From Persecution to Purpose | Ruslan KD's Story

Hey everybody, welcome to today's show and we're gonna have a good time together as we go down a path that is for me very exciting. I'll tell you the reason why. And that's all about the next generation. If you guys know me, if you know this program, if you know anything that we do, making disciples is the desire of my heart because that's the heart of the Holy Spirit to make disciples. And And so today we have Ruslan with us, and many of you will know his name. He is a content creator. He is a rapper. He is an author. We're going to talk about that in a moment. He does so much that I just had to get him on the show because I want... this generation that occupies our time together to become more familiar with him. And I just love this guy. I'm saying stuff right now that I haven't told him face to face, but he was so kind to invite me down to his studio and did that with him and just fell in love with his attitude. His passion for the word of God impressed me. And so it's great to have you. It's an honor to have you here. It's an honor to be here. Oh my goodness. Yeah, this is incredible. And I like that you We've got custom mugs. It's beautiful. If you get some mugs, you know, it's happening. But it's remarkable. I mean, for those who, and by the way, my desire, as I said in the intro, is I'd love to see our... our audience dive more and more into your programming and get more acquainted with your life and the impact. But your name is immediately unique. And with that is a background that's unique. And I remember you telling me very briefly, but it was really the genesis of us having you here today. You mentioned when we first met that you had what I would say a very, very rough upbringing in the sense of what people would call church hurt. I mean, you were exposed to some tremendous things, things that most people would say, yeah, there can't be a God. Or if there is a God and that's him, I don't want anything to do with him. So would you mind, I know this is right on the spot, we didn't rehearse this. Would you mind diving in and maybe... God will use what you have to say to set some people free. Yeah. So I'm ethnically Armenian, but I grew up in Azerbaijan, Baku, which is just to the east of Armenia. Azerbaijan is predominantly a Muslim country. And so Armenians living in Azerbaijan goes back a while. Wow. Uh, in the late eighties with some of the tensions around this autonomous Armenian region, there started being persecution. This is all in the Middle East, just north of Iran, very peaceful part of the world. Lots of tranquility. I was trying to get you to crack a smile there. Not peaceful. Utterly chaotic part of the world. And so long story short, about half a million Armenians were ethnically cleansed from Baku and exiled all over. And so me and my family were the first ones to come to San Diego in 1991. So asylum. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got refugee status. We applied for Australia, Israel. America and America was the last place that we applied for in the first place that accepted us isn't that so yeah pretty cool sorry I mean I could could be living in Australia right now the Lord had it another way so we come to the United States now the backdrop of Azerbaijan was the former Soviet Union so that's right communism like real communism real yeah not like we try to freeze the rain and then yes for a while not AOC version That type of real communism. Food rations for the week, we get a box of food. I remember there would be water shortages. Do you remember this? Yeah, there'd be water shortages, we'd get a tub of water that we have to share as a family, and we were living, me and my mom, with my grandparents. And my mom and my dad couldn't really pick what they did for work, like communism. Like the means of production were owned and controlled by the state. And so we come to the United States, and it's totally different, absolutely different. It was almost as if the world went from black and white to color, that's the way I remember transitioning. And you're about how old? Six years old, yeah. Yeah, so old enough to remember. Old enough to remember. I remember my very first memory of America, it was evening, we pull up to the store, it's beautiful, there's all these lights, it's so colorful, and I thought, mom, it's so considerate of my mom and dad to take me to a toy store. To replenish my toy supply. So we walk in and it wasn't a toy store. It was a lucky grocery store off of El Cajon Avenue in the 15th. So that's how much, like I'd never seen a grocery store. I thought it was a toy store because there was so many lights and shiny. Right. Beautiful. So absolutely culture shock. My only context of anything America was a terrible movie called American Ninja. that came out in the 80s, and Michael Jackson, which, I mean, he's the king of pop, so Michael Jackson was great. And I don't know the language, I don't know anything. And yeah, so I'm dumped into a whole nother country. My mother and my father split up about six months later. Oh, was that because of the American dynamic? It was because their marriage was already rocky. Living in Baku, my dad is more Armenian looking than I am, right? Because my mom's adopted by an Armenian family, but she's Ukrainian or Russian, according to my DNA test. My dad is like Armenian Armenian, so he was very noticeable. So he had to start traveling to Moscow for work pretty early on throughout a lot of my childhood. So there was already a strain on their marriage. They came to America. It was a fresh start. And long story short, it just fell apart almost immediately. So my dad leaves. It's just me and my mom. My mom goes down a dark spiral of alcoholism, depression, very toxic taste in men. Good news is my mother is a Christian now. She's walking with Jesus. She's been going to church every Saturday. There's a church out in Oceanside. I'll tell you what it is off the record. You know what the church is, though. And so she's been going to church. She's doing great now. But at the time, yeah, just... alcoholic, dad's not in the picture. And we start going to the Armenian apostolic church. And so at this point, I don't remember even talking about God as a kid. I don't remember anything about faith. I don't remember anyone telling me about Jesus dying on the sins for my cross, nothing. And so I start going to this Armenian church, very high liturgy, it's part of the Oriental Orthodox part of the church. a lot of beautiful images of Jesus, and the incense, and the lights, and the- All the liturgical beauty of it all. The candles, like, it was beautiful from one standpoint, and I remember becoming an altar boy, and loving every moment of it, and getting baptized, and the whole thing. And then, long story short, what happened was, there was some older altar boys, so I'm like six, seven, eight. This is in the El Cajon area? This is in San Diego, yeah, so right off of, in between University and El Cajon, off of like, 30th Street or somewhere in there, yeah. And there were some older altar boys who were 13, 14, and long story short, they ended up sexually assaulting me as a kid, repeatedly. And- At the church or other? Out of the church in the neighborhood. But these were the kids I met through the church. And the way it was handled by the, or not handled by the church was pretty devastating. How did they know? How did they come to know? It turned into like the talk of the Armenian community. Was that kind of the way it is? I don't know. I think it was shocking to them, but the way it was framed was like, I as the seven or eight year old was the aggressor. and that it was all my fault. And that spun me for a loop. That's insane. Yeah, especially these kids are teenagers and I'm seven or eight. And so the way the church handled it or didn't handle it was pretty devastating. And then long straight short, I remember I kept trying to kind of hold on. Like I kept going to the church despite it all. And I remember maybe a year later, I got my ear pierced. and I showed up to church with an earring, and my terchair sat me down and scolded me. Oh, because that's what, Karl? For having my ear pierced. Meanwhile, he remarried my dad, which my mom felt a way about, because I guess, according to her, they weren't technically divorced. And there was this actual sexual abuse situation that you guys looked the other way on. Right. And so I just was like, oh my, this is like utter hypocrisy. I remember thinking of that in third or fourth grade. Good for you, yeah, good. And so I was frustrated, and then in that, remember growing and becoming an atheist. Like I had to have been one of the youngest kids walking around saying there is no way that there's a God. And if there is a guy, he wants nothing to do with me or I don't want anything to do with him. So in the midst of all of this, this is the gangster rap era of the nineties. I don't know how much you're hip on a gangster rap. No, I mean, I'm sorry. I'm kind of, yeah. So this is Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, NWA, The Chronic. This is, and it's wild to think I have, my, my son is the age I was at this time, but this is what discipled me. Like instead of the church discipling me, it was the wildest, most vile gang that I, as an adult listened to. And like, I, I can never imagine playing this or allowing my son to have access to this music. And yeah, The backdrop of that end up getting into some trouble, getting into a gang, getting arrested for trying to break into a home to get money to bail out my gang leader. And at the age of 11 and just just a complete derelict and a very, very troubled, confused kid. So allow me to insert this. You've been hurt. You've been wounded. Guys, we have a tendency to just. Stuff it in. And when we stuff it in, what comes out is not good. Most often it's violence. If it's not violence, it's hatred or aggression on steroids toward the authority around us in life. The proverbial chip on the shoulder, right? So now you're moving along. And first of all, I just want you to know maybe mostly our listeners to know, I guess, is when young people have events in their life like you have experienced, some people have the tendency to look at those kids when they say, I don't believe in God and blame them, lay it on them for not believing in God. I don't have that. I actually agree with them. It's kind of like Billy Graham once said, if a husband, a mother and a father, husband and wife divorce and break up, then the children have an excuse to not believe in God because God couldn't keep their marriage together. Now, that's not exactly true, but in a child's eyes, it is true. It's emotionally powerful. And so when somebody says, well, I can't believe in God because look what's happened in my life. I get that. I understand that. So how long did this abuse take place, or was that just maybe a seasonal thing? It was for a season. I mean, less than a dozen, more than three or four. Once too many. Yeah, once too many. And it wasn't just that it took place. It then set me down the road of pornography. It set me down the road of being promiscuous with girls and losing my virginity very young. So it just, what is that up? Is there a proverb or a song of Solomon where it talks about not awaking love? Don't awaken love until it pleases or don't awaken love until it is allowed. Yes, yes. And so for me, as my poor little brain was still forming, it hyper-sexualized me very young. That's right. And... In the midst of getting arrested, in the midst of all this stuff, I end up having to do community service hours. I got to do community service hours. I wait till the very last minute. I think I get arrested in fifth grade, seventh grade. I go to court. I finally have to do the community service hours. I wait till the last minute. And the only way I can get them done is if I go to my neighbor's church. And subsequently through all of this, our apartment manager, her name was Cherie, she also ends up getting in trouble. Cherie was my mom's first American friend. She was awesome, but she was also involved in some street stuff. And so long story short, Cherie ends up getting arrested for moving, trying to pass cocaine through an airport. She was flying somewhere and someone gave her a bag of stuff and she got caught with it, had to go to jail. She gets radically saved in jail, like radically converted, totally different person when she comes out. And then our entire apartment complex ends up becoming Christian and going to church, except the two Armenian refugee families. Now I got to do these community service hours. The only way I can get them done is if I go. to her church with Charlie and Willie and cram these hours in. And very early on through her, through Charlie and Willie, people were sharing Jesus with me. They're telling me, hey, you're a mess, but like God accepts you in your mess, but he has more for you. Hey, Jesus loves you. And it was that combination of grace and truth. It was like, you're headed towards a very dark road, but God has better for you. And even they would say things like, one day you're going to do great things for the Lord. You're going to reach millions of people for Jesus. And I was like, there is no God. And if there is a God, he wants nothing, nothing to do with me. Yeah. So the seeds get planted, seeing the life change. I moved to North County, which is when you went to my house, Vista. So way, way suburban, way slower. And God just keeps sending people over and over in the most unorthodox means to tell me about Jesus. Freshman year, started dating a girl. The only way I can see her over the summer is if I go to church with her and her family on Sundays. So that was my only way to see her. So I start going to church. I go to a church. I start hearing about Jesus, start hearing the gospel. And you're how old? Freshman year, so 14, 15. Oh, my goodness, yeah. And I'm still saying I'm an atheist, but I'm kind of an agnostic. But then I'm opening up because all the—I'm slowly coming over. And, again, the music that I'm listening to is now becoming a bit— It was still very debaucherous, but there would always be some references to God or some references to Jesus. Particularly DMX and Tupac, where they would talk about God and there would be some sort of redemptive twist on their music. So that's softening me up. And I'm going to church. And I remember it was like everything in my life was pointing to God. And I just fought God for about two years. Me and the Christian girl broke up. I started dating a Jehovah's Witness girl. So now... I'm down to the rabbit hole of Arianism. And it was Jesus God eternal or was he a son of God? I'm reading the reasoning for scriptures. I got Muslim friends. I got Mormon friends. I'm just confused. Scrambled. My manager at Pizza Hut, her name is Barb. She was a Christian, devoted Christian. Our lead shift driver was also a Christian. So one day we're in the back. I'm rolling the dough. This is amazing. And I start talking about this whole like, well, is Jesus the son of God or is he God? Or I don't know. And they like end up like, no, no, no. Go to John. Go to here. Go to here. And he gives me the new evidence that demands a verdict. Yes. Josh McEss. Fantastic. Fantastic. This thing, like a, like a, like a apologetics encyclopedia. So I take the book home. It's bigger than the Bible. Yeah. And I ended up devouring it as a, as a young, you know, high school kid, just reading it. And it answered all my questions. And it was, it was. I mean, you do know that you are hot evidence of the pursuit of God. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. He was hounding you. He was hounding me. Yeah. He was, he was, he was going after me relentlessly and. After two years of wrestling, apologetics, dating different girls, being very confused, one foot in, one foot out, the end of my junior year is 4th of July. So going into my senior year, I made my first public profession of faith. I had raised my hand and said the prayer, but my first public coming down profession of faith, you'll dig this, out of Miles McPherson, Miles Ahead Crusade. I absolutely remember those. I could have been there. I could have been there. Yeah, it was amazing. So yeah, I think he had POD and cross movement forming. Oh, yes. Oh, my gosh. It was really cool. It was at the San Diego Coors Amphitheater, I think, at the time. Yeah, amazing. And that was my first public profession of faith. Immediately after that, joined a small group, started getting discipled by older men in the church, started an open mic, and really took my faith seriously. So awesome. Yeah. At what point— Then your mother's watching this stuff happen. So she's like testing you, I would imagine. She's looking. She thinks I joined a cult. She thinks like, what is this stuff? Because the change was so much. She's probably, she doesn't know, but she sees this change in you. So she's thinking, what could have that kind of power over somebody's mind? Yes. Not realizing it's the actual person of God. Yeah. And she, again, a high liturgy, orthodoxy, all this stuff. So to her, and I'm not saying this is right. I'm saying to her, faith was very compartmentalized. Faith is when she went to go get some holy water blessed by the priest and light a candle. It wasn't, hey, I'm going to read my Bible every night. I'm going to talk to God. I'm going to talk to God. I'm going to tell you about Jesus. I'm going to pray for you. Can I pray for you, Mom? It was very foreign to her. But she saw over the course of decades my life. And it was decades. It wasn't. I love it. It was decades. Yeah. So I came to faith early 2000s. She doesn't come to faith until. . . post COVID of just, and it was in, in me honoring her when she had an accident and taking care of her that she got clean. And then she finally got around all those prayers of God. Would you just send godly women to my mom? Would you send godly women to my mom that can share you with her in a way that makes sense? And she ends up, uh, God like answers those prayers decades later. And so, yeah, so she's had a pretty wild come at Jesus moment within the last three, four years at post COVID. Yeah. goes to church every Saturday now and reading her Bible and telling me about the story in Genesis that she heard from the pastor. And it's a, it's a Russian, Russian English service. Yeah. Yeah. So talk on this. We know that the scripture says that the Lord can make a beauty out of ashes. We know that part of his nature is that he's redemptive. He redeems. He restores. He makes new. Um, That said, with what he's done in your life, I'm hesitating because I know the answer for me. There's things that maybe I'll share in a moment, but I'm delighting in what I'm hearing because you've got every reason why, that if I were to meet you on the street and I would say to you, Rosalind, this is who Jesus is. And you said to me, there's no way. I get it. I would, I'd have to say with you, say to you, I understand why you don't believe. The Lord has taken you and turned that around so much so that do you believe, do you sense, have you come to that place where you can now look back and say, and say, I wouldn't have changed a thing. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, beautiful. I wouldn't have changed a thing. I wanted to ask that question to you because that's true for my life. And look, I'm old enough to be your dad. I went through things... I was a failed abortion. I wasn't wanted. My mom kept me. My dad didn't want me. My dad came back from deployment. I was a year old. It was, he never acknowledged my life. That said, I stuttered severely all my life. My mom was born and raised in a Catholic orphanage in Hawaii. So it was all about the candles, all about Mary, the statue, no Bible, but My dad had no faith, but when I was nine years old, I remember walking home from school, I would cut through across the football field and getting surrounded by about seven or eight Hispanic guys, young guys in a gang. And I was the one who famously stuttered. And so they were pushing me around and making fun of me, but then they threw me down, they held me down, and then they systematically urinated on my face And they were saying things like, well, this will make you stop stuttering. And I was powerless. Went home, covered in urine. my mom asking me what happened, I just couldn't, I just broke down crying, all that. From that moment on, there was a switch in me that went violent. And so what happened was, I would talk back, I would get in fights, I hated people. I wanted to inflict pain. And it was kind of like Guido in the old Italian movie. It's sorry, I'm going to have to bump you off, but it's not personal. It was that kind of a thing. I'm going to inflict pain upon you or you. It's not personal. And that actually, when I got into junior high and high school, that worked great for sports. But at the drop of a hat, I'd go into a rage. Plus, I couldn't communicate. All that said... Um, fast forward, when I came to Christ at the age of 19, only then did things begin to make sense to me. For me, it was not, God, how could you do this to me? How could you allow that to happen? For me, the foundation was always this, oh my gosh, I suffered all that kind of stuff. And yet God had me live through this abortion and this life to come to know who he is. And on June 20th, 1977, Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, Greg Laurie was doing a Monday night service. Keith Green, who I didn't know who that was, but Keith Green was on the panel that night. I'd later found that out from Greg Laurie himself, told me that, but... my life was changed that day. And I'm so glad you answered how you did because I can look back now and I hope the audience that's listening to us right now, here's two guys from different age groups, but with a story of redemption that now I can tell you, I wouldn't have changed the thing. All of the hardship of life because people have got hardships in life. All those things become great stepping stones to what God wants to do in your life. And so you got saved, you're growing now. I appreciate what you said about your mom coming along later. My mom, my dad, my sister, it took decades for them watching me before they came to faith. My mom accepted the Lord four weeks before she died. My dad accepted the Lord a week before he died. My sister, seven years, she had cancer. She called me up. I was teaching at the Calvary Chapel Bible College. And she called me and she said, can you come by my house on the way home? I thought that was an odd request. went by her house and she proceeded to tell me that she was dying of cancer, told her about Jesus and God kept her on for seven more years. But, um, it's amazing because my mom, my dad, my sister, all, all of them came to Christ. What I, I shared with them, but to, to no avail, at least what I thought in my home, cancer was the most effective evangelist in, in our home. Yeah. But, um, In 1983, God miraculously healed me of stuttering in the moment. But all that said, I want you to pick it up now to where you're a young man. You're in Christ. You're growing. You can now, you've just said so, that God has turned these ashes into beauty. Take us more on into your life. Yeah, it is. the last year of high school was fun. I went from looking at the weird Christian kids that bugged me and I like how they carry their Bibles around and just 10 out wanting to be around those kids. You know, it was, it was a true born again experience. It was the things that I hated all of a sudden I love the things that I love all of a sudden I hate. And so, yeah, you know, I started loving the church. I started loving the Bible. I started loving being around Christians. I, even loved CCM worship music. I thought it was so corny before I became, and now I love it. And then the subsequent, the sin that I once indulged in, I just couldn't, I couldn't do it anymore. Yeah. It was like something just went off. And it was like, when I was sexually immoral, I just, I just felt sick, you know, I felt so off. And so I, it was, it was the spirit of God showing me, you can't just keep living this way. And we, About a year after high school, I meet my wife. Me and my wife started dating. We had known each other in high school. She's amazing. We've been married now 18 years. Excellent. This July 5th. Together 22 years. Wow. Three kids. Yep. Levi's 11. Zoe's 5. And we have a 7-month-old, Luke. which has been amazing having another baby. It's so cool. And so I think the hard part for me is as much as I had like discipleship and I had amazing men of God in my life, was there wasn't a ton of conversation with regards to what I would call now is the law of replacement. It's like the Lord removed all these things from me. I don't have the same desire and appetite for sin. And I served in a church and I read my Bible. Right. but what else am I supposed to do? And how do I walk out my purpose and my calling? And how do I discover my calling? And how do I do something constructive with my time that is, one, replacing those evil things that need to be rooted, uprooted, but also building and planting gardens so something beautiful grows out of it? And that was the part that I didn't understand. And it took me a while, and so I would still struggle with porn, and I would still struggle with these things. And then when me and my wife got married, we both come from broken families. And we know we didn't want to repeat the cycle. That's right. That we're divorced was not going to be even a word that we said. That's right. Yes. And so we get married, we have our own place. And in the process, I discover that, man, I made a mess of my finances. Right. I really made a mess. How I discovered that is we started trying to get out of debt and then I had co-signed for a condo with my mom. That condo went into foreclosure. She didn't pay the HOAs. We had moved out at this point, but all of that was on my credit. And I got sued for that. My accounts got levied and I discovered that I had an additional second mortgage of 60,000. We had about 45,000 of student loan debts. And so here I am as a newlywed And I discovered that I'm $100,000 in debt. And I didn't feel adequately prepared. Of course. In terms of how am I supposed to navigate the practical side? I know there's a supernatural faith and I know I've had a heart change. But how do I clean this up? And in the midst of all this, I discovered Dave Ramsey. And I discovered the Baby Steps. And I discovered Financial Peace University. We went so dialed in on the Ramsey stuff. Amazing. Where just listening to his podcast every day and listening. And this is 2010 to 2012. We end up, within 18 months, we end up becoming completely debt free. Isn't that awesome? Yeah. Yeah. And that changed everything for us because we become debt free, which it was it was it was a lot of money. It was technically six figures. Listening to him, we helped negotiate some of that down. We end up paying, I think, about forty five thousand dollars off in 18 months. After that, we end up saving six months of living expenses. My wife gets to be a stay home mom. I went into ministry for two years at the church I was at at the time. I didn't want to be in ministry while I had debt. and all of that culminated to just a total freedom financially to not, not that we were rich, but we were just in a way different spot coming from generational poverty. Hey, look, in California, if you're debt-free, you're probably rich. That's a good point. Somebody might drive by in that Mercedes or that Bentley, but they don't own it. In golden handcuffs. Exactly. And so I started discovering that there was this practical side of my faith, that there was this, if I believe the scriptures, that impacts... how I handle my finances. That impacts how I take care of my body. That impacts what kind of employee I am. I love it. And I, at the same time, so this is subsequently, I'm hanging with Lecrae. And I don't know if you remember this phase, but around the same time, we had the reformed and restless phase. You remember this, where everyone was a thousand point Calvinist for a couple of years? Yes, yes. I was in point. So I'm doing these events with Lecrae and these guys are all into the, you know, reformed theology and they're doing stuff with John Piper and Paul Washer and all this stuff. Right. And I'm doing these events and I remember I would, I'm always the guy that I want to, I want to sit and meet everyone after the concert. So I'm going to meet and chat. And I remember meeting these guys and they had all this great theology and they could articulate the gospel in the most robust ways. all this rich language. But when I would ask them about their personal lives and I would ask them about their marriages and I would ask them about, what kind of man are you becoming? It was, again, so disintegrated as people. And I said, man, we have so much knowledge and so much theology. Did you not know you weren't supposed to ask that question? Yeah, apparently I'm not supposed to ask these things. You're not supposed to ask. What kind of husband are you, right? But so little integration of our faith, so little implementation of all the information, right? Because the gospel should radically impact them. That's right. Everywhere. Everywhere. It touches everything. And I just didn't see that. And so as I got into doing music and I got into podcasting, there was a deep heart that was like, if I can capture these guys' attention, maybe— I can help infuse some values and some wisdom to them that they're not thinking about when they're 21 years old or 22 years old, but they're gonna be thinking about when they're 32 years old, when they got a family and their wife wants to stay home, which fun fact, this might be offensive. 76% of working women, and this is, according to secular data, would prefer to stay home If they're given the opportunity. Absolutely. With kids. Yeah, absolutely. And this is, this is second. This isn't Christian women. This isn't trad women. This isn't conservative women. This is just women. Yep. Would prefer to stay home with kids. They're not fulfilled. They're not fulfilled. This has been going on long enough. Decades and decades to where now the woman is saying, hey, it's not fulfilling me. Yeah. I'm missing a whole lot. Yeah. Yeah. Totally true. And. I think men don't know that that's coming. They don't understand that that's coming. And then women are getting in the same data. This is Forbes Woman, so people can go look this up. Forbes Woman found that many women aspire it as a part of their lifestyle. And men don't know that like, hey, yeah, like your wife may think she's a businesswoman or an independent boss babe or a go-getter or whatever. But the moment she pushes out another human— and sees that baby and the baby is holding onto her for sustenance, half the waking hours, everything. It's true. Changes built designed by God to do that. Yep. And it's a beautiful thing. And so, and so I'm like, man, if I, if I understand this on a tacit level now, cause I've understood, Hey, decrease our overhead, rice and beans, beans and rice. That's right. Get out of debt, live a frugal lifestyle so that I could afford my wife the opportunity to stay home and just be a mom for a season. If I could, if I could, transfer that to other young men, that's going to save a lot of headache when they're in their thirties and they discover that this is a lot harder than I thought it was. It'd be great to get young men to think like that 10 years before they come into that time to do it. So I always tell men and women, but I tell men, hey, there's a future version of you. That's depending on the current version of you. Oh, that's wise. To make better decisions. Yeah. And when you think about that, okay, so what does that practically look like? Well, that looks like your faith now impacting how you're thinking about finances, how you're thinking about career, how you're thinking about all these different things. And this is also on the backdrop of there's never been a time like this before. You remember the world before the internet. Absolutely. I'm the last generation that remembers the world before the internet. Wow. Totally different world. Now, we've entered the era of the hyper distracted, but the hyper creative. And that's where everything is going. You're either going to be hyper distracted, doom scrolling your life away, or you're going to say, oh, my gosh. Could you imagine if the Apostle Paul came on the scene? Oh, gosh. And saw all of this technology and the entire world interconnected through these devices that they're addicted to and what we can do if we. we all contributed our time, talent, and treasure and how wild this is. And that we're not under Roman occupation, that we're not under persecution, that we have freedom of speech, that we have all these remnants and this fruit of the Protestant worldview, Protestant work ethic, that's formulated our country. I'm not saying our country is a one-to-one American nation. We understand that. But it's highly influenced. And this is not me. This is Tom Holland in Dominion. This is Glenn Scrivener in The Air We Breathe. that the American experience is unique, unlike anything we've ever seen. Unlike, yep. And you add the internet and you add technology and it's like, man, what a time to be alive. Truly. Amazing to think I got a, and this is very, I'm saying this because it's encouraging. I'm not saying this to self flatter. I want people to take this right. So he's now with, he's now with the Lord in heaven. But Dr. Ed Heinsen used to be the Dean of Education at Liberty University. Dr. Ed Heinsen has authored just a bazillion books. That said, he called me up one time and he said, Jack, I'm driving through a, somewhere in Virginia. And he said, your program popped up on the radio. And aren't you like, how many channels are you guys on? I don't know, 900, a thousand channels. And he said, do you realize that you're probably reaching more people in one day than what Paul, the apostle reached in a lifetime physically. Wow. And I thought, that's kind of insane. I didn't tell him that. Hey, have a nice day, Dr. Ed. And I hung up and I thought, well, he's, he's not known to be crazy. Hmm. And you think about that, Paul had to get on a trail or on a camel or a donkey to go somewhere. He had to do it for decades where you can do a podcast or you can do a concert or you can do a message and get a million and a half views. And with that, it always blows my mind. It's kind of a sanctified terror. That you and I have the opportunity to reach so many people, so we better say it true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's sacred. Sacred. Yeah. Because if we're not, woe unto us. Woe unto us. Yeah. And so in my professional journey, something interesting happened. I'm working jobs just trying to be faithful. My last... real job before I went into ministry is I worked with adults with developmental disabilities. One of the most fulfilling jobs I ever had. And it taught me, it gave me so much more than I gave it in terms of remembering people that are forgotten and serving people that society kind of overlooks. And so my character is being formed. I'm able to get out of debt, but I'm also serving in my local church. And I push this hard on people. You serving in your local church does way more for you than you think you're giving to the local church. I'm serving. Every pastor said amen. No, because people think when we teach and when we're preaching the word and we tell people, go use your gifts. God gave you at least one gift. Go use it. I kind of feel like they're thinking, oh, he just wants us to do something. I want to make the point that there's no such thing as spectator Christianity. Yep. Your Christianity has a steering wheel on it, but you got to get out onto the lane and let him drive you. And so find out what that is. See a need and go about fulfilling that because that's where the word of God goes from theory to actual reality. And you know that. And for me, I just served wherever I was needed and wherever the need was. And it oddly enough had me teaching the first graders and then the middle school kids and then the high school kids. I did five year olds. Yeah. And it was so I'm working a job where I'm having to learn to serve. I'm in church serving. And then we have this men's group on Monday night that we did for about a decade. And some amazing, amazing guys came out of that. And and what would happen is. I'm just trying to be faithful to what's in front of me. And I understand that, man, what an opportunity it is to... use hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment that under any circumstance, I wouldn't even have access to touch this stuff. And here I am in a church and I get to play with cameras and I get to do the broadcasts and I get to do the video, the switcher, the mixing, the lighting. And so I'm developing all these skills in the local church. I'm learning how to communicate because I have to communicate to middle school kids and high school kids and young adults and even teach on Sundays sometimes. And I'm doing this men's group where these guys are coming in from their week, working jobs, and they're freaking out. You know, we listened to Alec Jones today, and he said they're going to turn the frogs gay. What are we going to do? The world's going to end tomorrow. And so I'm having to take these guys and synthesize their anxieties and their pressures and the things they're afraid of because of the diet that they're consuming. Yeah, yeah. And then take them right back to Scripture. That's right. And so in the same window, I work at my church, do the broadcast, do the live stream. All the stuff I'm doing now, I worked at a church and did for two years, communicating. So good. And I pivot, I do music full-time because I knew at 30, 29, 30 years old, I knew I could come back to being a full-time minister when I'm 40. Can't really come back to being a Christian rapper when I'm 40. Good point. Pause right there. Sure. When did you realize that you had a voice or a voice that could be used? I mean, very early on. Okay, okay. Very early on, I... was, I had a job at the city throwing concerts. Like someone at the city heard that I was like doing music and like gave me a job throwing concerts at Brinkley Terrace Park, which is the park right next to my house when you pulled up. There's a big park there. So I threw concerts there. I'd lead Bible studies in men's groups. Very early on, I knew I could communicate. For whatever reason, God gave me the ability to take complex things and put them in stories and make them simple for people. Wow. So, and I just did it wherever I was needed. And... I did it long enough. I go into music. So I do music full time 2015 to 2020. And at the same time, I build a community of other aspiring Christian rappers that are like, hey man, you're providing for your wife and kid. You live in Southern California. You're not super duper rich, but man, you're doing well. But you're living in Southern California. Yeah, how do you do it? Like how do you do it? So I started teaching these guys, hey this is how you build out your merch line. This is how you monetize your audience. This is how you do these things. As a Christian rapper, I don't want you to pursue this ministry of Christian rap when really you just kinda wanna have a career as an artist at the altar of your family. And I saw it happening over and over. So I have this little community of guys, they're sending me their music to review. It's about three, 400 of them. My channel is at maybe five or 10,000 subscribers. And right around COVID, they started asking me deeper questions. So now they're asking me theological questions. They're asking me questions about the Bible. They're asking me questions about the current events and this conspiracy theory. And I am just sharing my thoughts. And we started taking those clips, clipping them up. And instead of it just being advice and marketing advice, how do you make money as a Christian rapper? We started saying, hey, what about tongues? What about the spiritual gifts? What about this pastor, Ravi Zachariah, this thing that fell, this guy? And I'm just speaking very plainly, the way me and you would probably be hanging out, having lunch, and we're just shooting. And I started capturing that, clipping it up. So good. And the channel just exploded over COVID. 2020, I had 15,000 subscribers. By the end of 2020, I was at like 60,000 subscribers. Awesome. And that was a huge growth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just exploded, yeah. So then I pivoted. I'm like, okay, well, Lord. I didn't want to be the Christian influencer. I wanted my Christianity to be local, and I wanted to just be a musician publicly. But for whatever reason, those were the things that people gravitated towards publicly for me. Let's pause with this and go back over to your heritage. The Armenian culture, for whatever reason, maybe you can help, it has been the whipping post of Islam. If it wasn't for God's mercy, your ethnicity would have been eradicated from the face of the earth. Am I exaggerating? No, you're not, Armenian genocide. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, so Armenia is this smaller Christian nation Right in the middle, you got Turkey to the west, you got Azerbaijan to the east, which their whole saying is two states, one people. So they're like, hey, we're two different nations, but we're really the same people. You got the Arzis, you got the Turks. Just south of Armenia, you got Iran, right? And so it's just nestled under very hostile forces. And you know this, as things get hard in a society, you need to scapegoat someone. We tragically saw it with the Jews and the Holocaust, right? But what people don't know is that what inspired Hitler to do the Holocaust and the Jews is the Armenian genocide. Because Hitler said, yeah, he said, who remembers the Armenians? Who's talking about the Armenians? Yeah. And so the Armenians, millions wiped out. Wow. And it was because of the young Turks, a lot of revolutionary change with the Turk, the fall of the... Ottoman Empire, all that stuff, the young Turks. And so they come on the scene and it just was bloody. And they continue all living in proximity together. And so tragically, Armenia hasn't had a lot of support of the West. So strange. It is a Christian nation. Yeah. The culture is amazing. The people are amazing. There through and through, as Western as you can get in that part of the world, you're going to find a lot of overlap with the Armenian. Well, and you know this way better than I do, but I enjoy, oh man, it's a part of L.A. I say L.A. Glendale. Glendale, yes, where all the Armenians are. Yes, it is. The diaspora. You know how Glendale, they say that the reason why Glendale was so flooded with Armenians, there was a, I'm going to butcher this, but there was a prophetic word from an Armenian priest that there was going to be a genocide. And a lot of the families flooded to Southern California. The Kardashians, probably the most notable. People can go look this up for themselves. And it was because there was a prophetic word of like, you need to get the heck out of Armenia. And that's when the diaspora started. What a remarkable thing, because for those who don't realize this or know this, but it's pretty bizarre. I don't want to sound too, what's the word, hyper-Pentecostal-like, But I think the Christian, when you go through certain areas, you have discernment. You can sense that there's something wrong in this area or this place or this person. And, you know, with municipalities, there's principalities. Absolutely. And so what's. Why I stay out of Los Angeles. You know what? No joke. That is not a joke because what's interesting is if you go to that Glendale area, there's prosperity. There's peace. Look, I'll be blunt. I'm going to tell you right now. I've seen it in my own eyes. Very, very few Muslims. Yeah. And if you do see them at the Americana or some of those other shopping areas, they're very well behaved. There is such an awesome presence of Armenian people that I enjoy. And you can feel the peace. You can feel the rest versus, like you said, you go into certain areas of L.A. where there's, you get this feeling where I think we need to leave. We need to get out of here as soon as we can. That said, in light of this prophecy that you're referring to, I don't doubt it. I don't doubt it. And I say it this way because there's such a profound sense of, of witness of light that's, that's there in the Glendale area. Remarkable. So, Yeah, a lot of people don't realize too that when you go to Jerusalem, the old city, there's an Armenian section. Have you been through the Armenian section? Many times, I love it. Cool, right? Everything about it. I love it. The people, the food, everything about the culture. Yeah. Spectacular. Yeah, yeah, when we went there, we had some friends that walked us through it and they took us to the church of James, the brother of Jesus, and it was amazing. Just something. Yeah, super cool. So great. Curious, you mentioned... You mentioned... Seeking asylum, Australia, Israel, U.S. was last. Why Australia? I don't know. I have no idea. I mean, I think there's just, they knew that there was going to, there was persecution. They knew that they started offering it up. And for whatever reason, Australia was one of the people that was willing to take in Armenians, Israel. Israel probably has, because of the Armenian quarter. The Armenian quarter. Armenian presence. That's right. And then, yeah, and the United States, San Diego. And so, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oddly enough, Israel and San Diego have very similar, or Tel Aviv and San Diego have very similar climates. Climate, the landscape. Exactly right. Exactly right. So moving forward in what time we have, let's talk about your music. Okay. Okay. where do you get the inspiration to do this? Where do you, and I'll just ask out of ignorance, the songs that you sing, do you write your songs? Where do people get your songs? How do those who are not familiar with you become familiar with you? Yeah, the music was just, it was something I had done before I was a Christian. And I remember becoming a Christian and reading the story of Moses and reading Joshua and then reading David. And I remember seeing within all those three stories when Moses goes to talk to Pharaoh, it says God took the staff that was in his hand. right? When Joshua, they take the loss of I, and then they go back in, and it says the javelin that was in Joshua's hand, right? When David fights Goliath, he takes the sling and the stones that were in his hand. So God has this interesting way throughout the scriptures of utilizing whatever's in your hand that you're already good at. And I thought, well, apparently I'm good at rapping. I was doing rap battles around the school and winning talent shows. I remember one year we won the talent show of the band, Battle of the Bands. It was a rap group that won a talent show and it scandalized everybody. Yeah, they're like, how could this happen? How could this happen? And I was like, okay, so now that I'm a Christian, this part of my life has to get consecrated. What I'm listening to and also what I'm creating needs to get consecrated. And I just chipped away at it and chipped away at it and started to make a little bit of money in 2008 when I got married and then 2011, 2012, really put the foot on the gas and we released a song a week. And then, yeah, it became my full time way to provide for my family in 2015 to 2020. And the music is really just an overflow of the season that I'm in. And so it's different now than it was 10 years ago. Yeah. And most of it is available on Spotify, Apple Music. People can check it out there. But I just finished a I haven't released on any DSBs. We have it just on my website. It's a physical CD. We're gonna make vinyls too. And I don't wanna put it on Spotify until I feel like, it's also kind of like a work in progress. So I'm just kind of going back and tweaking and tinkering on it. And I also wanna properly promote it. And because of what I do on YouTube and the speaking and the writing, My brain, I want to really lock in and make sure I promote it, right? And so I'll probably release a couple singles. I released a song earlier this year that's doing really well. And yeah, and so that's been good. So they can pick it up on most DSPs, but the album, if they want the album, they can go to blessgod.co. And we're selling physical CDs. And then when they buy it, they can open it, and there's a QR code, and they can listen to it right on their phone. I love it. I think the idea of physical things is coming back. Vinyl, CDs, books. People want tactile. Young people getting Bibles. Somebody, I love this Bible. My buddy Adam just got me this. I noticed that when you brought that in. With my name on it. So I've been walking with Jesus for over 20 years. This is the second Bible someone gave me with my name on it. I've never had a Bible with my name on it. First Bible was earlier this year. I spoke at Dr. David Jeremiah's church. Love him. First guy that gave me a Bible with my name on it. Man. Yeah. So anyway, yes, people like physical stuff. And so I'm like, okay, people like physical stuff. That's why we have a prayer journal, 60-day devotional, physical things that you can write in. I think there's something different when you're tactile writing. Even you have your notes here. Something versus like having an iPad and your notes. Man, so true. How do you, because you've got so many opportunities because God's given you gifts and let's be honest, Oh, that's true. You've also, by God's grace, you have processed things rightly, the bad things that were done to you. You in Christ have worked through those things. You've landed at the right spot. That said, how do you manage the uniqueness of all the various things that you're skilled at in being a dad, being a husband? How do you do that? Well, I think... A lie that we often get told is the lie of work-life balance, that everything is always going to have a perfect balance to it. And I think that the older I get, the more I discover that it's much more of a juggle. That's a good word. And less of a balance. The CEO of Coke put it this way. He said, you know, you have these different things that you're juggling in life. You've got your health. You've got your family. Then you have your career. You have your, you know, other passions, and you're juggling these things. And he said, when you're juggling your life, career and your dreams and your ministry. And he said, those things are like rubber balls. They can fall. They'll be fine. But when your family is in there and your health is in there and your faith is in there, those are like glass. Prioritize it. They're going to fall and they might shatter, they might break, they might get scuffed. And so I think the prioritization for me is there's a hierarchy of values, there's a hierarchy of priorities, who I am as a husband, who I am as a father, who I am in my home is top priority and nothing really functions. I mean, if me and my wife are not in a good spot, I feel like a total fraud going out and preaching, right? So I gotta make sure my marriage is solid, I gotta make sure I'm good, you know? My personal devotion to Jesus is good. So daily stuff like, hey, I'm going to read the scriptures, and I'm not going to go on YouTube and regurgitate what I just read. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was for me. Man, that's so good to hear. And so, yeah, you know, simple things. Like last night, at the end of the day, I just got on the ground and played with my kids for an hour. And just... They want to walk on my back and I'm playing with my seven-month-old and they're all together and they all want to do this and this one. They have no idea, but the word is excess. They're growing up knowing, I've got excess to my dad. Yes, yes. So playing dolls with my five-year-old, playing Mario Kart with my 11-year-old, taking my seven month old on a walk, that's like our thing. Every day we go, we get two or three walks together and meet the neighbors and do the pleasantries and it's super sweet. And then me and my wife, I mean we've been together so long but we're like, she's just fun. Like we just have fun. We don't have a, with a little kid right now, we don't have like a regular date night. I think that's good, but that's not the place we're in. That's right. But we just laugh around the house and play fight and do silly stuff and laugh and have fun together. And I think like as long as that's in order, and then Dinner looks like this, rose and thorn, and then Bible trivia. So we're asking age-appropriate questions to my five-year-old. Name me one of the four Gospels. Asking my son more advanced questions. He's asking us questions. And so it's like Bible trivia. And then usually she'll, my five-year-old, will spout out a verse, John 4, 12. And so we'll look it up and just read the verse to her. So we're always trying to infuse the faith. within everything that we do. So good. And not just say your prayers and eat your vitamins, but really being integrated as a family with our faith. So the beautiful thing about what you're saying and... and it has a lot to do with why you're on this program right now, is the fact that there is no place in our lives where Christ is exempt. And that being the case, he's infused into everything that we do because he's there in those things. And your testimony is one of great power and great redemption that people who have suffered, but they... But we'll just call, because it's convenient to call this church hurt. A lot of people will use church hurt to, what, stay victimized? Have the perceived self-justification of complaining? And if I understand my gospel correctly, there's no place for that. That's to be taken to the cross and to be conquered. And with what closing words we have? What would you say to a young person that has been, in their minds, abused by God? Look for maybe not in their minds. In reality, they've been abused by the world, abused by the church. They don't fit in. Everything they do seems to flop. What would you say to them? I have my idea, but I want to hear yours. Yeah, I would say scripture to them. I go Romans 8, 28, all things work for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. And I think there's so much richness in that verse. It's like the worldly version of that is all things work for good. Oh yeah, they leave out the... They leave out the... Oh, life is happening to you, right? Or life is happening for you, not to you, and all those things. But all things work for good. For those who love God and are called according to his purpose. Now, my question would be, if you love God and are you called according to his purpose, I think what we do many times is we're trying to get God in on our purpose. Exactly. Hey, God, I got this thing and I need you to bless it. I got this dream. Promote it, God. And I want you to do this thing. The scripture says that humility precedes honor. Right. So you got to first be humbled. And then I think the approach shouldn't be, hey, God, I got this thing I want to do. Can you get in on my thing? But hey, God, what are you doing? And where are you moving? And how are you speaking? And how can I get in on what you're doing? And what role can I play in what you're doing right now? And then it removes us as a paradigm shift. And I'm not the main character of the story. A lot of young people, and this might be harsh, they have main character syndrome. They think that their life is a movie and everyone is playing a supporting role or an extra in their story. That's exactly how they've been brought up. That's how they've been conditioned. The selfie, you're the center of the universe. Everything revolves around you. The reality is everything revolves around Jesus. Everything, all things are made through him and for him. Right. That's right. I just preached at my buddy Chris Hilton's church. We spent, he did Colossians, the first half of the chapter, I did the second half of the chapter. It's like Jesus is everything. Jesus is the center of the story. So if Jesus is the center of the story, that means he gives me an invitation to get in on his story. Right on. And when I look at his story, the work of redemption on humanity, I go, okay, what can I contribute to this? How can I offer up something? Yeah. to use my time, talent, and treasure, to say, Lord, I wanna be in on what you're doing right now with people, and however that looks, whatever that looks, and often, it looks like playing the background for a decade or a season, being the guy that's behind the scenes, running the video switch, working with the adults with developmental disabilities, playing, leading the kids for a season, and then all of a sudden, God will open up doors and bring things to fruition. One of my good friends is Bryce Crawford. I think you're familiar with Bryce Crawford. Bryce Crawford's amazing, he's 22 years old. Lord's using him in mighty ways. But young people start, Christian young people start thinking that Bryce Crawford is the rule, not the exception to the rule. And if they forget, no, no, no, he's an anomaly. Like he is an anomaly in every, there's a zeal for the Lord, his knowledge of scripture, the fact that he's been discipled well. He's the, most of us at 22 can't handle influence and money and success, access to access. You don't want that. So you find your groove in your 30s, you know, and in your 40s and in your 50s, and that's okay. And so I think a lot of us want it now. Exactly. Want it now. And so, yeah, my big advice would be, hey, do you love God? Because if you love God, Jesus, if you love me, you'll obey me. That's right. Are you obeying God? And obeying God is in your best interest. If you live by God's ways, you'll be in God's will. Right on. So many of us want the will of God. We think it's a fork in the road moment. No, no, no. The will of God is in the ways of God. The ways of God is in obeying Jesus. You'll always be in the will of God if you're living by his ways. Seek first the kingdom. Seek first the kingdom of God. And if you want to know his ways, you've got to get in his word. and discover what his word is, to know what his ways are, to be in his will. And then from that, you say, okay, well. Lord, what would you have me doing this season? How can I navigate? What is this? I have these gifts. Do I need to go out and use them now or do I need to just be faithful and just be an intern somewhere for a season? And so that would be my, do you love God? Are you called according to his purpose? And if you can answer yes to those two things, I think you start seeing that, hey, that which to me meant for evil in your life, God is going to use it for good. And I wouldn't, just like you, I wouldn't change a thing because- All of those things, and many of those scars I still have. I still have to constantly be intentional with my eyes and my thoughts. I still have to constantly be hypervigilant, right? Yes. But I can share those scars with people. You can share those scars with people, but those, his redemptive power is so great that those struggles, even in the joy. I think it was Tozer. I may be off. Maybe you can correct me. Tozer. Spurgeon, not sure who said this, but he was lamenting the fact that he's still battling with residual sin. And it dawned on him that this was his old life. He was reminded, wait a minute. I used to plan on doing those things. Now I don't plan on doing those things, but those thoughts pop into my mind. I hate those things. And I'm not sure who said this, but He writes, I think it was Tozer who said that the voice of the enemy said to him, listen to you. Why would God want you? And his response was, wait a minute. Everything that I learned from you, I now hate. Everything that you taught me about my flesh is. That I did, I hate. And the very argument with himself and with the old life was the comforting proof of the new life. Because a dead man, a dead man doesn't struggle. That's good. A living man struggles. That's good. You got to be alive. And so a lot of people just count themselves out because they think, well, I'm not saintly enough. Yeah. Well, you know what? You're never going to be saintly enough. That can only be done by the blood of Christ. And I believe this. I believe when you read the book of James and when you read the book of Romans, I believe that they fit like a glove because Romans is the... is the sanctification that is positional in the blood. Yep. James is the practical living out sanctification before you and I. But you can't live it out before you and I unless it's first positionally. And that positionally happens in a moment's time. When we come to Christ, when we have that born again experience, when we realize Christ died on the cross for me, my biggest thing, Ruslan, was that I believe that Jesus died for you because he loves you. But I don't see how he could love me. And that's where my big struggle was when I first came to Christ was there was the joy of salvation instantly. And then I began to realize, wait a minute, all that horrible past life that I've lived, it became so intensified against the blood that I focused on my sin, my past sin and failure. How could he really love me? And so you— pointed to the word and you acknowledge the word being the answer, that was the only thing that got me out of that pit. Before I heard the gospel, I was fine sinning. Yep. When I heard it, there was that immediate joy of hearing that news. And then the battle began. Little did I know, and it only comes from discipleship, that that battle is the sign of life. That's good. And so, yeah. Love what God is doing with you. What's next? What's happening? Yeah. Well, the book, Godly Ambition. Godly Ambition. Talk about it. Yes, we got to plug the book. Yeah, USA Today bestseller, which is incredible. Fantastic, that's right. We did a bunch of theater events and then some church events. And so I'm going to be going back out. I'll be in Houston today. on October 24th and in Dallas, October 25th, I'm doing the Liberty Convocation again, October 27th. Fantastic, awesome. Super excited. So I'll be going out in the fall doing some live events. I do a theater show, doing a keynote from the book, telling some stories and then doing some music and then like a live podcast Q&A. Yeah, so Godly Ambition, I think it's on sale now on Amazon. It's really trying to take this side of faith and say, okay, now, how do we develop a framework to make the most of our time, talent, and treasure? I love it. Yep. I love it. Where can people follow you at and find out? Yeah, just Ruslan KD on all platforms. The book is on Amazon, or they can go to blessgod.co. That's our website for our shop and all of our different stuff that we have on there. I love it. Yep. I love you, brother. Hey, thank you so much, Pastor Jack. This was great. Thank you. Love it.