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The downstream benefits of a personal relationship with Jesus could change our world, listen to Dr. Douglas Peake as he tells us more.
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] And then finally it removes all compassion in all benevolence and charity from our community. You know, knowing Jesus is critical. If we want to, uh, be a compassionate and caring community. I would postulate that any attempt to be a compassionate community without Christ or knowing Jesus personally is an impossibility.
Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Salty Pastor Podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping you learn to critically think for yourself and develop your faith. We are here to be your guides, but ultimately you are the ones that have to do the work. You have to decide what you believe and why you believe it.
And the world is going to tell you a lot of things about who you should believe and why you should believe it. But we're here to help you develop your critical thinking skills so that you can decide for yourself what that is. Thank you so much for joining us. My name is Jesse [00:01:00] Maher. I'll be your host and we can not do the Salty Pastor Podcast without the Salty Pastor himself live from Boston.
Next to some salt water. Dr. Douglas Peake.
It's so good to come to you, live from Boston. I'm loving this. I think maybe what we ought to do is do a world tour where we send me to all of the, these places where I could do pastor podcast from.
You need to send me to all the places.
Oh, okay. We gotta get that straight. So now you can see the view today.
If you're watching online or on YouTube, it's this gorgeous right here on the bay. You know, I'm in the north end of Boston, where, liberty began. The American revolution was started here. So it's really quite, uh, a historical site. And I'm excited about it.
Awesome. Well, we are in the middle of our Jesus Loves Me Series.
Um, we, we on Tuesday talked about the part of the song that says this. I know, um, every follower must come to know Jesus personally. It's not [00:02:00] what you know, but who, you know, basically right. And this is a unique or kind of a special part of Christianity in that it is the only thing that, or it's one of the things that makes Christianity unique, um, that there is this invitation to have a personal relationship with Jesus.
So the second largest belief system in the world is Islam. And Islam does not teach you that you are to know Allah personally, you're simply to submit yourself to Allah's will. Hinduism and it's nephew, uh, Buddhism, um, teach that Nirvana is lost to self. So there is no you that gets to know anything personally.
Um, and then finally atheism in scientific materialism. Believe that there's just, no, you, that is you anyways. And. You can have personal relationships. There's not a spiritual component of your, of your psyche, no soul. There's nothing personal about you. You're [00:03:00] just a cosmic accident and some parts that got put together randomly.
Yeah. And you know, that's, what's unique about Christianity is a belief system, as it teaches that God came to earth in order to restore you into a relationship with him. You know, the essence of the creation account in the first two chapters of Geniuses. Is that we were created to walk with God, to be with God and that why Christianity cannot be a religion.
As we define religion today. Now in the past, religion was defined differently than it is today. But in the way we define it today, Christianity really can't be a religion. It can only be a relationship with God through faith. And so that's the essence of it.
Well, and I think it's even, even the roots of Christianity come from Judaism.
Right. And when, back when, they left for the Exodus, they were going through a lot of this ritualistic. [00:04:00] Uh, atonements that they had to do. I just got it done. I'm in the beginning of Leviticus and that's all they're talking about is, okay, you've got this offering and we got this offering and that kind of aligns with what a lot of other religions did.
And Christianity comes at it a different way where he's like, I it's important that you have morals and beliefs, but ultimately it's about me and you, it's not about you going through all of these ceremonial rights and trying to do these things anymore. It's a, let's have a conversation together, um, without all of the pomp and circumstance in between, right?
Yeah. And, and, you know, it was an essence. It was like, well, if you want to be in relationship with me, There's a lot of things that have to take place because there's so much standing in the way between you and I.
Because we were so sinful and messed up.
Yeah. Because we invited sin and in a lot of people don't realize that when God separated himself, it was an act of love, not an act of fades.
In other words, uh, in the book of Isaiah. [00:05:00] Uh, he records how he was brought into the presence of God in his first response was whoa is me, is because I am a man of unclean lips. And his point was, I'm going to cease to exist. I can't be in his presence without, you know, I'm going to be toasted. And so by separating himself, what he did is he was saving us by doing that because when you're flawed, you know, flaws cannot be in the presence of perfection and God is perfect,
and in his holiness. And so when he separated himself, he was protecting us. And so he was showing in the Old Testament law that there's all these things that have to take place for atonement, meaning in order to bring you back into a right position in order to have a relationship with him. And Jesus basically came and said, look, all that was a foreshadowing of me.
I am the lamb, the sacrificial lamb. I am the one that redeems us and because of what Jesus has done now, And any, and every thing has been removed from between [00:06:00] us and God, because now we have the righteousness of Christ over us. And so that's a big deal. And, and that's really, uh, the essence of how Christianity is so different than any other belief system all about knowing God.
Right. So why is it so important? I mean, you kind of covered this, but why is knowing Jesus the most important part of this.
Well, I think the practical implications is what we try to do on Thursdays is, is that it's impossible to know yourself unless, you know, Jesus first, uh, and really this comes down to two options.
The first option is I can believe what the world says about me, and there is plenty of positions on this. Or you can believe what God says about you. And if you were to look at every issue in the world today, I think it's based on what we call a false identity, their words. It's a [00:07:00] false understanding of who we are as human beings.
Um, the self-improvement is impossible unless you actually know who you are to begin with. You know, a map is really worthless until, you know, you find that little dot on there that are star that says you are here, you know, and I've had to do that a lot recently, you know, when we're driving through New Hampshire or driving through Vermont and all these windy roads and you're in the mountains and thick woods.
And it's like, I have no idea where I am, unless I see that little blue dot that says here you are. And as soon as I find myself, then I, oh, okay. Now I know where I can go or would like to go and need to go. And in the same way, you cannot have any improvement of yourself. And unless you know who you are, that is the first step in any direction towards growth, towards [00:08:00] maturity, towards development of your character.
And so this is really critically important because the self-improvement industry, you know, Is a multi-billion dollar industry and many things in this industry are helpful. They can provide short-term relief or short-term success, or maybe even a short-term improvement. But unless they are built upon the proper foundation, all of these techniques, methods and strategies become in-effective.
They worked for a very short period of time. They're like a crash diet, but it, you can't live that way. In, in other words, they are non transformable. In other words, they allow you to do something to get a quick change, but they don't actually transform you. Okay. And so I can only truly change once I know who I truly am.
And that's really what coming to know. Jesus is [00:09:00] all about. It starts with who am I really, I need to know who I am. And I got to stop listening to who the world says I am and listen to who he says I am. And that only happens when you come to know him. And that's why it is so important. Knowing Jesus personally is about knowing your own human nature. At its core.
All right. That's what's critical. What is my human nature at its core? It's all about what drives me? What is it that influences my behavior? What is it that, uh, directs my decision-making? How do I make decisions and why do I make them that way? Here is an interesting side note. This is why the scientific revolution could only take place in a culture built upon Christianity, because science attempts to eliminate observational bias.
Right. And stick only with the [00:10:00] facts, things that can be empirically proven to be true. Well, where did the notion come from that in order for something to be true, you had to eliminate observational bias. Well, it only came from Christianity and its ethos. Because in Christianity, the definition of human nature is that our flawed human nature interferes with our judgment, interferes with our observation, interferes with our decision making process.
So the necessity to know yourself is critical for any type of human growth, or any change. In your own life that's lasting or any healing or restoration in your own life that will actually be effective. That's why knowing Jesus is so critical because if you don't know him, you can never know yourself.
Well, and I think that's a lot of what we see in the self-improvement industry is you're [00:11:00] basically patching holes, right?
It's like, they're like, oh, you have this issue. Let me help you by, you know, five quick steps to have a better, you know, day or whatever. Right. But.
How to hack your procrastination.
Right. And it's like, that's fine. But then it's like, you're not addressing the real issues. It's sort of patchwork it's, you're treating a symptom rather than the cause.
Right. And that's what a lot of these self-help books are doing because they have. They're either choosing not to, or they don't believe that Jesus is the real way to F you know, heal those deep rooted issues. They're just like, well, you know, take some of this drugs, do this thing, and then you're going to be great.
And so it's like, uh, Maybe there's other options don't know, but I mean, I think ultimately it's kind of, we're going back to what you've been talking about, which is fixing that upstream issue, you know, putting [00:12:00] energy and effort and, and investing in that upstream because that's, what's going to help us in our downstream daily life.
Yeah. And you know, what's really interesting is the other thing I've found being here in Boston, it's just really reaffirmed it for me is that freedom and Liberty is based upon knowing God personally, it really is. The entire constitution of the United States is based on God's definition of human nature.
You know, that the constitution is the most unique political document that's ever been written. And what's amazing is that it is based upon all these assumptions. And or presuppositions you're like, okay, well, what are the assumptions or the presuppositions? You know what they are unlike any other political document that's ever been written?
The, the presupposition is that human nature can not be trusted. And when you inform government, government in and of itself should never be fully trusted. Don't ever give any one person all the power. Because human nature can't [00:13:00] be trusted. Consequently, we're going to divide power between three branches and these three badges should, uh, basically counter each other.
It's called a check and a balance. And so if you look at, uh, uh, our founding documents, that was the whole point. When you read what the founding fathers said, they had a definition of human nature. That was 100% Judeo-Christian meaning it was God's definition of human nature, not any other belief system philosophy or religious definition of human nature.
And so that's really significant, I think. Uh, you know, this brings up a unique point because I've been asked by some people about this. It's like, well, how can you speak the way you do about our founding documents and about your belief in human nature and the influence of Christianity on the formation of our government.
And then tell people that you don't care who they [00:14:00] vote for? Like our church. It's like, we never tell you who to vote for. We want you to vote. We really want you to participate in the process, but how, how is it that we can do that? Well it's because I believe in the ethicacy of the original finding doc founding documents of our nation, you know, it's really interesting.
A research firm just decided they wanted to look into why our politics are so divisive. Right. Why is it that people are on one side or the other and they can't stand the other side. What they found is that it's really interesting is that 80% of Democrats believe that Republicans are fascists, that they're Nazis. Isn't that interesting? And like 60% of Republicans
think that Democrats are communists. So, so boy, that's what I call polarization. I mean, that's so far apart. No, nobody sees the [00:15:00] person on the other side of the aisle is a fellow American anymore. Why don't we get to this place? I mean, how did that happen? Well, I think what happened was is this research from pointed out is that Americans are fine with using the government,
to force their opinions on other Americans. Whereas our original founding documents were based on the notion that no human being should be trusted with forcing their opinion on another human being. This is the essence of Liberty it's that it, you know, the constitution and everything limits the government. Government
can't do that. The government can't do this. The government can't do that. Well today we see people wanting the government, you know, to force other people to comply. So in essence, I support downstream political efforts. I do, I support people who get involved in [00:16:00] politics, but in reality, it is not getting the wrong person out of office or the right person into office,
that's not going to make the difference, especially when the underlying ethos is that the checks and balances need to be torn down, you know, and we've seen this and that is, is that we elect democrat, uh, president, the first thing the president does is come in and sign all these executive orders. Right? Well, this is a usurpation it's, uh, it is not the way our Republic is set up and then a Republican comes in and then they sign all these executive orders.
So we see it. .
.Every year. There's more out there in a race to beat the last one amount of executive orders.
And then they want to rescind all the old ones that were written. You see, you see how, um, both people on the democratic side and people on the Republican side are okay with tearing down the checks and balances. You see this in Congress, when, when [00:17:00] Congress refuses to even have a debate on the budget, you see that's a usurpation of the checks and balances.
You see it in the Supreme court when the Supreme court creates rights, that don't exist in the constitution out of thin air. And it doesn't matter if they create a right that you agree with or not. That's not the point. The point is, is that in doing so? What we're doing is we're tearing down the very checks and balances that say human nature cannot be trusted when it is given power.
You remember, Lord Actins famous statement, and that is "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts, absolute." And that's our government was designed to protect the Liberty of individuals by limiting the power of the government. So I support fully downstream involvement in politics in running. But in the end, if the main [00:18:00] upstream goal that we should have as followers of Christ, knowing God is that we protect the checks and balances that exist because nobody should ever be trusted 100% with the power.
You know, Ben Shapiro. I've never quoted him before. But, uh, he said something that I thought was really quite interesting. He said "The American people have been willing to grant absolute power to anyone they agree with, depending upon whether they have a D or an R next to their name. This needs to stop right now."
We need to start thinking as American people systemically. Now, I think what he's talking about is upstream. We need to think more upstream. He says, he goes on to say, we need to start thinking about systems and the incentive structures that we create for our politicians. It is not about electing the right people.
It is not about getting rid of the wrong people. It is about making sure that checks and balances of the American government still work in order to protect the fundamental [00:19:00] freedoms that are there because human nature exists and human nature is not trust worthy. So you see, I think that's really why I can say I will talk about this.
I will talk about the efficacy of our finding documents. I will talk about the power and periods of Christianity and its influence on the formation of our government. Because only Christianity is going to get us out of this mess. And the more that we abandoned the underlying. Upstream core values of Christianity, in the more our country is hell bent on going to civil war.
And that's where it will end up again, unless we can turn the tide. And the only way we can turn the tide is returned to the upstream values and principles on which our government was founded.
Well, I mean, that is definitely an upstream concept just in general. I mean, this idea of what our political system is doing and how we can start moving and activating it to be more like it was originally intended in the founding [00:20:00] documents, which is, you know, getting rid of this idea that the government should be this controlling monster.
But instead that humans are inheriting, untrustworthy. And that there needs to be checks and balances. Um, but it seems like that's kind of a long raod. Um, what are some things that we can do to kind of help the world become a better place in the here and now while that cause that's gonna take a while, right?
That's I don't, I don't imagine that by the next election cycle they're going to have, we're going to figure that all out and everybody's just going to be hunky- dory again. I think it's going to be a long process. What are we, what do we see and helping make the world a better place in the here and now, how does knowing Jesus personally.
And the understanding that our human nature is untrustworthy kind of influence maybe like charity or something of that nature.
Yeah. Well, I, I guess your original question is where does knowing Jesus make the greatest impact? And the first one is on you personally, and your capacity to change and become [00:21:00] the best version of yourself.
Number two, our body politic, which is our capacity to get along and be at peace with one another and have a, as John Rockwood, say a social contract with one another. Otherwise we quickly tribalized. We fall. Clicks and camps and we hate people. Um, and we, it, it becomes a war zone, a constant war zone that doesn't help anybody.
That war, um, is not a good thing on people, you know? And then finally it removes all compassion in all benevolence and charity from our community, you know, knowing Jesus is critical. If we want to, uh, be a compassionate and caring community. I would postulate that any attempt to be a compassionate community without Christ or knowing Jesus personally is an impossibility.
And here's what I mean is history repeats. [00:22:00] With people who did not know Jesus, who thought that they were doing something compassionate and they thought they were 100% morally correct. And these people started off with, uh, none other than Lennon in the Bolshevik revolution. And then the starving of 50,000 Ukrainians to death.
He thought he was morally righteous in doing that. Okay. You look at, uh, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime, his belief that you had to eradicate the gypsies and the Romanians, handicapped and the elderly. And then eventually the Jews was a morally righteous thing to do under his policy. Okay. You look at what Mount St.
Tom did in the cultural revolution. And I mean, he murdered over 40 million of his own people just think about that 40 million people. And they were his people because he drove them back out into agrarian culture, [00:23:00] starved many of them to death. And so he did it because he believed without a doubt that he was morally rightous.
So what happens when you lose that absolute, when you lose any objective authority that tells us, are you the second? Every way, every nature, everything you have cannot actually be trusted. If it comes from your pure human nature and that's what compassion and charity and helping people is all about.
They are only effective when the ethos of knowing God personally is the foundation of what they are doing, because if you really want to help people, you have to determine the difference between health. You see now say total thought, oh, we're going to build a communist utopia. So what we're going to do is we're going to drive all of these people out of the cities, into the rural areas and go back to an agrarian culture because [00:24:00] that's really the best thing.
And you starve them to death. You know, you have doctors and lawyers and professors going out there that had never heard held a shovel or a pickax in their hand. And now they got to grow their own food? That did not turn out well. Well, let me tell ya. Well that's because there was no objective standard to say, what is human nature and how do we help instead of hurt?
For instance today, there are people today that don't know God personally at all, who believe that the best way to help a meth addict is to let them take meth. So let's just let them take meth. And that's good for society. What they won't acknowledge is that 80% of all child abuse in the United States is driven by drug addiction, either alcohol or drugs.
And so when you have neglect and child abuse, It's almost a hundred it's 80% due [00:25:00] to chemical abuse on part of the parents. So I don't understand how giving a meth addict more meth is actually going to help them. Now, if you're an atheist or a scientific materialist, oh, it makes perfect sense to you. You know, you're, you're eradicating those poor genes from the gene pool, but that takes them to no account the impact on community.
So you have to determine the difference between what does it actually mean to help versus hurt? You know, if you go see a doctor and the doctor, you know, you go in and you have cancer in the doctor's belief system, is that, well, you dying is good for the world. Do you want that doctor treating you? Well, of course not.
And this spills over into the social sciences, you know, how many people have trouble in their marriages and they go to a marriage counselor that hates marriage. And so they ended up in divorce. And what, what do you expect you see, knowing God is [00:26:00] critical to any helping profession? Because what it does is it tells us the nature of humans, what humans are and how you actually help human beings.
And so if you abandon that, then any charity, is manipulation. Any benevolence is enable hurt. You're just enabling more bad or hurtful behavior. So I think this knowing Jesus personally is critical. If you want to be able to do anything to help any one else.
Well, I think that's, I mean, that does definitely give us some very important key points to think about that.
This is not just a. This isn't an easy fixed thing, but it is definitely, there is a right way to go about helping and that's first having a personal relationship with Jesus.
Yeah. Um, like for instance, um, this is kinda how it works. [00:27:00] So a person, uh, is married and they're at work and they have an affair with their coworker.
Okay. Well, what, uh, they lose their family over and they're divorced. And so they come to a Christian community of other term for it would be a church. Right? And so now the church can, if it wants to, if it exists as a moralist institution, instead of a faith community, it's a third and say, well, you're not welcome here because you're divorced and you're single and you made a mistake and good luck for you burning in hell.
I'd like to point out that this is what the media likes to present the church as, but this is extremely rare. The vast majority of churches are, look, if your family is blown up and even if you're the one who blew it up, you need to come here and we're going to help. We're not going to help you by telling you that what you did was right.
What we're going to do is we're going to tell you how you can heal from it, change from it so that you can then discover [00:28:00] your new self and be free from the old self that caused all this damage. And by giving it to God and walking in newness and faith and a relationship with him, he can heal much of the damage.
Maybe not all of it, but he can start the healing process. If you're willing to work with him. You know, so that that's how helping people works. And if you take knowing Jesus personally, out of that, you fall into one or two extremes. You fall into a community that is very judgmental, but I think, uh, in legalistics, but that's extremely rare in American churches today, especially evangelical churches that, that exists in some old denominational subgroup churches, but it's not prevalent.
Uh, by any means. Or you fall into the other extreme where you become what is known as a permissive church in that is you steal or remove or dilute the [00:29:00] very power of the redemptive act of Christ in a person's life. By saying that everything you did, and everything you're doing right, now is irrelevant.
God just loves you. And so that's not knowing God personally. You know, God does love you because he came to save you so you can have a relationship with him. And then that's when you have that relationship, where you begin the process of transformation and the best version of yourself. And so, man, if you're a parent, you love your kids and they make mistakes,
what do you do? Well, you love them unconditionally. But you, you don't allow them or you, you do everything within your power without violating their own free will. Especially after they're 18 to encourage them to grow and mature into the best version of themselves. Right. So it's a very, it's very similar to that, you know?
Like, you know, another question that I think has really happened a lot in the world, [00:30:00] which is not true is that the world tells people, constantly, that the church does not accept, uh, people who are a part of the LGBTQ community. Uh, I was looking up some research from the pew research center and they said in 2013, they found that a vast majority of LGBTQ adults regard major faith groups as unfriendly
to them. They said that, uh, let me see. 80% saw Christian churches as unfriendly to them and basically saying they don't want them around. But what's really interesting is only 29% of LGBTQ adults have ever reported that they were personally made to feel unwelcome in a religious community. So, what does that tell me? That tells me that 80% think it's unfriendly, but third, only 30% can point to a time where [00:31:00] they felt they were, where it was unfriendly, not offended, not abused, not prejudice against just simply from the standpoint of, um, Uh, unfriendly.
And so what does that, that's a huge gamut of things you can include in that, but only 29% said they ever treated poorly. 50% have never had that. So where does that perception come from? You see, it comes from the world and the world is trying to build that into them. So, you know, let's say in Foothills, you know, it let's say a person identifies as a lesbian and they come to Foothills.
They were to talk to me and say, well, look what I think it's not hurting it irrelevant to your journey of faith. What is pertinent to your journey of faith is your search and knowing Jesus personally. So if you say to me, I want to be able to go to a place where someone is sharing with me, the truth of Christ, teaching the Bible, [00:32:00] you're going to find that here.
Here we will help you to be accepted here. I think our church would accept anybody who is seeking Jesus, regardless of where they're from. This is a deep value of our church. You're going to learn. You're going to grow. You can participate. On the other hand though, if you say I want to go to a place that tells me I'm fine, and my identity can be built around my sexual orientation, then that would be hurtful to you.
See, it's a difference between, are we here to help? Are we here to hurt? And what we want to do is we don't want to fall into that other extreme on the other side, which is a permissiveness that dilutes and removes the very power of God. This is what Paul talked about when he told Timothy goes, be careful that you don't dilute the gospel because people will hold to a form of godliness, but they'll deny its power, but what's its power.
Well, the power of the gospel is to connect best personally to God. And if we lose the power of the gospel, then we no longer have that [00:33:00] connection, that intimate relationship with our Lord and creator.
Well, you've given us a lot to think about today, pastor and, uh, we are out of time, but, uh, I encourage, uh, our viewing and our listening audience to have some conversations about this, about how these, uh, this idea of really knowing Jesus could radically change.
Um, everything basically in your life, but especially, uh, as an upstream concept could change a lot of things like, um, these politics we were talking about earlier, things of that nature, if we just adhere to this is central principles. So I think that's given us some food for thought to go into the weekend.
Um, pastor, we pray that you have a safe flight home and we will see you on stage on Sunday, right?
Oh, I'll be there and I will have a tremendously enthusiastic time talking about this particular biblical subject.
I have no doubt. [00:34:00] Well, thank you so much for yours for joining us. And we will see you on Sunday here at foothills Christian Church.