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Pastor Doug discusses the uniqueness of Christianity in that it's the only belief system that invites a personal relationship with God.
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] Now this, this is easily misconstrued because so many people think that Christianity is a religion, basically, meaning there's a list of do's and don'ts. And so basically what I have to do is follow all the dues and Paul, or excuse me, John is saying, if I don't do all the dues and I do some of the don'ts, then I'm a liar and I'm a hypocrite.
Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Salty Pastor Podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping you learn to think for yourself. We want to grow your critical thinking skills. We want you to grow your faith because with those two things, you're going to be able to live your best life. We can't do it for you, but we can be the guides along the way.
My name is Jesse Maher. I will be here. But the Salty Pastor Podcast is not complete without the Salty Pastor himself, calling in live from Boston, Dr. Douglas Peake.
Uh, here I am and beantown [00:01:00] having a good time. So we're just kind of touring New England. We've had a great time up here and I'm going to be with everybody on this Sunday and we're going to be in our, uh, next installment for Jesus Loves Me where we're talking about the essentials of the faith.
Following that simple song. Jesus Loves Me This I know, For The Bible Tells Me So. And it's been really interesting to be up here because this is the cradle in a lot of ways of where America started and where the original cries of Liberty came from. Yeah. Going back to the roots. So it's been good up here.
I'm really excited to be coming back and sharing with everybody this Sunday on the essentials of the Christian faith.
So we have been working through those. We we've done the first kind of three parts of the song. Jesus Loves Me. So we're up to, are we doing this? Are we going to take the next little phrase?
This I know [00:02:00]
This I know.
All right. So tell us what we know pastor.
Ha. Well, the, the essential that the song leads us to is that every single follower must know Jesus personally. You are redeemed, your soul is brought back to life, when you come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and savior. So this is really one of the most unique and different parts of any other belief system of a religion that has ever existed in the history of humanity.
And that is most religions, most philosophies, and or worldviews, slash belief systems, call you to simply intellectually accept a set of axioms or truths. And Christianity though is [00:03:00] completely unique, in that it calls you to be born again, or to come to know, God who is Jesus Christ in a personal way.
And so this is where Christianity is completely set apart from any other religion and/or beliefs.
So everything's kind of revolving around this principle of knowing him, right? And that's, that's what we're, it's not just knowing random trivia facts for the, the bar games or anything like that. It's about knowing him personally.
And you're stating that this is very unique to Christianity because basically a lot of the other philosophies and religions don't require that it's a very unique. A requirement of Christianity, correct?
Yeah. Yeah. And it's all about knowing, you know, the big question is how do we know [00:04:00] God? How do we know that we know God, and it's not some illusion that we're just making up, you know, scientific materialists, uh, secularists, uh, atheists.
They all say the same thing. And that. The idea of God is simply a, uh, intellectual construct of the human mind. Splits in the illusion that the brain creates. Uh, of course this gets into the most critical parts, and this is where the greatest criticisms of atheism and scientific materialism come from.
And that is the question of how do you know that, you know something? For instance, uh, this is in philosophy it's called metaphysics and more specifically epistemology metaphysic, metaphysics is the notion of what is really real or what is true. And then epistemology is a fancy way of saying, well, how do [00:05:00] you know that,
it's true? And so. The, the, the underlying question here for every believer is how do I know that I know God, and it's, he's not an illusion or there's something that I am making up. And so this is really a, a very important essential of the first century church, because they talked about it over and over and over again, their goal wasn't to come in and try to start another religion and say, well, We're going to dress differently and eat differently so that we have a material outcome that's different than other belief systems.
What they discovered was God himself has come to us and has called us back to him. Consequently, what we want to do is we want to know him. And so this was central to the faith. You see it in Paul's admonition to the Philippians in chapter three. [00:06:00] Uh, beginning with verse eight, where he says, what is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.
For whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage that I may gain Christ and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own. That comes from the law. But that, which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. And then verse 10 is where he really drives it home.
He says, I want to know Jesus Christ. Yes. To know the power of his resurrection and the participation in his sufferings. I want to become like him in his death. And so somehow attain to the resurrection from the dead. So, what we see here is Paul, basically links everything about following Jesus [00:07:00] that is being born again, being redeemed, uh, uh, eternal life, new life here on this earth, everything, he links it to knowing Jesus Christ.
And so we just don't know things about him, but we actually know him. So the implication here is, is pretty clear for today. Just like it was 2000 years ago. Uh, we live in an age where information is so accessible and entertainment is so prevalent in the media. So powerful. We have the illusion of knowing things.
So the first step in breaking away from the illusion. Is to know, without a doubt, all says your priorities in life. In other words, you do this by setting value. And so he took everything that he had that he valued before. And he said, I don't value them anymore. I value [00:08:00] Jesus above all else. And in doing so, what that did is it broke him away from the illusion that he knew what his life was about or that he knew what was important in life.
So the first step in knowing that, you know, God, is that you re-orient your entire value structure. What are the things you value the most in this life? And so Paul is saying, I, the thing I value most is knowing Jesus Christ, my Lord and savior. I want to know everything that he went through, what he said, who he is, so that I may know the power of his resurrection.
And so the second way he states it is that I want to participate in his sufferings. And I think this is a powerful statement, that many people who have tried Jesus or Christianity, and they felt like it didn't work for them. Well, the reason why is because it's, it [00:09:00] costs them nothing. No. In other words, they wanted to try it like a new theme to see if it solves one of their problems.
But what Paul is saying is that I want to know the sufferings and participate in the sufferings of Jesus so that I may become United with him in all likeness of his death. And so what he's saying is in order to shatter her, this illusion of what the world tells us, we have to value this to the point where it costs us something. But in order to receive it, I, it has to cost me something.
And, uh, and the thing that it costs me most than anything else is what are my priorities in life? What is it that I really truly honestly value? And that's what Paul's talking about in this passage. He's saying, knowing Jesus is the most important thing, and that's why we see this essential so critical to faith.
So I think the, one of the things we [00:10:00] see so much is knowing about versus, knowing, right? Like, uh, we, we use the phrase, a lot, of you need to know Jesus, but I think a lot of people interpret that as I know about Jesus, but we're really asking you to know Jesus. It's similar to the, the, um, the, example, we used a few weeks ago where we were talking about, you know, mew running up to say hi to Dwayne Johnson, The Rock.
And yeah. You know, I know everything about you. I follow your Instagram account or your Facebook. I know all these things, but. I don't know him. Like we do not have our own relationship. And I think that's, uh, one of the key points is like, there's, it's knowing about having information, like you talked about in today's day and age, you can get information about basically anybody.
They don't even have to be a celebrity anymore. You can, you know, look up information about me, about, you know, your neighbor. On the internet and find out information that they would not tell you normally. Right? [00:11:00] So you know about them, but you don't necessarily know them. You do not have a connection with them.
You do not actually have a relationship with them. And that's what Paul's talking about. That's what you're talking about is that you need to have a relationship so that you know him and he knows you. It's not a one-sided thing. It's not just information gathering.
Correct? Correct. And I think that's one of the things that, uh, And we miss it unintentionally, but we miss it.
And it's critical. We miss it in the modern church today because the modern church today is very focused on celebrity culture. And, you know, they're very into celebrity leaders of the faith. And, uh, one of the things that we have to be careful of is that Jesus is not interested in being a celebrity in your life.
You know, he, he descended into humility. He didn't ascend to become a celebrity. He came [00:12:00] down to us, humbled himself and took the form of a servant and then was obedient to the point of death on a cross. So Jesus came to earth, not to be a celebrity. He came to be a sacrifice. That's what's really important.
And that is the overriding message of the gospel. Is that, uh, this I know, I know Jesus, and I know that I know Jesus. And so, uh, John, the apostle in his first letter that he wrote for a second, third, John, he addresses this very issue in the church because this issue cropped up real quick. You know, it didn't take long for people to look at the apostles as celebrities, you know?
Wow. If I can just touch one of the apostles and they're connected to Jesus, and then I'm sure I'll be healed too. And so what happened is John then really focuses on this issue, uh, in the second chapter of his first letter, where he says [00:13:00] the following words, chapter two, verse three of the first book of John, he goes, we know that we have come to know him.
Now isn't that an interesting phrasiology, we know that we have come to know him. So what are you saying? How do you know that you have personally met Jesus? He says this. If we keep his commands, whoever says I know him, but does not do what he commands is a liar and the truth is not in them or in that person.
But if anyone obeys his word love for God is truly made complete in them. And this is how we know we are in him. Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did, or Jesus lived. Now this, this is easily misconstrued because so many people think that Christianity is a religion, basically, meaning there's a list of do's and don'ts.
And so. Basically, what I have [00:14:00] to do is follow all the dues and Paul, or excuse me, John is saying, if I don't do all the dues and I do some of the don'ts, then I'm a liar and I'm a hypocrite. He says, well, that's not what John is saying. And you're your paradigm through which you read this is critically important.
Okay. Uh, let, let's kind of rephrase it a little bit and this way, let's say you fall in love and you marry the person of your dreams. All right. And so what John is saying, if you say that I am in love and I am married to the woman of my dreams. Then you are going to live in a way that is consistent with values, that proposition.
So what if we read this a little bit differently to try to understand what John is trying to communicate? For instance, if I had found the woman of my dreams, and then I married her and I said, this is my soulmate. I love her. [00:15:00] And so, because that is a experience in my life, it's a reality. Then I'm going to align all of my values.
I'm going to align all of my goals, with her in mind. I'm not going to keep going out to social events or bars and try to flirt with other girls if I found my soulmate. So if you see Christianity is just a moral code or a religion of do's and don'ts, then you're going to read what John wrote through a certain set of eyes that are going to give you confusion.
Right. But if you. If you know, Jesus, and you know that the point is to know him relationally, then what you're gonna do is you're gonna follow his command. And so when, what are his commands or his commands, oh, you got to eat this and not listen to this. And you got to do that. You got to this. Well, no, his commands are that we love one another that we sacrifice for one another.
That we try to, uh, [00:16:00] build community with one another. One of the most famous commands of Jesus Christ is that we love God with our heart, mind, body, and soul. And we love one another as we love ourselves. So you see, when you read that you read what John is saying, and it starts to make more sense because, oh, this is how I know that I know Jesus personally. Because
the orientation of my life has changed. It's not about following rules. It's about personifying, true authentic love first for Jesus. And then for my other believers and then for the world.
Well, I, I think this really is such a important essential, because knowing Jesus is such a different, like you said, it's so different from so many other faiths or religions and, and,
in that it's asking you to really know and have a relationship. Most other belief systems are all [00:17:00] talking about, you know, sacrifice this, do that where these, compliance, yeah, it's, it's, it's a bunch of rules, but they're never inviting you to go, Hey, I want to have a one-on-one conversation with you, right?
It's always, I'm going to sit up here. You do the things I told you to, and I wont do X to you when you die, basically, it's the idea, right? And so it's like this call that Jesus and God offer of, I want to have a relationship with you is truly unique to Christianity.
Absolutely unique. And, and, you know, Jesus personified it in John chapter 10, verse 14, where he said this, he, what happened?
Let me set this up just a little bit. As the Pharisees came to him and said, You know, they were trying to get him for blast me and just say, well, tell us you're the Messiah. And if he were to say yes, then they could run to the Roman authorities and say, ah, you have a rebellion on your hands, another Messiah.
And if [00:18:00] you're familiar with history in the period between the last book of the Old Testament, which is Malakai, and when Jesus was born in the gospel of Matthew starts a well, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John was a period of 400 years. So think about that. It was a long time. I mean, America is only 200 and what, you know, 50 years old, 245 years old, something like that.
So during that period of time, there was a by a guy by the name of a Judas and he was a Maccabean. So they called him Judas in the Maccabees and they were the most, uh, probably successful rebellion against Rome. And he called himself the Messiah. So anytime there were a bunch of zealots that wanted to rebel against Rome, they called themselves the Messiah.
So the Pharisees are trying to catch Jesus in a trap and say, tell [00:19:00] us you're the Messiah. And he says, well, even if I told you, you wouldn't believe me, he goes, because you don't know me. And he goes, look, I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me. That's a really important, he goes, I know my sheep and my sheep know me just as the father knows me.
And I know the father, I lay down my life for the sheep. So then he goes on to talk about they know my voice. So the end goal of what it means to be born again and to become a follower of Jesus is to know the voice of God. That's what it is. It's it's to really understand the voice of God in your life.
Now, people misconstrue this all the time, uh, because we have a celebrity culture that is seeped into Christianity. A lot of people are like, well, [00:20:00] you know, I can't be a, an authentic Christian because God's never spoke to me in his voice. And I've had people come in and ask me about this. You know, they're very despondent, so forth.
And I would say, well, you mean, you've never heard an audible voice from God? And they said, no, I've never heard an audible voice from God. And I said, well, neither have I. You have to learn to discern the voice of God. And sometimes God speaks to you. And the unique and special way. Very clearly, other times he speaks to you through the word.
If he speaks to you to other people who you're close to and have your best interest in mind. Uh, like for instance, here's a great story. You know, people who come to the church are, uh, there are, is located in 9655 West State Street in Boise, Idaho. And so it's kind of a main thoroughfare there. And when we first moved out here in 1996, uh, we were in a little tiny [00:21:00] building, locked away in this back subdivision and the church had kind of outgrown its space.
And so we tried to raise some money in order to. Uh, expand. And it was a total failure. We raised $0 and everything. So, so Kim and I were really kind of sad and it was kind of a winter time in Boise. So it was kind of raining kind of cold. She says, well, let's go out and get there's this cafe way out in Star, Middleton that serves Midwest food.
And so we went out to dinner to get. Food. And so we had to drive down state street all the way out to Middleton. And so we ate and we were coming back and we were just kind of quiet, you know? Uh, and we were driving back and we drove by this abandoned property on state street. And my wife looks at me and she says, God just told me he's going to give us that building.
And I looked at her [00:22:00] and with my wisdom and my maturity in the faith, I said to her, are you nuts? She says, no, I'm serious. God spoke. I didn't hear an audible voice. I don't think she heard an audible voice, but she knew in her spirit that God had just spoken to her. And so guess what she was right. And I was wrong.
Okay. That's why we have this building today. We actually got into that building. We swap properties for no money and, and, uh, we started, uh, kind of remodel it. And of course the remodel projects that have never stopped. And, but let's see, that's a perfect example, is that over the years, my wife trained herself to know the voice of God.
No. It's really interesting because I've known my wife for over 34 years. And I think she said that twice, maybe three times since I've known her. [00:23:00] Erm, so when she says that, you know, I really take, well, I better listen. And the reason why is because number one, she doesn't go around saying, well, God told me this, you know, God told me to have Wheaties for breakfast.
She doesn't do that. She doesn't, uh, devalued it. But what she does do is she's trained herself to hear the voice of God. So through prayer and through, uh, uh, reading and meditating on the word of God, we attune ourselves. And so John is very pointing it here when he says, uh, quoting Jesus when Jesus says I'm the good shepherd and my sheep know my voice.
They know my voice. And so one of the most important things for you and for me as a follower of Jesus is we need to come to a assurance that we know that we know him personally. We just don't know about him, but we know him [00:24:00] personally. And that's really a big deal.
Absolutely. Well, I think that is one of the most important essentials.
I mean, these are all essentials, but I think that's the one that sometimes it's harder to wrap our minds around. Um, as followers, it's sometimes easy to get lost in the weeds on that one. And so I'm really excited to keep this conversation going on Thursday's podcast. We're going to dive into that a little bit more.
Um, I'm excited for you to be back into preaching on Sunday, get you back up on that stage and hear what you have to say, but we just really appreciate you guys joining us, um, to, to listen and, and learn more from, um, Pastor Peake, and as we kinda wrap up, I just want to encourage you guys to have conversations, you know, as you're thinking about these things, think about, you know, am I attuning to God?
Do I know him, or am I just having a, you know, do I just know about him? You need to start asking your questions about that to yourself. Um, and then you can start moving out and start talking to your family and see if they really know [00:25:00] him or if they just know about him. So I would encourage you to start evaluating that this is a very interactive. You always have, homework,
uh, when you listened to the Salty Pastor Podcast. It's either, you know, conversations or internal dialogue or meditation, but, um, you know, we, we, we don't want, you just passively engaging with us. We want you to be out there and doing stuff. So, um,
I think, you know, before, before we sign off, I just want to say, is that the purpose of the Salty Pastor,
why we say, you know, we're not here to tell you what to believe or what to think is because of this essential. I mean, this is. This is why we do it this way. And that is, is that we want you to have the assurance. The absolute unequivocal conviction that, you know, God that, you know, his voice, right. That doesn't mean you're not going to make mistakes.
It doesn't mean you become a perfect person. It doesn't mean that sometimes you listen to that part of you, that can be stupid. But what it does mean, is [00:26:00] that, you know, even in your imperfection, That you've been redeemed by God. That's called assurance of salvation. And that's what we want you to have. I want you to know, that no matter what happens, whatever challenge you face, that you will never go through it alone because you know the voice of Jesus, you know, that he is your good shepherd and that he is
with you. And this is critically important for you to know Jesus personally. And here's why, because this world fills our heads with all kinds of things. I tell my stuff, self stuff, all the time. That's just plain stupid. And if I listen to that, if I receive those, those messages in my head, then what happens is I'm not listening to the voice of God.
I'm listening to the voice of the world. And that right there alone is a thing that will undermine [00:27:00] me more than anything else. And destroy me as a human being. You see, this is why I always say that people who know Jesus and walk with him are the most competent and courageous people out there. That doesn't mean that they don't have negative thoughts.
They don't have anxiety or depression now, and then, or they lack self-confidence. It doesn't mean anything at all like that you have those experiences. But you've, you know, that those aren't the truth. You know, that those are not things that you listen to. What you do is you listen. To the voice of your good shepherd. And just like, uh, Zach was saying last week, what is the voice of the shepherd always say, he always says as the creator of the universe, you are the center of my cosmic plan because I love you.
And so man, when you start to not, just, you know, know about that, but you actually know that to be true. That's when your life really starts to change.
Absolutely. [00:28:00] Well, please meditate on these thoughts. Um, talk with, uh, your spouse, your family members, and really start with thinking about this essential.
Cause we're going to pick it up back on Thursday and we're just so glad you guys are joining us here on the salty pastor.
All right. Blessings, everyone.