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We are starting a brand new series titled, "Jesus Love Me” which will be all about the essential pillars of our faith. Listen as Pastor Doug talks about where we are going over the next 6 weeks.
Just like Matthew 5:13 says, Christians are the salt of the earth so join us as we find our saltiness on our journey through life together. Listen as Dr. Douglas Peake dives deep into the topics of his sermons each week, breaking down content, discussing evidence, telling stories and speaking into current events using biblical truths and principals.
[00:00:00] A lot of people are living this parasocial thing where it's like, I think I know you, cause I get you send me all this information, but I, you have no idea who I am. And our relationship with Jesus can be that way too. It's like, oh, I hear all of the, you know, I hear all the good things about you. I hear you're a pretty cool guy.
I hear you did cool stuff for me, but I don't know you.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the salty pastor podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping you achieve three different Es. One, we want to Educate you on how to grow your faith and think for yourself. Two, we want to Encourage you to grow your faith. We want you to be encouraged and confident as you walk into any situation that you can talk about your faith and your knowledge with confidence.
And finally, three, we want to Excite you. I mean, what's better than growing and having more, more and more confidence every day in your life, knowing that you are achieving your [00:01:00] true purpose that God has for you. So coming up with these up on the fly. So I lived 30 was a little bit of a stretch, but we'll give it a shot.
My name is Jesse Maher. I will be your host and we can't do The Salty Pastor podcast without the Salty Pastor himself, Doctor Douglas Peake.
Well welcome everybody. Good to be here. Way to go. Jesse, the three E's we're just trying to make it simple and easy to remember, because I'll tell you what things out there in this world are getting crazy.
And if you're a parent or you're a grandparent, I think it's really important to understand. That the, uh, desire and the mission and the aggressiveness with, with this mission is being played out to recruit and influence the way your children and grandchildren think is stronger than ever before. And, so, how can you be encouraged and excited about the opportunities for your kids and your grandkids?
Well, by being prepared in your own faith, spend time on the upstream so that you really know what you believe and why you believe it. And you [00:02:00] can pass that on. To your kids. Cause that is really the greatest thing. The greatest gift that you can give to your children in that is wisdom and knowledge and how to think.
So we're here to coach you and help you do that. And so that's why I love the Salty Pastor.
Absolutely, because ultimately we can't do it for you, all we can do is guide you and then you have to put the work in. You have to decide what you believe. Absolutely. So we are in a brand new series we've been in get up and go our summer series for all 11 weeks.
So I'm like, wow, we have a whole new thing. I got to figure out what we're doing. So a whole new thing, we are in a brand new seat, um, on the essentials of the Christian faith. And it is titled Jesus Loves Me. Um, It is kind of based off of the old song, right? Like everyone's probably going to go, oh, we like the old song.
And it's like, actually yes, exactly. Like the old song. Um, and we're going to be digging into the non-negotiable, um, things that if you take one of these away, the whole thing falls apart. You know, these pillars that support the Christian faith, [00:03:00] that if you just take one away structurally, it is not sound and it's going to fall apart.
So, um, we are starting this brand new series title. Jesus Loves Me. What do you have to say about this Pastor Doug?
The title comes from the, uh, there is an old story of a very renowned Christian theologian and he was at a conference in somebody. Uh, had asked him to summate or summarize all of the Christian life and what it's all about.
And he thought for a moment, and then he just basically cited the words to the children's song. "Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so" and so what that does is that shows you what the five most important building blocks are. Foundational stones. Of the Christian faith. If you take one of them away, then what happens is the whole thing falls apart.
And so these are very [00:04:00] important principles, very important concepts. And that's why we're calling it. A, Jesus Loves Me because it's based on a very simple song that everybody learned when they were kids to help them remember what these five essentials really are.
So. Where do we start with all this? Is, is it like, do we, are we going to be singing this song on Sunday as a, as a church?
Or what's the, where are we starting with this whole thing?
Your team can kind of like jazz it up and do some harmonies. . They can get this little fun thing going for us, you know? But, uh, well, first of all, I think it starts with the basic commands of Jesus Christ and, you know, there's probably. Uh, five or six, what we call, uh, significant texts, their primary
texts. And a primary text is when Jesus would summate everything. He would bring it together and he'd give a [00:05:00] command. And so one of those is after he rose from the dead, he appeared to the apostles and the disciples over a 49, 50, probably a 47 to 49 day period of time. It says in Corinthians, he appeared to over 500 different people who saw him.
And at the end of that, with the book of Matthew, it says that his disciples went up into a little hill. They call it a mountain, but it was like a Foothill kind of a thing. When, if we know nothing about foothills here and then they gathered together, they worshiped him. And then he, right before he ascended into heaven, he says, this.
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And [00:06:00] surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. So Jesus says I accomplished everything I was to accomplish on the cross.
I have won the authority back because I paid the price. On the cross for sin and death, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So he saying, I have won the authority. I have the authority now on heaven in, I already had it in heaven, but now on earth as well, he goes because of this.
I want you to go and make disciples. So disciples are the goal and how you make a disciple is you baptize them into identification with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, and then teach them to follow what he has commanded. So, I think it's really important to understand is that following is a massive component of what it means to be a disciple in, in America today, particularly because, of postmodernity
and deconstructionism, which is a [00:07:00] way of thinking that people have been taught to think over the last 50 years in our society is that we, we think that if we just accept intellectual facts or if we believe something, then what we do with that belief is irrelevant. But in reality, it's not, it's very significant.
And that is part of what it means to follow. And following is all about taking steps in the direction of what you believe. So that's, that's important.
So, I mean, That verse you quoted is the great commission, right? Like that's what, what it's known for. Um, and ultimately that is what we're called to do. I mean, that's the biggest calling we have.
And so that's one thing, obviously this is a pillar that we can't take away. That's our mission we're supposed to be doing. So it, it seems interesting to me that [00:08:00] people are kind of doing the, the. Burger King of Christianity where they want it their way. They're like, well, I want to take a little bit of this.
You know, the part that makes me feel good and that makes me feel like I'm accepted and loved. And I want that, but I don't want to take this part where I actually have to go share that with other people. And I don't want to have to do the part where it's like, oh, I got to give some things up. You know, maybe aren't good for me or my, my, my, my spirit.
Um, so they, they're kind of picking and choosing like, you know, all the modifiers, you get a Starbucks or whatever. Um, and that's kind of where people are at right now. Right. And that's part of the reason we're doing this series is because there are certain things you can't have your way, it's not a take it or leave it it's or it's not a have your way.
It's either you take it as a whole thing or in the essentials.
yes. In the essentials. These core things.
Yeah. And a core part of Foothill's philosophy from the beginning is in the essentials, we agree. Right. You know, and then there's stuff that are non essential that, you know, there's some debate and there's people that have different [00:09:00] views on that.
They're not for us to make that decision for you. Just like this podcast is not here for us to make a decision for you, but there are core pillars, essentials that we, we cannot disagree on.
Right. And that's what the issue is. Is it because really, what it has to do with is these core essentials of the faith are what make following Jesus possible.
If you take one of them away, it doesn't work. You know, in John chapter eight, Jesus is talking to. Uh, Jewish people, Jewish religious leaders that were Pharisees that had believed in him. And this is what he says. He goes to the Jews beginning with verse 30, one of chapter eight of the gospel, according to John, to the Jews who had believed him.
Jesus said, "if you hold to my teaching" now, see, that's a very important phrase. If you hold to my teaching, you are really my [00:10:00] disciple. Hmm. So he starts off with it's in the Greek, it's known as a conditional or a purpose clause. If you hold to my teaching. So yeah.
Did you do this? If you do this then,
then that, and for those coders out there, they're all about that.
All about that. Yeah. It's all about that coding logic. But if you hold to his teaching, you are really his follower. So you can't be a follower of Jesus. And say, I believe in Jesus, but I have no intention of following him or his teaching. I'm not interested in that. Well, that doesn't work according to Jesus.
He says, look, if you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciple. And then, so it starts with if, and then here's the, then, then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Most people think that when Jesus makes a statement, see they truncate it. They just take one little phrase. [00:11:00] Yeah. If you know the truth, the truth will set you free.
And they think, well, as long as I just have a truth, then that's going to set me free. But that's not what Jesus is talking about. He's not talking about your truth or the world's truth or Satan's truth or some type of form of self-deception. He's not talking about it. He's not, he's not talking about scientific truth.
He's not talking about historical truth. He's saying if you. Follow me and hold to my teachings. You're my disciple. Then you are going to know the truth and the truth will set you free. And so the, these guys who were, are Jews say immediately, well, we're, Abraham's descendants. We've never been slaves of anyone.
How can we be free? How can you say we're going to be set? And then Jesus replies, verse 34. Very truly. I tell you everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the son sets you free, you will be [00:12:00] free. Indeed. So what is the truth that he's talking about in verse 32, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
And then in verse 35, he says, no, Has a permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the sun sets you free and in verse 34, what's he setting you free from? Sin. You're a slave to sin. You will be free indeed. So you move from a slave to sin, to being adopted into the family of God.
And so that's really an important distinction here, when we say, if I want to get Christianity correct. It's not about being right. It's about experiencing this freedom and Christ the transformational living power of God within me each and every day. And so it's not enough to just say, well, I, I believe in Jesus because I celebrate Christmas, right?
And I go to church on Easter. What he's really saying is that when you [00:13:00] follow him, you're going to discover the truth of what it means to be freed from sin, adopted into the power of God and having the very presence of Jesus Christ transforming your life each and every day.
So, I mean, it's, I think the, the.
Big distinction we need to make in this, as I'm reading, this is, this is not freedom to go and do whatever you want. Like Jesus, isn't like, I'm going to set you free so you can go and have a ranger.
Oh, you know, you got to fight for your right to party. And that is not what he's talking about.
He was talking about, he's saying I'm going to free you from the influence of sin so you can follow me.
Yes. The world looks at it kind of as an opposite thing. They're like, well, if you're following Jesus, you're getting chained down and you're, you're having to listen to all these things and you have to follow these rules and it's like, well, no, I'm, I'm being set free to live the best life that I can, like I'm getting the shackles of sin removed so that I can actually
[00:14:00] do something with my life that matters. So that my life has purpose. And I believe that my life has purpose. And I'm not just some space dust that happen to show up out of a puzzle?
Yeah. Yes. Yes. And that's a really big thing, I think because we live in a world where deconstructionism influence. Our thinking and the way we think, and what deconstructionism is, is it tries to make you into a skeptic, right?
So you're a little skeptical of truth claims. And so w whenever we hear something like you're listening to the news and something goes on your first reaction is, well, I don't know if that's true or not. Right. And so, and, and what happens is we then start to discount. Well, as long as I just accept that Jesus was alive and he died for me, then I'm good to go.
Well, deconstructionism gets you to undermine your access, to being rightly connected to Jesus, to being transformed by Jesus, to see the living power of God in your life each and every day. And so you can say, well, I've come to Christ, but not really come to [00:15:00] Christ because you think like a deconstructionist and this is, what's so difficult about deconstruction thinking is that we for the last 50 years have been trained to think this way.
And b, it's not so much what you think, it's how you think. And because you think that way, it's very difficult to surrender ourselves and totally embrace and devote ourselves to being completely incorrectly, connected to God in order that we experience, all the fruit of the spirit and the transformational power of the holy spirit, the leadership, the guidance, and everything that comes with that, which is love joy, peace, patience, paige, let me get that out;
patience and kindness as well as strength and courage. And self-awareness. And all of these things that are happening right now are so critically important for us to develop within us, but we can't [00:16:00] develop those things if we are away from being rightly connected to Jesus. And that's why these essential pillars that we're going to dig into and in suing weeks are so critically important.
For instance, John chapter 15, listen to what Jesus says about this very thing. He goes. I am the true vine, and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.
So remain in me and I also will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. [00:17:00] Apart from me. You can do nothing. Now. I want to say that again.
Jesus says, if you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit apart from me. You can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and Withers. Such branches are picked up, thrown in the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in, you ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.
This is to my father's glory, that you bear much fruit showing yourselves to be my disciples. It's one thing to know about Jesus. It's an entirely different thing to know the power of Jesus in your life. And this is so critical. And one of the things that, deconstructionist thinking has really destroyed our capacity to experience some of the most important things we desire in our life case in point.
[00:18:00] Why is it that so many couples in America are struggling? And why is it that so many couples, albeit many of them may not even be a Christian couples, but you know, half of these marriages end in divorce, And why is it? Most people don't get married thinking, well, you know, I'm going to have a starter wife and I'm going to divorce her in a few years, just for the fun of it.
You know, most people don't, they take vows, you know, I'm going to love you for the rest of my life. And then they break those valves. Why is that? Well, the reason why is because they know about Jesus, but they don't know the power of Jesus in their lives. Okay. And that's really important. And the other thing is they're married to somebody.
You can be married to somebody who may know about Jesus, but not know the power, transformational power of Jesus in their life. You know, if you talk. I've talked to guys and I've talked to gals who were married to people and they got married. And then about two [00:19:00] years into it, they found out that their spouse was a drug addict, you know, or they, or they became one while they were married.
And then that person. Wa was unable to kick that habit. And so I asked why, you know, many, many times over and what the biggest response to me is from these individuals that says, well, I guess, deep down, they loved their addiction more than they loved anything else. And there's some, there's some truth to that.
You know, there's a leading chemical dependency, counselor runs programs and stuff that I've known for a long, long time. And he was telling me that, you know, you can send people to rehab and all this kind of stuff he said, but it never works unless deep down that person really wants to get clean. And so see that's, that's, we're just kind of scratching at the surface.
This is why it's so important to get these essentials. We haven't really named the essentials yet. We're going to dig into them. I just want to get your curiosity really focused on what they might be, [00:20:00] because they're critical for you to experience how to remain in Jesus. So that you bear fruit so that when your marriage hits a difficult time, there is divine power that helps you work through that.
You have a real challenging time at work. You have a health issue that comes hit you out of a curve ball. There's an accident, or maybe you're the victim of something evil. How do you survive that? How do you get over that? Only if you're in Jesus, where you can be rightly connected to him, can the power of God.
Transform you in the midst of these difficulties, the power of God will give you courage. The power of God gives you a confidence. The power of God lets you be self-aware the power of God does this in your life, but you have no access to the power of God. If you are not in Jesus. See, he says, if you remain in me, so if you change one of these essentials.
Right. The power of God can [00:21:00] exist, but it's not in you and not working in you. And that's a critical thing to understand why the essentials are so important. It's not about just being right. It's about being rightly connected to Jesus so that the very power of the living God is working to will and to work for his good pleasure in your life every single
day.
Well, let's break this down to something that may be. Even as a simplified version of this, like, um, knowing versus knowing about versus knowing are two different things. Right. So I think about most celebrities, right? It's like, I know about Dwayne, The Rock, Johnson. Okay. But I don't know Dwayne, John. Right.
I know what I see on his social media. I know, uh, he doesn't movies. I know what his wrestling career looked like.
Can you smell what the rock is cooking?
Yes. I know he's got, you know, some ridiculous workout regimen and he has a huge cheat day. That's [00:22:00] that's the part that he shares externally, but that's not him.
Like, I mean, social media gives us a very warped perspective of this. So this is really hard actually in some ways, because it's like even just the pair of social relationships of like having Instagram and all this social media makes you even more, think you know it. And I think that's kind of what we get sometimes with Jesus is like, oh, well, I go to Christmas.
I go to Easter, you know, I encourage my kids, you know, we, we read the Bible once in a while. It's like, that's like a parasocial relationship with Jesus. Like you think you know him, but you don't have an intimate one-on-one conversation with him. He doesn't, you know, I don't care. Uh, Dwayne, Rock, Johnson and go, yo, what are you doing today?
Like, how are the kids, how the life, you know, like that's not, that's the kind of relationship that is reserved for his really, "I know you people" and it's bi-directional yeah, it's a bi-directional interaction right now. A lot of people are living this parasocial thing where it's like, I think I know [00:23:00] you.
Cause I get you send me all this information, but I, you have no idea who I am and our relationship with Jesus can be that way too. It's like, oh, I hear all of the, you know, I hear all the good things about you. I hear you're a pretty cool guy. I hear you then cool stuff for me, but I don't know you. Yeah.
And that's what he wants. Right. He wants that relationship of, he wants you to call him up daily and go. Tell me about your life. Tell me about your wife. Tell me about your kids. You know, tell me about your husband. Tell me these things. I want that relationship. Most celebrities are not doing that for you.
Uh, you know, my sheep know my name and I'm, you know, I know my sheep and my sheep know my name. They know my voice, you know, and cause the, to pick up on that illustration is that let's say, uh, the rock comes here to film a movie and he's in downtown Boise, you know? And you're. Oh, and you see him across the street.
So you run over right. To shake his hand, slap him on the back. Hey, it's good to see you let's have a cheat day together. What would happen? You know,
He turns [00:24:00] around and clubs, you or his security team team with, I dunno, the rocker. I don't even know if he runs around with the security team. It seems like he probably has some guys.
I
bet he does. Yeah. You be, you know, surrounded by black SUV's with all these guys getting into the ground. Why? Because he doesn't know you. He doesn't know you at all. I feel like you know him, and I think that's really the essence of what it means is that, you know, I know my sheep. By name and they know my voice.
And so when, you know, it's a different thing though that you and The Rock, you know, went to high school together, maybe played football at the university of Miami, and then you help direct him through his, his career as a wrestler, you know, and you helped him. So he, and then, and then he's walking across the street and you go, Hey, Dwayne, what's up.
And he turns around, he sees you and goes, Jesse, how's it going? That's a totally different vibe. Yeah. And that's why the essentials are so
important.
It's how we [00:25:00] get to that point.
That's exactly right. It's how, it's how you know that. I know, I know his voice and he knows my name and that's really a big deal, particularly in this culture, everything revolved, you know, when Jesus showed up and his teaching, it was in this culture of this Jewish culture.
Your name is really a big deal. And that's why in the book of revelation at the end, the, he talks about this book of names. Right. And the old thing is your name written in the book of life. And so w w what does that really mean? You know, when I was a little kid and I heard that, I thought, oh, there's this big ledger up there.
And Jesus,
Is that where the influence for Santa is naughty or nice list came through?
But a lot of people talked about that and, and that was an imagery. And so I think what, here, he is saying is that when, you know, in John chapter eight, when, you know, The truth because you're following me and the truth will set you free.
And so [00:26:00] the whole notion of us being known by name and knowing his voice is critical, and that's why the essentials are so important. And here I'd like to just really kind of wrap this up by simply saying this, the essentials are extremely important, and there are fewer of them than you could imagine. Um, there's not a lot of them, but boy, they're really big.
They're super big. And if you take one of these away, then your entire faith collapses, Jesus doesn't stop being God, because you don't buy into one of the essentials. It just means that you're the one that is needing to adjust, not him. But they're fewer than you could imagine. And they're not hard to remember once you think of the song.
"Jesus loves me. This I know. For the Bible tells me so." We're going to dig into those over the ensuing six weeks of this study. And I think you are going to be [00:27:00] so glad, that you did
well, we just really appreciate you guys joining us today. Um, we're excited for this brand new series. We're going to talk more on Thursday about, um, some of the applications and things that this series is going to be getting into and practical ways.
Um, but we just enjoy spending every Tuesday and Thursday with you guys. I know a lot of people have come up and talk to me and said, this is one of the highlights of that. Some people work out to us. Some people just get to sit and work to it. And we just enjoy spending time with you guys. We're glad that we are challenging you to grow.
Um, that's one of our core tenants is that we're here to guide you, but ultimately you're the one that has to do the, do the growing on your own. We can't go and work out at the gym for you. Can't get as big as Dwayne, the Rock, Johnson, with someone else doing the work for you. So you got to do that for your faith and for your own critical thinking skills.
So we appreciate you guys being here and we will catch you on Thursday here on The Salty Pastor
Podcast.
Blessings.