rotisserie chicken, Whole Foods. That's what I say. They have other stuff too. With that said, would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's holy word? Heavenly Father, we thank you for the incredible Book of Romans, the Mount Everest, so to speak, of the epistles. We thank you for your choice servant, Paul, the apostle, who saw the resurrected Christ. Lord, we thank you for his zeal, for his love for you. We thank you for his desire to impart spiritual blessings to other Christians. And as we look at this incredible text in chapter one verses eight through 15, give us a vision as believers to become selfless, like the example of Paul, to care about others, to pray for others, to pray for the faith of others, to do everything we possibly can to strengthen their faith and to encourage them. Make us people who have a vision for ourselves to become seasoned, mature Christians, godly saints with years and decades of faithfulness from which we can draw upon and share and bless others. Bless our time with the holy word and make us a people who truly are strength by your spirit. And as we are strengthened, may we strengthen others. Teach us to be a people who love the gospel, who worship you in the gospel, who receive the gospel, preach the gospel to ourselves, and then preach the gospel to other Christians, to remind ourselves of our identity, of our place in you, of our eternal blessing that is to come. Holy Spirit, we come to you and we ask, come to the service, prepare us, take this text, illuminate it, and let us receive it, not just with our minds, but burn it into our hearts and then activate our will to live a life worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We pray all this in Christ's holy name. Amen. We started a sermon series through the Book of Romans last week. One thing I want to point out from last week's text, and this is one of the beauties of swimming in the richness of a text like this is you study and preach and then I keep meditating. Then we have community group. My community meets on Tuesdays and we had this revelation that in verse one St. Paul introduces himself, and he says, Paul, a servant, or doulas, a slave of Christ Jesus called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. We had this meditation of, how do you learn about what God's call is, his specific will on your life? What he wants you to do, what your purpose is? Whom to marry? What kind of job to pursue, career to pursue, where to live. A lot of people want the specifics. God, what's your specific will for my life? Well, the specific calling comes after the submission. This is important. Paul, before he talks about his calling, he talks about his submission of Christ, that he is a servant, a doulas. He submitted his whole life and then God reveals the calling. If we are not obedient in submission to God in this revealed word, and then we come to him and we're God, can you reveal your will? He's like, once you submit to my revealed will, my explicit will, then you'll be ready to steward more. That's important. It brings us to the introduction. One of the greatest joys in life, my greatest joy in life is listening to the testimony of seasoned believers, mature believers. People who have been following the Lord faithfully for decades. Do you know people like this? We don't have enough people like this at Mosaic. I pray for people like this. I pray for seasoned saints in their forties and fifties and sixties. I pray for God to ... Amen. Hallelujah, praise God, praise. We have some representation. I pray for more. I don't know of any other churches that ... I pray for this all the time. I pray that God sparks of movement of people that retire, that I say I want to retire to Boston. I know it's expensive. I know, I know, I know. Retire on the north shore. Just be close enough because there's people coming from all over the world to Boston. Young people coming here to train, get educations, university, college, grad school. They're tremendous at their one little niche in life, but they have zero life skills. We're praying for more seasoned believers. One of the things that I noticed, I've had conversations like this with seasoned believers. One of the things that you see after having hundreds of these conversations is the emphasis on the basics of Christianity, on reading scripture every day, on praying to the Lord. And not just praying for material needs, seasoned mature believers, they pray for spiritual needs not just for themselves, for others. They pray for the faith of others. They have a desire to strengthen and encourage other states, and they have a love for gospel ministry, for sharing the gospel with those who are still far from the Lord. And in our text today, what we see is Paul, as a spiritual father, he hasn't met the Roman Christians yet, but he cares for them. He has a desire to see them, and he has a desire to come and minister to them, to encourage them, be mutually encouraged by their faith. As we look through the text, I pray that you catch a vision as well to live as a spiritual parent, where you begin to notice younger Christians and you seek to mentor them in the faith. We see the building blocks for that in Romans 1:8-15. Would you look at the text with me. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God's will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. I want you to know, brothers, that I often intended to come to you, but thus far have been prevented, in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. I'm under obligation, both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also, who are in Rome. This is the reading of God's holy and infallible authoritative word. May you write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame up our time. First, thank God for the courageous faith of saints. Second, strengthen and mutually encourage the saints and preach the gospel to reap a harvest of righteousness. First, thank God for the courageous faith of saints. That's verses eight through 10. Paul begins here, in the way that you have to begin everything, if you're going to do anything of kingdom consequence, he starts with prayer. At this point in every single one of his letters after he greets the church to whom he's writing or whoever's writing to, he gives a greeting, and usually in that greeting, he gives a prayer and he prays for the Christians to whom he's writing. The prayer is always about spiritual needs. He does this in every single letter, except for the letter to the Galatians, because the letter of the Galatians is a little unique because he is dealing with the church that is playing with Heresy. At this point, instead of praying for them, he just says, I am shocked. I am surprised that you would so quickly turn to another gospel. You're deserting the gospel. It's different here with the Christians in Rome. Paul is thrilled that though he has not been in Rome, he hasn't done gospel ministry, he's heard that the Christian community in Rome is thriving and people all over the Mediterranean are hearing this report, that there are Christians in Rome. And first of all, he's so shocked by the fact that there are any Christians in Rome, he just pause. He says, I thank God that God saved some Christians. There's Christians who are pledging allegiance to Jesus Christ as Lord, as κύριος, politically charged term, because Caesar wanted everyone to pledge allegiance to him as Lord, as κύριος. Here under Caesar's nose, so to speak, in his backyard, there's Christians pledging allegiance to a higher authority than to the government. Paul is thrilled about that. In Romans 1:8, he says, first, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. The first thing I want to point out is that Paul has a personal relationship with God. He doesn't view Christianity as just a mere religion. He views it as a relationship. He says, I thank my God. I thank my God. It's personal pronoun, possessive pronoun. God is my God. Friends, can you say that? This is really a difference between a Christian and a non-Christian. Paul, doesn't say, I pray to the God of the universal, though that is true. He doesn't say I pray to the king of Kings, though that is true. He doesn't say I pray to the God of my fathers or the God of my grandparents. He said, no, I pray to my God. He's my Lord. He's my savior. Do you have this personal relationship with God? You can go to him and you are on a personal basis. He knows your name. You know his name. Are you known by him? Does he know you? You say, well, how can I know that God is my God? Well, it begins with repentance. And repentance is where you lay down your I. To get to that, my God is my God, you got to lay down your I. You got to get to the point where you realize, oh, I'm not God. I'm not the God of my life. This was the temptation in the garden of Eden with Satan going to Eve and Adam, he's you can be your own gods. That's really the religion of the day. People say, oh, people aren't very religious. No, no, no. People are more religious than they've ever been. The religion is just myself. I do whatever I want. I am God over my life. Well, that's what repentance is. Repentance, you get to the point where it's like that actually is insubordination to the God of the universe. Because of that, I am under condemnation and I need to repent. I need to submit to God, and through Christ, be forgiven, reconciled with God. Now God can be my God. Paul also knows that God is his God because of the work of Jesus Christ. He says, I thank my God through Jesus Christ. If Paul's so supremely aware of Christ's current and his actual intercessory work, that Jesus Christ right now is seated at the right hand of God, the Father, and he is interceding for us. When we come to God, we do not come to God on our own merits. Paul doesn't do that. Paul could have come to God and be like, I thank my God and I come to him because I've done a lot of great things for him because I have followed him so faith ... He doesn't do that. He understands that the only merits on which he can come to God are the merits of Jesus Christ. We can't do a thing apart from God. We can't do a thing about ... Jesus Christ said, you can't do a thing apart for me. Once in a while, I'm reminded of this in silly ways. I have a 2007 Highlander and my Highlander doesn't have the little sensors on the side, like when there are cars, you shouldn't probably merge. But I had a rental like a week and a half ago, a Yukon and it was brand new. I just got used to not checking my blind spot because they had the little sensors and I'm oh, this is tremendous. I'm driving down the road yesterday on Route 9 and I forgot, I'm not in my rental. I just forgot, as I'm merging to the next lane, I forgot that I should probably check my blind spot. In my blind spot, there was a massive truck right behind me, lays down the horn. I felt terrible. I'm oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. God just prevented me from a terrible car accident. You can't do a thing apart from Christ. We can't even worship God apart from Christ. Hebrews 13:15. Through him, Jesus, then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. When we worship God with our mouth, when we sing to God, we're offering a fruit of prayer, but it's only through Christ that that's even accepted. Paul begins with prayer, but the prayer is specifically a prayer of Thanksgiving. If you study the prayers of Paul, he always, always doing this. Before he asks God for anything, he's thanking God for the blessings that he already sees. I would submit to you that this is a discipline that each one of us can cultivate more deeper, live a life of Thanksgiving. Do you want to grow in satisfaction? Do you want to grow in enjoying life? Do you want to grow in noticing God's good gifts? This, in the secular world, they call this presence, like to be present, it's a practice of mindfulness. Do we want to grow in joy and happiness? Well then grow in Thanksgiving. Start prayer with worshiping God and thanking God for who he is and what he's done for you. Paul, here, uses the thanks. It's a very particular Greek word. There's several words for Thanksgiving, but here he uses eucharisteo, which is, we get the word Eucharist from it. It's Thanksgiving for God's sacrifice, for God's blessing. The word also assumes obligation. When we think of thanking someone, we don't usually think of obligation like, I'm obligated to. But when it comes to God, we are obligated to say thank you to God. Then he goes on in the next passage. He's this is the problem with all of humanity, everything that's wrong in the world is really because people will not thank God, will not glorify God for all of his abundant blessings. We are obligated to say thank you to God and that's where Paul starts. He starts with prayer and a prayer of Thanksgiving, in particular for the faith of these Christians. He says, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. he uses the word cosmos. What he means is, the then known world. When we think of world, we think the planet and we think everything everywhere. That's not how they thought about the word world. He says, your faith is proclaiming all the world. He's talking about the Mediterranean world. What he's surprised about is, hey, this church has a reputation for being faithful to God all around the Mediterranean world. People couldn't believe it. People when they heard, oh, there's Christians in Rome, of all places. Why were they so surprised? Because Rome was notorious for being the capital of the world's debauchery. This is where you go to sin. Then sin, egregiously. in this there's den of wickedness, there's Christians. There's Christians who are public about their personal relationship with God. That's how people learned about their faith because they were public about it. A lot of people think personal relationships should be private. No, those are different words. A personal relationship with God should be public. People in our lives should know that we profess the name of Christ, that we follow Christ, that we love God. There's no such thing as a closeted Christian. We live in a world where people are very proud of their sin, very public about their sin. And my prayer is for Christians to be at least as public about their following Christ. Imagine if people are like, oh, the faith of Christians in Boston is proclaimed in all the world. And it's all already beginning. Chloe is our finance and admin person. She sends a power BI dashboard every once in a while so we see how many clicks on the website from other, from where. People are tuning in from all over the world which is incredibly encouraging, because people come from all over the world. They come here, they're in the church and then they go to other places and they still keep up with the ministry here. In our membership, our current membership is 225 members. We have over 34 languages spoken in our current membership. That's how global, that's how diverse of a church this is to show how strategic of a place Boston is. That's how Paul thought about Rome. They were public about their faith. Here Paul says, your faith is proclaiming all the world. He uses the Greek word pistis, which is important because the semantic range of the word, faith or pistis, faith is just a small part of it. Faith is like the beginning of the word pistis. But it has to grow into something a lot greater, and that's faithfulness. True faith always grows into faithfulness and that's usually how the word is used. If you look at Galatians five, is the fruit of the spirit. He says the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. It's the same word as your faith is proclaimed. The idea, and we talk about this, that Paul is given the mission to bring about the obedience of faith. We talked about that last week. A faith without works is dead. When Paul thinks about, it's not just intellectual ascent as like I agree with the facts of the gospel. No, it's, is your life transformed by it? Does your life mirror that you believe in the gospel? True faith must be a response to God's faithfulness. God is faithful to us and the gospel. And my response to his faithfulness is a personal faithfulness of following him. Why does Paul thank God for the faith of Roman Christians? He here is planting, he's building the foundation for the theology of election and salvation, justification, glorification that he's going to expressly speak on later. But here he just wants everyone to know, I'm thankful for your faith. The reason I'm thankful is because your faith is a gift. And you see that all throughout scripture. Philippians 1:29, for it has granted to you. It's been gifted to you, that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake. What he's getting at is, you've been giving a double gift. The first part of the gift is to believe in Christ, that faith is a gift. Then also, it's a gift to suffer for the sake of Christ. Ephesians 2:8, a similar theme. For by grace, you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing this. This, that's the faith part, is not your own doing it. The antecedent to it is faith. Faith is the gift of God. Christians, we should be public about our personal relationship with Christ because of the gift of faith he's given us, but we should be publicly humble about it. Because a lot of people who are public in their faith are also very arrogant and jerks. We pray not to be like that. We want to be humble because our faith is a gift. It's a gift from God. How do you reconcile that with the fact that we said faith is an act of the will? It is an act of the will. It's the act of a will to receive the gift. God is giving the gift of faith. It's available to everybody. You have to receive it. That's the act of the will is, yes, I want faith. Yeah, I want to believe in Christ. I want to believe in God and I'm going to submit my life to it. So it is an act of faith. Then as you exercise your faith in believing in God, then God tells you, yeah, I gave you grace to do that. He gets all the glory and we grow in humility. Paul here, he thanks God for the gift of the faith that he sees, hears of the Roman Christians. He says, your faith is known in all the world. Then in Roman 6:19, just to show you once more that when he thinks about faith, he thinks about faith that leads to obedience, uses the same phrase, except instead of faith uses the word obedience. For your obedience is known to all so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent, as to what is evil. We, as members of Mosaic, and as followers of Christ, we should be thankful for one another's faith. But when you see a brother or sister growing in faith, and when you see them growing in faith, let's let them know, and you say, you know what? I thank God. I see God growing your faith. I thank God for that gift of faith. I thank God for the growth that I see. He continues in verse nine. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing, I mention you always in my prayers asking that somehow by God's will, I may now at last succeed in coming to you. A lot's going on here, but you see Paul's desire to be with them. You also see Paul at peace with the fact that God has not yet opened the door for his desire to be fulfilled. He says, look, I want to come, but I'm going to wait for the opportunity to come from God, in God's way, in God's timing. Paul, when he wrote these words, he had no idea in what manner he would go to Rome and he went to Rome, he got to Rome, but he got to Rome in chains and he was enslaved to Caesar. God did answer that call, but you see that he's at peace here. In verse nine, he says, I serve of God with my spirit in the gospel of his Son. The word for serve here is a powerful word because it shows how far the American church has actually drifted from an understanding of true worship. Jesus Christ, when he thought about worship and the Old Testament, New Testament, worship is so much more than what we have diffused. We think of worship as just singing songs to God. That's compartmentalized. Like this is my worship. I'm going to get my worship on. I'm going to go to church. I'm going to listen to some worship music in my car. When Paul thinks about worship, yes, that's included in singing Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs. When he thinks about worship, he thinks about this word in the Greek, λατρεύω, which means serve and worship. To worship God, in Paul's mind is to serve God and to serve God is to worship God. He says in my spirit, starts in the heart, I am worshiping God, serving God in my own soul with the gospel. Then from an overflow of worshiping God for the gospel of a Son, I then minister out of the gospel. Service to the Lord is part of being a faithful Christian and faithful worship to God. Then he says, it's the gospel of his Son. I serve with my spirit and the gospel of his Son. Here, this is possessive. The gospel belongs to whom? It belongs to God. It belongs to Jesus Christ. Paul didn't invent the gospel. God invented the gospel. Paul's authority doesn't stem from his own person. It comes from the authority that God has infused the gospel with and commissioned Paul to preach it. What's my authority? What's the authority of the leadership here at the church? All our authority is rooted in holy scripture. Everything we do, everything we preach, everything we say, we point you back to the holy scriptures and not ourselves. There is no authority. The authority comes from God. It comes from his word. It comes from his gospel. The gospel though, the word for gospel is εὐαγγελίζω and comes from two parts. Eu means good or pleasant and angelous or angelion, we get the word angel from it, but it angel is just a messenger. Angelous is just the message. It's the message of what Christ did. And in ancient days, it was a military term. If a kingdom went to battle against another kingdom, you send your army. Then one in that town, everyone in the city, they want to know how's the battle going. What they would do is, they would send a runner to the battlefield. Once the runner has some news about how it's going on the battlefield, the runner would run back. This is the very first marathon runners. They would run back to the town to bring news about how it's going on the battlefield. And the watchmen in the towers of the city, what they would do is, they'd watch for the person running. If they see the person running, and as soon as they see the person sprinting, if feet, the legs propel, like that's good news, this person is excited about whatever news he's bring. If the person is jogging, just lethargic, that's usually bad news and the watchman is yeah, I'm going to wait, let that guy share the bad news. But that's really what the word gospel means, it means great news. The great news has to do with the work of Jesus Christ. In scripture there is three ways that the gospel is used. If you're not familiar with Christianity, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, those are the gospels, but that's a form of literature. That's not what Paul is talking about here. Then when Jesus Christ came, the word gospel meant the news about the coming of the king. Jesus Christ is the king. The kingdom of God is at hand. John, the baptizer would preach, repent and believe because the kingdom of God is at hand. That was the gospel message. Then after Christ death, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension, now, the gospel has to do with his life and his work. The gospel is about what he did in life in perfect obedience to God, the Father. And then in perfect obedience, he goes to the cross and dies in atoning death. He didn't just die for the faith, he died for our sins. He bears the penalty for our sins, atones for our sins. Then he is resurrected from the dead, ascended to heaven and he pours out the Holy Spirit upon his church. That's the objective truth of the gospel. We proclaim that. We explain that. That's the objective truth, that it doesn't make any difference unless a person personally accepts it, subjectively accepts it. That I, yes, I am a sinner. Yes, Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins order to redeem me. That's when you begin to benefit from the gospel. Evangelical Christians, this is an important conversation. When people ask you, what Christian are you? What's your answer, especially in Boston? What Christian are you? They always want to know. I hope you're not one of those evangelical types. Because the word evangelical, it's a derogatory term right now. That's like a bad word. It's like those deplorables out there. Those are terrible, terrible people. You're evangelicals. So whenever anyone asks me, are you an evangelical Christian? I always stop and I say, what do you mean by the word evangelical? Because no one knows, no one has any clue what the word evangelical means. Well now, so I don't use that word anymore. I'm just going to start using the word gospel. I'm a gospel Christian. Well, what is the word gospel? You say, the good news of Jesus Christ. That's the kind of Christian, that's who we are as believers. We're good news Christians. This is the message that we proclaim that anybody, any sinner anywhere, no matter what you've done, no matter where you are in life, at any moment, if you submit your life to Christ, you repent of your sin, that Jesus Christ forgives you of all your sin, now you are a child of God forever. Repent and believe. That's what Paul starts off with. Thanks God for the faith of the saints. The faith in what? The faith in the gospel. Then he has the desire to come and strengthen them. This is point two. Strengthen and mutually encourage the saints. And this is verse 11. For I long to see you that may impart to you, some spiritual gift to strengthen you. That is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. He uses the most powerful Greek word he can to talk about desire. He says, I long, I long to come and be with you. It's the same word that's used in First Peter 2:2, like newborn infants long for the spiritual milk that, by it, may grow up into salvation. He says, as an infant longs for nourishing food, he said, I long to be with you. For what? For what purpose? He says, I want to impart something to you. I don't want to just get something for me. I don't want to just be served by you. I want come and serve. This is, as you mature as a believer, this is how you begin to understand that other people need you. Other people need encouragement from you. It's not just you coming and taking, it's you coming and serving. As you grow in the faith, you long to impart something. How can I help you? My parents are my grandparents 10 times over. My dad is really owning the granddad role. He's getting better and better at it. One of the things he does now, anytime he goes to visit his grandkids, he's got pockets full of what? Candy. He loves coming to my place. I got four daughters. He gives them so much candy, huge sugar rush. Doesn't even tell them, brush your teeth right after. Just leaves me to deal with the emotional fallout of their crashes. But he just wants to give them something. How can I bless you? How can I guide you? What can I share with you? This is what Paul wants. He's like, I want to come. I want to impart this. He uses the same word in First Thessalonians 2:8. being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you. That's the same word as impart. Share with you, not only gospel of God, but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. He said, I want to come. I want encourage you. I want to impart some spiritual blessing, spiritual gifts, he says. The word for spiritual is pnevmatikós. It comes from the Holy Spirit, characterized by the Holy Spirit. He says, I want to come and I want you to experience more of the Holy Spirit. I want you to experience the greatest gifts that there are, and that's the gifts of God's presence. I want to do everything I possibly can to help you learn to walk in step with the spirit. That's the same word that's used in Ephesians 1:3. Blessed be the God and father, our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. The greatest blessings that God can offer you are never material. Therefore, our greatest prayer request should be not for material blessings, but for spiritual blessings, to get more of the Holy Spirit, more of the spiritual gifts that the Lord longs to give. The word for gift here is the word, in the Greek, it's charisma. It's used for particular gifts, like explained in Romans 12, we'll get into that. That's gifts of prophecy, gifts of tongues, gifts of miracles, gifts of healing. This word includes all of that and includes just the basics of Christianity, like salvation. Roman 6:23. For the wages of sins is death. But the free gift is the word charisma. Charisma, charisma. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. The greatest gift that we can receive is salvation. Then the greatest gifts after that are strengthening in the Holy Spirit. he says, I want you to be strengthened, grounded, rooted, built up in the Holy Spirit. Then he says, I want you to be mutually encouraged. I want to encourage you. He said, I want you to encourage me. This shows incredible humility on the part of the great Apostle Paul. He says, I need encouragement as well. There will never come a time, dear saints, that you grow out of a need for encouragement in the faith. There will never be a time where you're you know what, I am self-sufficient, I'm just going to encourage myself because once in a while, you need someone else to encourage you. No matter how strong you are in the faith, no matter how long you've been a Christian, every once in a while, you need someone to be like, you know what, how can I encourage you? Paul says, that's what I want. I want to come and I want you to be encouraged by me. I want to strengthen you. I want to be encouraged by you as well. Christians, do you long for Christian community like this? In a place like Boston, you have to long for it and you have to work for it. Christian community does not happen by accident in a city like this. It just doesn't. It has to be a commitment. I personally, my favorite fellowship all week with my fellow believers is for us in staff meeting, incredible time of encouragement. Then with my CG. On Tuesdays, we have a wonderful time. We don't have any space. I've run out of chairs already a long time ago. People are like, how many people are in your CG? I was well, we start with six eternal souls. They're that's a lot. I'm like, that's just my family. The six eternal souls, that's a full couch. And then we have guests. Every time, every time I walk out of community group with just incredible peace in my heart, joy in my heart, incredible encouragement. And it's not nothing, we read scripture, we pray together. We talk through the text and we encourage one another. Regarding the spiritual gifts here, we'll get into this. He includes, yes, includes salvation. Yes, includes just the blessings of being a Christian. But the gifts, the spiritual gifts also include the ones in First Corinthians 12 and Romans 12, the gifts of healing, gifts of miracles, speaking in tongues, prophecy, teaching. It's all included in that. The darker a place, the more you see of those spiritual gifts at work. As I was studying in this text this week, this is what I was praying for. You can pray with me if you'd I'm praying for more of that at this church. We've seen it, the evident work of God, where God shows up, and that is a miracle, and that is a healing. And you see prophetic visions and prophetic. I'm praying for more of that. I'm praying for more of that. I'm praying for God's spirit to just pour out on Boston, just like he did in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. Why not? Why not? Why not? That's what I'm praying for. I know it's scary. Everyone gets freaked out whenever you talk about any spiritual gifts and speaking in tongues and things like that. Whatever. That's what I'm praying for. It's in the Bible. Paul says, I want to come and bring it to you. That's what we go for. But this is what I want to say, it's the same thing that I started the sermon with. It's not until we start exercising the current spiritual gifts that God has given us, if we don't steward what we currently have, if we don't steward that well, we are in no position to ask for more. Whatever gifts that God has given us, let's steward that well and then when God sees that we are good stewards of his good gifts, he's going to give us more. Here, I just want to talk about the basics real quick. First Peter 4:9 through 11, in which he talks about the gifts. He starts with hospitality. He says, show hospitality to one another without grumbling. Why, because hospitality's hard, and as each has received a gift. That's in the same thought. His thought is hospitality, that's a gift. Then he brings in other gifts, each has received a gift, use it to serve one another. Hospitality is a gift. Service is a gift. As good stewards of God's very grace, whoever speaks proclaiming the gospel, God's word, that's a gift, as one who speaks oracles of God. I like that. Maybe I want to stop calling them sermons. It's my oracle of God, my Jan Vezikov. It's in the Bible. Whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies in order then everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ to him being glory and dominion forever and ever. That's just the basics. Showing hospitality to another, serving one another, speaking God's word to one another. Those are spiritual gifts that we can use to strengthen one another's faith. Then 3 is, preach the gospel to reap a harvest of righteousness. This is verse 13. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you, but thus far have been prevented in order that I may reap some harvest among you, as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. He is talking about the Roman Christians as Gentiles, meaning non-Jewish believers. The reason why he doesn't include Jewish believers here is because a few years before he writes this letter, Emperor Claudias actually banned Jews from Rome, including probably Christian Jews. Paul is writing predominantly here to Gentiles, and that's why he grounds everything he says in the holy scriptures because the holy scriptures aren't just for Jewish people, they're all for all Christians. He says, I want to come and reap some harvest among you. And God, all throughout the scriptures, uses agricultural metaphors, metaphors of farming in order to talk about spiritual fruit. Here, the harvest is the spiritual fruit produced by Christians by the power of the spirit, the fruit of the spirit. Then also, that includes souls, a harvest of souls. The first step to producing such a harvest of righteousness is abiding in Jesus Christ. He talks about this in John 15, Jesus said, I am the vine. That's the image of, he's the vine we're the branches. You are the branches, whoever abides in me and I in him, he, it is that bears much fruit for apart from me, you can do nothing. We're not the ones that bear the fruit. Our job is to remain in Christ, walk in him and be in him, and be rooted in him. That's what abide meant in the Greek. Then as we're close to him in proximity, he bears the fruit through us. James 3:18, a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those is who make peace. St. Paul wants to come. He wants to cultivate the ground of the Christians and the hearts in Rome. As he does, he wants to bear a harvest of righteousness from them, then together, bear a harvest of souls from the unbelievers. Jesus' words in Matthew 9:37-38. He said, the harvest is plentiful. He says to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. I challenge you to pray this prayer. I challenge you this week to start praying, Lord, there's a harvest in Boston. Lord, I believe there's a great harvest in Boston. The only thing we're lacking is more laborers. I challenge you to pray that. Would you take up that challenge? And I'm going to tell you what's going to happen, the same thing that happened in Matthew 10. You take Matthew 9 and he says, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers. The very next verse Jesus says, go. So I challenge you to pray this. as you pray this, God's going to be like, oh yeah, yeah, good thing you asked, you're the laborer. I'm sending you. He has sent us to produce, to reap a harvest for him. How can you be more fruitful in your own life? How can you be more fruitful as a Christian? Well, it takes discipline. Any athlete knows this. Any musician knows this. You know this. If you've accomplished anything, it takes sacrifice to accomplish anything. Same thing, spiritually. It takes work. Hebrews 12:11, a text where he talks about God the father disciplining his disobedient children who aren't disciplining themselves. He says this. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Discipline is, it's painful. It's always painful in the beginning, but through the discipline, there's a fruit of righteousness, a harvest of righteousness when, when it comes to training. When discipline, a lot of people have a negative understanding of discipline, he's not talking about discipline as in punishment. He's talking about discipline as in strengthening, like every athlete needs to have discipline in their life to discipline them. I'm not punishing myself when I discipline myself in following Christ's spiritual discipline. It continues in verse 14. I am under obligation, both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I'm eager to preach the gospel to you also, who are in Rome. Brings in the Greeks here. The Greeks are supposed to be, in that day and age, they were the pinnacle of humanity. This is the pinnacle of progress, their language, their culture, et cetera. And he's talking about like ethnically, these people are Greeks. Then he talks about barbarians. It's not a derogatory term. Barbarian just meant a non-Greek. That's everybody else. Both to the wise and to the foolish. He's talking in worldly terms, the uneducated and educated. What he's saying is everybody needs the gospel. Everyone needs the gospel. Every human being needs the gospel because we are all equal in our need for grace. He uses a very interesting term to explain his responsibility to preach the gospel. He says, I am under obligation. The word for obligation is a financial term. He says, I am in debt to Greeks and barbarians, to the wise and the foolish. I am in debt to God. I am obligated. I owe it to these people to preach the gospel. He's not talking about financial obligation. He's talking about this in a moral sense. This is how he viewed his faith. He viewed his faith in the sense that he understood what it cost God to save him. It cost God the sacrifice of his son. It was the blood of Jesus Christ that redeemed us from sin that through which we are purchased. Every person, every human being is in debt to God because God created us. We're not our own. But Christians are in debt to God twice over because we're in debt for being created, and we're in debt to God for being recreated through the blood of Jesus Christ. In Romans 8:12 through 14. So then brothers, we are debtors. That's the same word that he uses under obligation. We're debtors, not to the flesh to live according to the flesh for if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live for all who are led by the spirit of God or sons of God. What he's saying is, we're not in debt to the flesh. We're not enslaved to sin. Now we are in debt to the Holy Spirit. We're in debt to God and because we're in debt to God, we are obligated to proclaim the gospel, to preach gospel. He says, I am eager. I'm more than willing to preach the gospel to you. He starts with Christians. There's two flows here. In verse nine and 10, he talks about serving in the spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And what he is talking about, he's worshiping God for the gospel. Then he's serving God with the gospel by preaching the gospel to believers. The gospel isn't just for unbelievers, the gospel is for believers as well. And then together, the believers, after they've preached the gospel to themselves, to each other strengthening, then they preach the gospel to others. Here, the practical lesson that we can draw to ourselves is, everybody's called to preach the gospel. When we think about preaching, you're probably thinking about like a pastor getting up and preaching a sermon. That's not what Paul's talking about. The word for preaches means to proclaim. It means to articulate the gospel. Paul gives us the example that he himself thanks God for the gospel. He preaches the gospel to himself, and then he wants to preach the gospel to Christians and then we preach the gospel to non-Christians. And that's really the flow. If you want to get really good at evangelism, if you want to get really good at proclaiming the gospel, articulating the gospel, you know who you start with, start by preaching the gospel to whom? To yourself. This is really important. You see this all throughout the Psalms, because you don't know that no one talks to you more than you talk to yourself. The voice in your head is just always going. Are you like that, because I'm like that. There's at least one voice in my head all the time, at least one. I'm talking to myself all the time, even as I'm preaching right now, I'm like, you know what? Super Bowl's today. I'm bummed out. Tom Brady's not playing. The Pats doesn't make it. I shouldn't be thinking about that right now. I should be preaching the sermon. Then I switch over. I'm going to start preaching the gospel to myself. Like Jan, you are a wicked sinner. That's where I start every time. You know how I go? I'm oh, you got to repent. I do that to myself, 10 times over, but I can scream at myself and I don't get freaked out because I know I'm doing it love. So I got to preach to my gospel. Every day I wake up, it's like spiritual amnesia, you forget you're a child of God. I preach to myself, when I get worried about whatever, just whatever. you're hey God is sovereign. Predestined me before the foundation of the world to be a child of God. He saved me radically. Justified by grace through faith. Jesus Christ died for the sins of Jan Vezikov on the cross. When I sin, I accept the grace and I repent, turn from sin, follow Jesus and just preaching the gospel to yourself. If you do this on a daily basis, I'm telling you, you get stressed out, go spend some time in prayer and preach the gospel to yourself. Worries, burdens, anxiety, whatever it is, if there's sin in your life, preach the gospel to yourself. When there's temptation in your life, preach the gospel to yourself. Then once you get this, because you see this all throughout the Psalms, David, the Psalmist, he's like he's writing a Psalm and then all of a sudden he turns to himself and he's like, why are you downcast on my soul? He's talking to himself, like hope in God. Stop hoping in your circumstances, hoping in yourself. Stop hoping and trusting in people, trust in God. Preach the gospel to yourself. Then we as believers, we have to remind ourselves of the gospel. You preach it to ourselves, and now we're in a position to be sharing the gospel and preaching the gospel to people in our lives who are not yet Christians. We need to approach gospel articulation to our non-believing friends with the perspective of its obligation. Paul says, I am obligated to do this. I owe it to people. Very turn these at stake. I owe it to my unbelieving friends and neighbors to articulate the gospel to them. I owe them that debt because I'm not my own. First Corinthians 9:16, for if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting, for necessities laid upon me, necessity. Woe to me, if I do not preach the gospel. That's for each one of us. Woe to us, if we do not preach the gospel, publicly, out loud, using words. In conclusion, a shared testimony of a spiritual father named Augustine of Hippo. Augustine of Hippo was a church father in the fourth century AD. Just an incredible man of God, prolific. One of the greatest minds that have ever served the church. A theologian wrote confessions of Augustine. One of the more readable of his works. His testimony was, he grew up in a Christian family, wasn't raised by a dad. His mom, Monica, loved God and she would pray for him all the time. He was just incredibly talented, even as a child, really precocious, destined to become one of the greatest Latin fathers of the early church. He was born on a small farm in what's now Algeria. During his turbulent youth, he was enslaved to sexual sin, nothing new. He was enslaved to it in all his teens and his twenties. He studied literature and rhetoric and moved from Carthage to Rome, to Milan and then finally came under the preaching of Bishop Ambrose. As he would go to church, God would just convict him of sin. Sunday after Sunday, after Sunday, convict him of sin. And he couldn't free himself from the shackles of sexual sin. It was during the summer of the year, 386, when he was 32, he went into a garden next to where he lived seeking solitude. He writes this in the confessions. He says in the tumult in my heart, it took me into the garden where no one could interfere with the burning struggle with myself in which I was engaged. I was twisting and turning my chains. I threw myself down somehow under a certain fig tree and let my tears flow freely. Suddenly, I heard a voice from the nearby house chanting as if it might be a boy or girl saying and repeating over and over again, pick up and read, pick up and read. I interpret as solely as divine command to me to open the book and read the first chapter I may find. By the book he was talking about the Book of Romans.. He said, so I hurried back to the place where I had put down the book of the apostle when I got up and I seized it and opened it. In silence, read the first passage on which my eye lit. He just opened the Book of Romans and he is whatever the first verse is, that's a word from God. The first verse that he read was Romans 13:13 through 14, where it says not in riots and drunken parties, not in eroticism and indecencies, not in strife and rivalry, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in its lust. Then he says, I neither wish nor needed to read further at once with the last words of the sentence, it was as if a light of relief from all anxiety flooded into my heart. All the shadows of doubt were dispelled. He was converted, then he devoted himself to a life of prayer, strengthening the saints and preaching the gospel and lived a worthy life of service to God as a spiritual father. How to grow into a spiritual father, a mother. Three points. If you missed them, thank God for the courageous faith of saints to strengthen and mutually encourage the saints and then preach the gospel to reap a harvest of righteousness. If you're not a Christian, or you're not sure of where you are in your faith, or if you can't say that God or Jesus is my savior, Jesus is my Lord, today we plead with you. We will call you to repent of sin, submit your life to Christ and follow him. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time in the holy scriptures. What a rich book, the Book of Romans is. We thank you, Lord, for this reminder. I thank you, Lord, through Jesus Christ for the faith of the saints of Mosaic Boston. I pray strength in their faith. Pour out spiritual gifts by the power of the spirit upon this church, not for our glory, but for yours and for many to know how great of a God you are, for many who are far from you to be able to say yes, thanks to Jesus Christ, my Lord and savior. God is my God. I pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.

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Katherine Angelous Nziku, Tanzanian girl and student at CUHAS. She is a poet, second year student at catholic university of health and allied science pursuing Bachelor of science in nursing, She loves to read books but mostly she loves to write poems. She writes because when she writes she gives the feelings life letting them know she recognizes their existence. She recommends you to listen this poem. #LetsRead still insist you all to stay safe and healthy #staysafe --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/lets-read/message

scattered brain conversation about our experiences w racism and systemic problems and issues and theories w my friend Angelous

Hanzi and frequent guest from Periscope, Angelous,  discuss the Viceland's episode of Dark Side of the Ring, and discuss our conspiracies even though we state that anything we talk about from the conspiracy element are just the individual thoughts of each person and we are not presenting like our thoughts and opinions are 100 percent fact. 

DJ Severe is in the mix with songs from Humble Tip, Angelous, D Will, Sareem Poems, Parris Chariz, KB, Young Noah, Ecclesia, Flame, and many more.

Karen Rands is joined in this Compassionate Capitalist Broadcast by Angelos Angelou, Founder of the International Accelerator in Austin, TX.  Listen to learn how in just a few years, IA has gone from an idea to help foreign-born entrepreneurs expand their startup in the U.S., develop a go-to-market strategy, and raise capital one of the most successful accelerators in the region. Since inception, 13 companies have entered the 1 year program and raised $18M, with one successful exit already.  The economic impact is profound.  Angelous has spent his career helping cities, large and small, grow their economic base through creating healthy and thriving entrepreneur communities.    To learn more about the International Accelerator go to : https://iaccelerator.com/  To learn more about how Angelos helps cities grow their economy, visit: https://angeloueconomics.com/ Karen Rands is the author of the Best Selling Finance book for Investors seeking expand their portfolio to include entrepreneurial private companies; Inside Secrets to Angel Investing.  You can learn more about Karen, how she helps entrepreneurs grow their businesses, get info on the book, and access to all the other Compassionate Capitalist Podcast Radio at http://karenrands.co  This broadcast is also available in video at: https://youtu.be/GxzhJCNHVtc

Karen Rands is joined in this Compassionate Capitalist Broadcast by Angelos Angelou, Founder of the International Accelerator in Austin, TX.  Listen to learn how in just a few years, IA has gone from an idea to help foreign-born entrepreneurs expand their startup in the U.S., develop a go-to-market strategy, and raise capital one of the most successful accelerators in the region. Since inception, 13 companies have entered the 1 year program and raised $18M, with one successful exit already.  The economic impact is profound.  Angelous has spent his career helping cities, large and small, grow their economic base through creating healthy and thriving entrepreneur communities.    To learn more about the International Accelerator go to : https://iaccelerator.com/  To learn more about how Angelos helps cities grow their economy, visit: https://angeloueconomics.com/ Karen Rands is the author of the Best Selling Finance book for Investors seeking expand their portfolio to include entrepreneurial private companies; Inside Secrets to Angel Investing.  You can learn more about Karen, how she helps entrepreneurs grow their businesses, get info on the book, and access to all the other Compassionate Capitalist Podcast Radio at http://karenrands.co  This broadcast is also available in video at: https://youtu.be/GxzhJCNHVtc

"KURSER - Le French Hitmaker" pour les 1 an de l'émission THE FRIDAY NIGHT MIX, nous revenons sur la 2ème émission TFNM.Un Mix de quelques une des Meilleures Productions Hip-Hop du parisien KURSER, avec des Artistes comme Rohff, K.Sparks, Mc Solaar, Farrah Burns ou encore Frank Friction Aka Bootie Brown (The Pharcyde) entre autres...sélectionné et mixé par ‪DJPhilBee‬, uniquement sur www.moifm.com Radio MOIFM et le bouquet de l'Océan indien !The finest productions made by Le French Hit Maker : KURSER. 1 hour of REAL HIP HOP selected and mixed by DJPhilBeeTracklist:1. Intro2. Mayra Andrade - Juana (Kurser Remix)3. Faf Larage - Une Faveur (feat. Piero Battery)(co produced with Elio Anthony)4. Skeaz & Rokhenza - Caribbean Style 5. K.Sparks - Back Down (feat. Dave Barz) 6. Nation - Take me as I am (inédit) 7. Dave Barz - I'd Rather8. Zeguino - Sunshine (inédit)9. K.Sparks - 5 on the Black Hand Side10. Rohff - Rohff Vs. l'Etat 11. K.Sparks - Karma Remix12. Yaya - Marche ou Crève (Inédit)13. Rohff - Skyrohff14. K.Sparks - Stimulus Package15. MC Solaar - La Belle et Le Bad Boy16. MC Solaar - Hasta la Vista17. Frank Friction (Bootie Brown of The Pharcyde) - Satisfied18. K.Sparks - Achievement (feat. Tina Quallo)19. K.Sparks - Callin' Me (feat. Tina Quallo)20. Farrah Burns - Shotgun Wedding21. Moha Le Vagabond - Aux portes du Désert22. K.Sparks - Houdini23. Koma Daddy - Fonce (Inédit)24. K.Sparks - Self Portrait25. Yaya - Ma République26. K.Sparks - Good Girl27. Rajdulari - Natural (Kurser Remix)28. Ella Rabeson - Qui nous ressemblent (inédit)29. Zeguino - Sans Faire Semblant (inédit)30. K.Sparks - Microphone Fiend (feat. Jeff Chery)31. Rohff - Enculé de ton Clash (feat. Soundkail)32. Yaya - Hardcore (Inédit) 33. Futuristik feat. Joeystarr - Intro Album34. Nation - All I Know (feat. K.Sparks)35. K.Sparks - Movin' On (feat. Tina Quallo)36. Rohff - Arrête ta flûte (co-produced)37. K.Sparks - Rewind (feat. Angelous) 38. Zeguino - Je t'aime mais... (Inédit) 39. Dave Barz - To The Top (feat. Wednesday Atoms, Raiza Rapz & P.C)40. Schkoonk! - Le Soleil Brille41. Koma Daddy - (inédit)42. Zeguino - Forever Hip Hop (Inédit)43. Farrah Burns - 1600 Sixteen Hundred44. Moha Le Vagabond - Ouais mais c'est pas tout ça ! (feat. Busta Flex & Orsek)45. Rokhenza - Ou ja konet (feat. Kénédy)46. K.Sparks - Bright Lights (feat. Julius Francis)47. Farrah Burns - freestyle (Inédit)Artwork by: BearSkillz

Om Maya Angelou, författare, dansare och sångerska. Med tonsättaren Renée Baker och ljudkonstnären Yvette Jackson. Tredje delen av "När vinden vänder". Birgitta Tollans nya programserie "När vinden vänder" handlar om människor som lyckades förverkliga sig och sina musikaliska drömmar mot alla odds.Medverkar gör dirigenten och tonsättaren Renée Baker från Chicago och ljudkonstnären Yvette Jackson från San Diego.Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud Försök att vara en regnbåge i någon annans moln. Ja, så lyder ett av Maya Angelous motton. Ett annat är: Jag har lärt mig att människor glömmer vad du sa och vad du gjorde, men människor glömmer aldrig hur du fick dem att känna.Maya Angelou skrev dikter, författade sju självbiografier, dansade, skådespelade, skrev filmmanus, sjöng och reciterade. Hon arbetade också under en kort period som servitris, som prostituerad och som hallick.Maya Angelous första självbiografi har titieln I know why the caged bird sings Jag vet varför burfågeln sjunger. Den är tillägnad hennes son och alla löftets starka svarta fåglar som trotsar underläge och gudar och sjunger sina sånger. I sitt poem Caged Bird Burfågel skriver Maya Angelou bland annat: En burfågel kan sällan se ut genom gallret av ilska. Hans vingar är klippta och fötterna bundna, så han öppnar sin strupe och sjunger. Burfågeln sjunger om frihet.Maya Angelou föds 1928 som Marguerite Johnson i St. Louis, Missouri, USA, och dör 2014. Sitt förnamn tar hon efter sin brors smeknamn på henne, "My-a sister". Angelou väljer hon ur sin första makes namn, en grekisk musiker som heter Enistasios Angelos.Hon har kallats en renässanskvinna, karismatisk, passionerad, varm, vis och formidabel. Och elegant. En som kämpade för jämlikhet, tolerans och fred. En medborgarrättsaktivist som arbetade både med Malcolm X och Martin Luther King Jr. En förebild som förmedlade sina erfarenheter av att vara svart i USA.Vinden vänder första gången när Mayas far försvinner från hemmet och modern lämnar barnen till farmodern Anne Henderson i Stamps, Arkansas. Maya tillbringar sina tio första år där, i en av USAs fattigaste regioner, och får djupa erfarenheter av rasåtskillnad och fördomar.Sju år gammal blir hon våldtagen av sin mors pojkvän. Mayas morbror dödar då våldtäktsförbrytaren. Detta blir ett djupt trauma för Maya. Hon blir stum och talar inte -under fem år! De här erfarenheterna skildrar hon i sin första bok: Jag vet varför burfågeln sjunger. Hon skriver:Jag var frivilligt stum. Jag hade en röst men vägrade att använda den. För när jag hörde att mammas pojkvän mördats så trodde jag att min stämma hade dödat en man och då vore det farligt att tala.Romanen Jag vet varför burfågeln sjunger ges ut 1969. Det är hennes vän, den svarte, homosexuelle författaren James Baldwin, som uppmanar henne att börja skriva romaner.- Jag tror att Maya Angelou valde att vara stum av ren självbevarelsedrift. Vi vet alla att tungan är ett mäktigt vapen, säger tonsättaren och dirigenten Renée Baker från Chicago. Även om Maya Angelou aldrig hade öppnat munnen igen så hade hennes röst varit lika stark, och med det menar jag hennes budskap. Allt i hennes liv togs ifrån henne som liten. Ibland återhämtar sig människor aldrig från sådana upplevelser. Hennes kvinnostämma tonade dock aldrig bort.Vinden vänder igen när Maya under andra världskriget flyttar till San Francisco i Kalifornien. Hon får ett stipendium och studerar dans och skådespeleri vid California Labor School. Här tjatar Maya på ett av San Franciscos spårvagnsföretag så ihärdigt att de låter henne bli stadens första kvinnliga spårvagnskonduktör. Hon är endast 15 år och ett år senare föder hon sin son Guy efter ett one-night-stand med en kille i High School. Älskogen var ett forsknings-experiment, skriver hon senare.Maya Angelou börjar sjunga och dansa på olika nattklubbar i San Francisco och får förfrågan om att medverka i en ny Broadwayshow i New York. Ödet vill att hon samtidigt blir erbjuden en plats som rollfiguren/sopranen Clara i operan Porgy and Besssom är på väg till Europa.Maya Angelou väljer Porgy och Bess och vinden vänder igen! Londonpremiären går av stapeln på Stoll Theatre den 9 oktober 1952. Operan spelas till februari 1953 i Europa.Leontyne Price sjunger Bess, William Warfield sjunger Porgy och Cab Calloway gör kokainhandlaren Sporting Life.Den här operan, Porgy and Bess hade haft urpremiär i Boston 1935. Och sin Europa-premiär hade den vid Det Kongelige Opera i Köpenhamn 1943. Nazisterna ockuperar då Danmark så vid denna uppsättning spelas alla roller av vita artister med svartmålade ansikten, sk blackfaces. Efter 22 utsålda föreställningar lägger nazisterna ner Porgy and Bess i Köpenhamn. Helvita föreställningar spelas även 1945 och 1950 i Zürich och 1948 i Göteborg och Stockholm.Upplevelserna från Europaturnéen gestaltar Maya Angelou i tredje delen i sviten av självbiografier, Sång för livet. Hon skriver: Musiken är min tillflykt. Jag kan krypa in i mellanrummet mellan noterna och kröker min rygg mot ensamheten.1957 medverkar Maya Angelou i filmen Calypso Heat Wave och ger ut albumet Miss Calypso där hon sjunger. Billie Holiday säger året efter till Maya Angelou: Du kommer att bli berömd, men det blir inte för din sång.Maya Angelou återvänder till USA, sjunger in flera skivor och vinner tre Grammys för sina album. 1961 spelar hon en av karaktärerna i Jean Genets off-Broadway-pjäs The Blacks tillsammans med bl a Abbey Lincoln och Cicely Tyson. De gästspelar i Berlin och Genéve.Maya Angelou flyttar med den sydafrikanske frihetskämpen Vusumzi Make till Kairo där hon fungerar som redaktör vid veckomagasinet The Arab Observer.Efter ett år bosätter hon sig med sonen Guy i Accra i Ghana. Vinden vänder igen då sonen, efter en bilolycka blir förlamad och rullstolsburen. De stannar i Ghana under några år och Maya Angelou arbetar vid universitetet, hon är aktiv i den afroamerikanska utlandskolonin, hon är redaktör för The African Review, frilansskribent för Ghana Times, jobbar för Radio Ghana och skådespelar på Ghanas Nationalteater.Angelou var så uppskattad att hon fick sitt eget frimärke i Ghana. Där möter hon medborgarrätts-aktivisten Malcolm X. Han ber henne komma med hem till USA för att bygga upp Organisationen för afro-amerikansk enighet, OAAU.Strax efter hemkomsten till USA mördas Malcolm X av en av sina egna.Några år senare ber Martin Luther King Jr Maya Angelou att organisera en marsch. Marschen skjut upp. På hennes 40-årsdag, den 4 april 1968, skjuts Martin Luther King Jr till döds. Hon blir så chockad att hon slutar fira sina födelsedagar under flera år. Vinden vänder ånyo på ett brutalt sätt.My guilt made music with the tears läser Maya Angelou i sin dikt My guilt - Min skuld,där hon nämner Malcolm X, och Martin Luther King Jr They fought too hard, they loved too well. My crime is Im alive to tell. De kämpade för hårt, de älskade för väl. Mitt brott är att jag lever och kan berätta.Maya Angelou skriver det första filmmanus som någonsin skrivits av en svart kvinna. Filmens titel är Georgia, Georgia och den produceras 1972 av ett svenskt filmbolag och regisseras av svenske regissören och filmkritikern Stig Björkman.Maya Angelou författar även en TV-serie i tio delar om bluesen och det afroamerikanska kulturarvet och 1977 spelar hon Kinta Kuntes farmor Yaisa i den banbrytande TV-serien Roots - Rötter av Alex Hayley.När Bill Clinton svärs in i Vita huset 1993 reciterar Maya Angelou sin dikt On the pulse of morning under ceremonien.Ljudkonstnären Yvette Jackson möter Maya Angelou i highschool. Angelou läser ur sina diktsamlingar och håller ett inspirerande tal. Yvette är en av få elever som får möta henne efteråt.Som 15-åring kände sig Yvette illa till mods efter att ha läst boken Jag vet varför burfågeln sjunger.- Varför måste Maya Angelou berätta sanningen om alla dessa tragiska och plågsamma upplevelser hon haft? Det frågade sig Yvette Jackson förbittrat. Men efter att ha fått höra och möta Maya Angelou personligen blev Yvette lugnad och fick t o m en kram av poeten efter samtalet.Yvette Jacksons egna musikaliska kompositioner är mycket inspirerade av Maya Angelous inställning till sanning och verklighet. Även om hon ännu inte använt Angelous egen röst i sina ljudspel så använder Yvette dokumentärt material; röster och ljud från dagsaktuella, politiska eller sociala teman.I Radiospelet Invisible People komponerade Yvette Jackson in svarta prästers och professorers hate speech, där de skrev och uttalade sig föraktfullt angående president Obamas stöd till samkönade äktenskap. Obama kallades bl a the first gay president och afroamerikaner uppmanades att inte rösta på Obama.- Ett annat ämne var det faktum att flera afroamerikanska kvinnor hade blivit mördade då de antogs vara lesbiska, säger Yvette Jackson.- Maya Angelous röst har en alldeles egen timbre; det är ett mycket distinkt och unikt instrument. Hennes sätt att läsa; pauserna mellan fraserna och rummet mellan orden. Det är musik, säger Yvette Jackson.- För Maya Angelou var musik mycket viktigt. Fast, jag tror inte på den där stereotypen att alla svarta människor kan sjunga, säger tonsättaren och dirigenten Renée Bakeroch lägger upp ett gapskratt. Men det råkar faktiskt vara sant när det gäller Maya Angelou, säger hon. Inte bara sjöng hon bra, hon var också en professionell dansare. En helt igenom fullfjädrar artist med musik i sin själ.- Hennes poetiska uttryck glider av tungan likt en musikalisk fras. Det sker en mjukhetnär en poet, en musiker eller en dansare, när människor som Maya Angelou, kommer fram i världen. När du upplever den här mjukheten så förändras du och meningen med ditt liv, säger Renée Baker.När President Obama 2011 hedrade henne med Presidentens Frihetsmedalj, USAs främsta civila pris, sa Obama: Barndomens lidanden och övergrepp fick henne att sluta prata men stämman hon senare fann hjälpte generationer av amerikaner att finna sin regnbåge bland molnen och inspirerade resten av oss att få fram det bästa i oss.Själv sa Maya Angelou: Det spännande är inte att endast överleva, utan att blomstra med lidelse, medkänsla, humor och elegans.Maya Angelou avled efter flera års sjukdom den 28 maj 2014 i sitt hem i North Carolina.Flera rappare och andra musiker har genom årens lopp samplat Maya Angelou eller nämnt henne i sina texter, t ex Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Talib Kweli, Lupe Fiasco,Kendrick Lamar, Nicki Minaj och The Roots.Låtlista:12:03 Nina Simone - Wild Is The Wind Album: Don'T Let Me Be Misunderstood Kompositör: Dimitri Tiomkin Bolag: MERCURY 12:05 Maya Angelou, Buckshot Lefonque - I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Album: Urban Soul Kompositör: Branford Marsalis Bolag: EPIC 12:07 Maya Angelou, Buckshot Lefonque - I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Album: Urban Soul Kompositör: Branford Marsalis Bolag: EPIC 12:09 Maya Angelou, Buckshot Lefonque - I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Album: Urban Soul Kompositör: Branford Marsalis Bolag: EPIC 12:10 Maya Angelou - Tears Album: Black Pearls: The Poetry Of Maya Angelou Kompositör: ? Bolag: RHINO RECORDS 12:15 Maya Angelou, Az Yet - Still I RiseAlbum: Caged Bird Song Kompositör: Van Jewell, Shawn Rivera Bolag: SMOOCH MUSIC 12:19 Maya Angelou, Az Yet - Still I RiseAlbum: Caged Bird Song Kompositör: Van Jewell, Shawn Rivera Bolag: SMOOCH MUSIC 12:21 Maya Angelou - When You Come To MeAlbum: Black Pearls: The Poetry Of Maya Angelou Kompositör: ? Bolag: RHINO RECORDS 12:22 Alexander Smallens, Leontyne Price, Helen Colbert, Helen Thigpen, Helen Dowdy, Cab Calloway, Howard Roberts, Ray Yates, William Warfield, John Mccurry, Joseph James, William Weasy, Moses Lamar, The Ev - Porgy And BessAlbum: Porgy & Bess Kompositör: George Gershwin Bolag: GUILD 12:25 Maya Angelou, Tommy Tedesco, Al Bello - Pusch Ka Pici PiAlbum: Miss Calypso Kompositör: Louis Jordan, Walt Merrick, Joe Willoughby Bolag: LIBERTY 12:27 Maya Angelou - Harlem HopscotchAlbum: Black Pearls: The Poetry Of Maya Angelou Kompositör: ? Bolag: RHINO RECORDS 12:29 Maya Angelou - AfricaAlbum: Caged Bird Song Kompositör: Van Jewell, Shawn Rivera Bolag: SMOOCH MUSIC 12:32 Maya Angelou - My GuiltAlbum: Black Pearls: The Poetry Of Maya Angelou Kompositör: ? Bolag: RHINO RECORDS 12:39 Maya Angelou - The Thirteens (Black)Album: Black Pearls: The Poetry Of Maya Angelou Kompositör: ? Bolag: RHINO RECORDS 12:40 Yvette Jackson - Invisible People DeliveranceKompositör: Yvette Jackson 12:44 Maya Angelou - Black OdeAlbum: Black Pearls: The Poetry Of Maya Angelou Kompositör: ? Bolag: RHINO RECORDS 12:45 Chicago Modern Orchestra Project, Renee Baker - Itadakimasu (I Humbly Receive)Kompositör: Reneé Baker 12:49 Maya Angelou - Phenomenal WomanAlbum: In Their Own Voices (3) Kompositör: ? Bolag: RHINO 12:53 Maya Angelou - On AgingAlbum: Caged Bird Song Kompositör: Van Jewell, Shawn Rivera Bolag: SMOOCH MUSIC 12:56 Talib Kweli - Get By Album: Quality Kompositör: Talib Kweli Greene, K West Bolag: MCA RECORDS 12:56 Alicia Keys - Caged Bird Album: Songs In A Minor Kompositör: Alicia Keys Bolag: J RECORDS 12:57 Maya Angelou - Poem 3 Album: Black Pearls: The Poetry Of Maya Angelou Kompositör: ? Bolag: RHINO RECORDS

Om Maya Angelou, författare, dansare och sångerska. Med tonsättaren Renée Baker och ljudkonstnären Yvette Jackson. Del 4 av 5 av Birgitta Tollan. Birgitta Tollans nya programserie "När vinden vänder" handlar om människor som lyckades förverkliga sig och sina musikaliska drömmar ”mot alla odds”. Medverkar gör dirigenten och tonsättaren Renée Baker från Chicago och ljudkonstnären Yvette Jackson från San Diego. Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud – Försök att vara en regnbåge i någon annans moln. Ja, så lyder ett av Maya Angelous motton. Ett annat är: Jag har lärt mig att människor glömmer vad du sa och vad du gjorde, men människor glömmer aldrig hur du fick dem att känna. Maya Angelou skrev dikter, författade sju självbiografier, dansade, skådespelade, skrev filmmanus, sjöng och reciterade. Hon arbetade också under en kort period som servitris, som prostituerad och som hallick. Maya Angelous första självbiografi har titieln I know why the caged bird sings – Jag vet varför burfågeln sjunger. Den är tillägnad hennes son och ”alla löftets starka svarta fåglar som trotsar underläge och gudar och sjunger sina sånger”. I sitt poem Caged Bird – Burfågel skriver Maya Angelou bland annat: En burfågel kan sällan se ut genom gallret av ilska. Hans vingar är klippta och fötterna bundna, så han öppnar sin strupe och sjunger. Burfågeln sjunger om frihet. Maya Angelou föds 1928 som Marguerite Johnson i St. Louis, Missouri, USA, och dör 2014. Sitt förnamn tar hon efter sin brors smeknamn på henne, "My-a sister". Angelou väljer hon ur sin första makes namn, en grekisk musiker som heter Enistasios Angelos. Hon har kallats en renässanskvinna, karismatisk, passionerad, varm, vis och formidabel. Och elegant. En som kämpade för jämlikhet, tolerans och fred. En medborgarrättsaktivist som arbetade både med Malcolm X och Martin Luther King Jr. En förebild som förmedlade sina erfarenheter av att vara svart i USA. Vinden vänder första gången när Mayas far försvinner från hemmet och modern lämnar barnen till farmodern Anne Henderson i Stamps, Arkansas. Maya tillbringar sina tio första år där, i en av USA’s fattigaste regioner, och får djupa erfarenheter av rasåtskillnad och fördomar. Sju år gammal blir hon våldtagen av sin mors pojkvän. Mayas morbror dödar då våldtäktsförbrytaren. Detta blir ett djupt trauma för Maya. Hon blir stum och talar inte - under fem år! De här erfarenheterna skildrar hon i sin första bok: Jag vet varför burfågeln sjunger. Hon skriver: ”Jag var frivilligt stum. Jag hade en röst men vägrade att använda den. För när jag hörde att mammas pojkvän mördats så trodde jag att min stämma hade dödat en man och då vore det farligt att tala.” Romanen Jag vet varför burfågeln sjunger ges ut 1969. Det är hennes vän, den svarte, homosexuelle författaren James Baldwin, som uppmanar henne att börja skriva romaner. - Jag tror att Maya Angelou valde att vara stum av ren självbevarelsedrift. Vi vet alla att tungan är ett mäktigt vapen, säger tonsättaren och dirigenten Renée Baker från Chicago. Även om Maya Angelou aldrig hade öppnat munnen igen så hade hennes röst varit lika stark, och med det menar jag hennes budskap. Allt i hennes liv togs ifrån henne som liten. Ibland återhämtar sig människor aldrig från sådana upplevelser. Hennes kvinnostämma tonade dock aldrig bort. Vinden vänder igen när Maya under andra världskriget flyttar till San Francisco i Kalifornien. Hon får ett stipendium och studerar dans och skådespeleri vid California Labor School. Här tjatar Maya på ett av San Franciscos spårvagnsföretag så ihärdigt att de låter henne bli stadens första kvinnliga spårvagnskonduktör. Hon är endast 15 år och ett år senare föder hon sin son Guy efter ett one-night-stand med en kille i High School. Älskogen var ett forsknings-experiment, skriver hon senare. Maya Angelou börjar sjunga och dansa på olika nattklubbar i San Francisco och får förfrågan om att medverka i en ny Broadwayshow i New York. Ödet vill att hon samtidigt blir erbjuden en plats som rollfiguren/sopranen Clara i operan Porgy and Bess som är på väg till Europa. Maya Angelou väljer Porgy och Bess och vinden vänder igen! Londonpremiären går av stapeln på Stoll Theatre den 9 oktober 1952. Operan spelas till februari 1953 i Europa. Leontyne Price sjunger Bess, William Warfield sjunger Porgy och Cab Calloway gör kokainhandlaren Sporting Life. Den här operan, Porgy and Bess hade haft urpremiär i Boston 1935. Och sin Europa-premiär hade den vid Det Kongelige Opera i Köpenhamn 1943. Nazisterna ockuperar då Danmark så vid denna uppsättning spelas alla roller av vita artister med svartmålade ansikten, sk blackfaces. Efter 22 utsålda föreställningar lägger nazisterna ner Porgy and Bess i Köpenhamn. Helvita föreställningar spelas även 1945 och 1950 i Zürich och 1948 i Göteborg och Stockholm. Upplevelserna från Europaturnéen gestaltar Maya Angelou i tredje delen i sviten av självbiografier, Sång för livet. Hon skriver: ”Musiken är min tillflykt. Jag kan krypa in i mellanrummet mellan noterna och kröker min rygg mot ensamheten”. 1957 medverkar Maya Angelou i filmen Calypso Heat Wave och ger ut albumet Miss Calypso där hon sjunger. Billie Holiday säger året efter till Maya Angelou: ”Du kommer att bli berömd, men det blir inte för din sång.” Maya Angelou återvänder till USA, sjunger in flera skivor och vinner tre Grammys för sina album. 1961 spelar hon en av karaktärerna i Jean Genets off-Broadway-pjäs The Blacks tillsammans med bl a Abbey Lincoln och Cicely Tyson. De gästspelar i Berlin och Genéve. Maya Angelou flyttar med den sydafrikanske frihetskämpen Vusumzi Make till Kairo där hon fungerar som redaktör vid veckomagasinet The Arab Observer. Efter ett år bosätter hon sig med sonen Guy i Accra i Ghana. Vinden vänder igen då sonen, efter en bilolycka blir förlamad och rullstolsburen. De stannar i Ghana under några år och Maya Angelou arbetar vid universitetet, hon är aktiv i den afroamerikanska utlandskolonin, hon är redaktör för The African Review, frilansskribent för Ghana Times, jobbar för Radio Ghana och skådespelar på Ghanas Nationalteater. Angelou var så uppskattad att hon fick sitt eget frimärke i Ghana. Där möter hon medborgarrätts-aktivisten Malcolm X. Han ber henne komma med hem till USA för att bygga upp Organisationen för afro-amerikansk enighet, OAAU. Strax efter hemkomsten till USA mördas Malcolm X av en av sina egna. Några år senare ber Martin Luther King Jr Maya Angelou att organisera en marsch. Marschen skjut upp. På hennes 40-årsdag, den 4 april 1968, skjuts Martin Luther King Jr till döds. Hon blir så chockad att hon slutar fira sina födelsedagar under flera år. Vinden vänder ånyo på ett brutalt sätt. My guilt made music with the tears läser Maya Angelou i sin dikt My guilt - Min skuld, där hon nämner Malcolm X, och Martin Luther King Jr – They fought too hard, they loved too well. My crime is I’m alive to tell. De kämpade för hårt, de älskade för väl. Mitt brott är att jag lever och kan berätta. Maya Angelou skriver det första filmmanus som någonsin skrivits av en svart kvinna. Filmens titel är Georgia, Georgia och den produceras 1972 av ett svenskt filmbolag och regisseras av svenske regissören och filmkritikern Stig Björkman. Maya Angelou författar även en TV-serie i tio delar om bluesen och det afroamerikanska kulturarvet och 1977 spelar hon Kinta Kuntes farmor Yaisa i den banbrytande TV-serien Roots - Rötter av Alex Hayley. När Bill Clinton svärs in i Vita huset 1993 reciterar Maya Angelou sin dikt ”On the pulse of morning” under ceremonien. Ljudkonstnären Yvette Jackson möter Maya Angelou i highschool. Angelou läser ur sina diktsamlingar och håller ett inspirerande tal. Yvette är en av få elever som får möta henne efteråt. Som 15-åring kände sig Yvette illa till mods efter att ha läst boken Jag vet varför burfågeln sjunger. - Varför måste Maya Angelou berätta sanningen om alla dessa tragiska och plågsamma upplevelser hon haft? Det frågade sig Yvette Jackson förbittrat. Men efter att ha fått höra och möta Maya Angelou personligen blev Yvette lugnad och fick t o m en kram av poeten efter samtalet. Yvette Jacksons egna musikaliska kompositioner är mycket inspirerade av Maya Angelous inställning till sanning och verklighet. Även om hon ännu inte använt Angelous egen röst i sina ljudspel så använder Yvette dokumentärt material; röster och ljud från dagsaktuella, politiska eller sociala teman. I Radiospelet Invisible People komponerade Yvette Jackson in svarta prästers och professorers ”hate speech”, där de skrev och uttalade sig föraktfullt angående president Obamas stöd till samkönade äktenskap. Obama kallades bl a ”the first gay president” och afroamerikaner uppmanades att inte rösta på Obama. - Ett annat ämne var det faktum att flera afroamerikanska kvinnor hade blivit mördade då de antogs vara lesbiska, säger Yvette Jackson. - Maya Angelous röst har en alldeles egen timbre; det är ett mycket distinkt och unikt instrument. Hennes sätt att läsa; pauserna mellan fraserna och rummet mellan orden. Det är musik, säger Yvette Jackson. - För Maya Angelou var musik mycket viktigt. Fast, jag tror inte på den där stereotypen att alla svarta människor kan sjunga, säger tonsättaren och dirigenten Renée Baker och lägger upp ett gapskratt. Men det råkar faktiskt vara sant när det gäller Maya Angelou, säger hon. Inte bara sjöng hon bra, hon var också en professionell dansare. En helt igenom fullfjädrar artist med musik i sin själ. - Hennes poetiska uttryck glider av tungan likt en musikalisk fras. Det sker en mjukhet när en poet, en musiker eller en dansare, när människor som Maya Angelou, kommer fram i världen. När du upplever den här mjukheten så förändras du och meningen med ditt liv, säger Renée Baker. När President Obama 2011 hedrade henne med Presidentens Frihetsmedalj, USA’s främsta civila pris, sa Obama: Barndomens lidanden och övergrepp fick henne att sluta prata – men stämman hon senare fann hjälpte generationer av amerikaner att finna sin regnbåge bland molnen och inspirerade resten av oss att få fram det bästa i oss. Själv sa Maya Angelou: Det spännande är inte att endast överleva, utan att blomstra med lidelse, medkänsla, humor och elegans. Maya Angelou avled efter flera års sjukdom den 28 maj 2014 i sitt hem i North Carolina. Flera rappare och andra musiker har genom årens lopp samplat Maya Angelou eller nämnt henne i sina texter, t ex Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Talib Kweli, Lupe Fiasco, Kendrick Lamar, Nicki Minaj och The Roots. Manus, regi och produktion: Birgitta Tollan.

The finest productions made by Le French Hit Maker : KURSER. 1 hour of REAL HIP HOP selected and mixed by DJ PHIL BEE1 heure de mix HIP HOP avec uniquement des compositions Rap Français et U.S faites par le producteur parisien KURSER, où vous retrouverez des artistes tels que ROHFF, MC SOLAAR, FAF LARAGE, ainsi que des américains comme THE PHARCYDE, K SPARKS, FARRAH BURNS et bien d'autres encore, sélectionnés et mixés par DJ PHIL BEETracklist:1. Intro2. Mayra Andrade - Juana (Kurser Remix)3. Faf Larage - Une Faveur (feat. Piero Battery) (co produced with Elio Anthony)4. Skeaz & Rokhenza - Caribbean Style 5. K.Sparks - Back Down (feat. Dave Barz) 6. Nation - Take me as I am (inédit) 7. Dave Barz - I'd Rather8. Zeguino - Sunshine (inédit)9. K.Sparks - 5 on the Black Hand Side10. Rohff - Rohff Vs. l'Etat 11. K.Sparks - Karma Remix12. Yaya - Marche ou Crève (Inédit)13. Rohff - Skyrohff14. K.Sparks - Stimulus Package15. MC Solaar - La Belle et Le Bad Boy16. MC Solaar - Hasta la Vista17. Frank Friction (Bootie Brown of The Pharcyde) - Satisfied18. K.Sparks - Achievement (feat. Tina Quallo)19. K.Sparks - Callin' Me (feat. Tina Quallo)20. Farrah Burns - Shotgun Wedding21. Moha Le Vagabond - Aux portes du Désert22. K.Sparks - Houdini23. Koma Daddy - Fonce (Inédit)24. K.Sparks - Self Portrait25. Yaya - Ma République26. K.Sparks - Good Girl27. Rajdulari - Natural (Kurser Remix)28. Ella Rabeson - Qui nous ressemblent (inédit)29. Zeguino - Sans Faire Semblant (inédit)30. K.Sparks - Microphone Fiend (feat. Jeff Chery)31. Rohff - Enculé de ton Clash (feat. Soundkail)32. Yaya - Hardcore (Inédit) 33. Futuristik feat. Joeystarr - Intro Album34. Nation - All I Know (feat. K.Sparks)35. K.Sparks - Movin' On (feat. Tina Quallo)36. Rohff - Arrête ta flûte (co-produced)37. K.Sparks - Rewind (feat. Angelous) 38. Zeguino - Je t'aime mais... (Inédit) 39. Dave Barz - To The Top (feat. Wednesday Atoms, Raiza Rapz & P.C)40. Schkoonk! - Le Soleil Brille41. Koma Daddy - (inédit)42. Zeguino - Forever Hip Hop (Inédit)43. Farrah Burns - 1600 Sixteen Hundred44. Moha Le Vagabond - Ouais mais c'est pas tout ça ! (feat. Busta Flex & Orsek)45. Rokhenza - Ou ja konet (feat. Kénédy)46. K.Sparks - Bright Lights (feat. Julius Francis)47. Farrah Burns - freestyle (Inédit)Artwork by: BearSkillz