Is the Blessed Life of the Beatitudes What You Really Want? Part 1 of 2

Is the blessed life of the Beatitudes what you really want? That's our topic this weekend and next here on the Christian worldview radio program where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to share the good news that all people can be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ.

I'm David Wheaton the host and our website is thechristianworldview.org. Well the Sermon on the Mount as it is known is Jesus' most well-known sermon. It is found in Matthew chapters 5 through 7 with the more condensed version in Luke 6. Now Jesus covers all kinds of ground in this sermon opening with nine statements called the Beatitudes about the person who is quote blessed due to having inner spiritual characteristics or qualities.

Then Jesus after the Beatitudes goes on to preach about the righteousness of the law, how he didn't come to nullify it, and then goes into issues like murder, adultery, divorce, taking oaths, taking revenge, love of neighbor, how to do charity, prayer, fasting, wealth, and dealing with possessions. It is the perfect sermon from the perfect Son of God. And so our guest this weekend on the Christian worldview and next, Troy Dobbs, he's the senior pastor of Grace Church in Eden Prairie, has just authored a new book titled The Blessed Life That No One Really Wants where he goes one by one through Jesus' statements on the blessed explaining what they mean and how modern day American Christianity has a very different understanding and interpretation of what it means to be blessed. So I hope you enjoy this interview today and let's get to the first segment with Troy Dobbs.

Troy, it's great to have you back on the Christian worldview radio program. We're going to talk about your brand new book, The Blessed Life That No One Really Wants, and you'll explain what that subtitle means during the course of our interview today. But the book is about the Sermon on the Mountain, specifically the Beatitudes in chapter 5 of Matthew.

And I just want to read that before we start so we have some context for what we're going to discuss today. Matthew 5 starts out by saying, When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain, and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. He opened His mouth and began to teach them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle or meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad for your reward, and heaven is great, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. And Troy, this is the start of the most well-known and longest recorded sermon of Christ. Perhaps you could explain more just the context of this Sermon on the Mount. Yeah, no, thanks. Thanks for having me on, too, David.

I do appreciate it. Yeah, you know, I think context, I go all the way back to the last book of the Old Testament. And so as I started looking at the end of Malachi ends with a curse.

And so you have the curse from Malachi, and then you have the 400-year period of silence called the intertestamental period. And during that history, those silent years, right, people felt like God had abandoned them, forgotten them, no longer cared. And then we know Christ is born, so God the Son, the Son of God is born. And then the first words out of his mouth that launch and inaugurate his teaching ministry are words of blessing.

So the Old Testament ends in a curse, 400-year period of silence, where people wonder what God has to say. And then the first words out of the mouth of Jesus in his teaching ministry are words of blessing. But that was just really profound to me, that he does want to bless us and does care about blessing us, but has a unique perspective then on blessing that I think is really countercultural to kind of all that we hear, especially in America, regarding what blessing actually is. And so we know historically the Sermon on the Mount, right, followed his baptism in Matthew 3, the temptation narrative in Matthew 4. So it's confirmed in Matthew 3, the Father is well pleased. That whole ministry is essentially confirmed by the Father. And then it says he's led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted in Matthew chapter 4.

And then after he endures 40 days, 40-day fast and unbelievable temptation, then he launches that teaching ministry as he's kind of built a following of disciples. And then he's trying to show them what it looks like in the kingdom. What are the expectations in the kingdom? How to think differently now that the kingdom is upon us with the king in their presence. So that's why I think we don't do justice to saying, hey, when Jesus talks about blessing in the New Testament, there is a really deep and rich context that we've got to explore to get to this point to see just how powerful these words actually are. Yeah, and that's what I so appreciated about your book, The Blessed Life, is that it really delved into each of these Beatitudes. And it was convicting reading it how what our idea of blessing has become is very different than how Christ describes it in his Sermon on the Mount. Now, before we get into the correct interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount or these first 11 verses in the Beatitudes, how is the Sermon on the Mount often misinterpreted today as either being the means of salvation if you just keep these checkboxes or a means of achieving social justice in society?

Or maybe there's some other ways. Explain how it's often misinterpreted. Yeah, the way I stand, the Beatitudes, David, are they're not even given to us as commands. I think they're more descriptive of realities, like realities of the Christian life. And so they aren't necessarily something that we do, but they kind of become like who we are and how we live as Christ lives in us and through us.

And so it's never right. We know from Genesis or Revelation, it's never about us working for God, but God doing his work through us. And so I think it's really, really important to see that when Christ is at work in you, these Beatitudes can take root in your heart, and then they become realities then for how you live out the Christian life. And so I think it's important that these aren't something that we go, okay, step one, step two, step three, step four, but rather the Spirit of God is alive in us, doing a work in us.

And then these realities start to make sense to us. Like the word blessed is actually a really interesting word. It actually means happy or even congratulations.

Some commentators say it actually refers to something deeper than the word happy, but more like a congratulations, you get it. You understand it now. There's something that you've stumbled upon here that really makes sense and way to go, you get it now. So I think it's important that we don't treat them as a do one, do two and three and four, but rather we want Christ to work in us and through us. And when His Spirit's at work in us, the Spirit does the right kind of work in us, and these Beatitudes become a reality in how we live our life. Now on page 10 of your book, Troy, you talk about this, the blessed life, in contrast to what has become a very popular movement today, the prosperity gospel movement. And you say the worst of the teaching of the prosperity gospel is that it reduces the Christian experience to simply getting something from God, as I think you just mentioned in your last answer.

Getting something out of God trumps our loving God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength and loving our neighbors as ourselves. You go on to say on the same page, the concept of blessing in religious America has been notoriously equated with the American dream instead of the gospel of Christ. Today blessing seems to mean something altogether different, promotion, not persecution, success, not suffering, getting invited, not getting insulted, bigger, not smaller, health, not pain, more, not less, now, not later. So talk about, this book is not a polemic against the prosperity gospel, but you do use that contrast.

Just talk briefly about how that popular movement today would get these Beatitudes all wrong. Yeah, I think there's such a truncated understanding of what blessing is, especially in America today. And I think we assume that rich in cash, those who party all the time, those who are strong, those who are full and in need of nothing, rather than poor in spirit, mourning, being meek. I think that we just have to broaden our understanding of this concept and idea of blessing to include both. So I don't try to say that God doesn't bless people materially because I think he does. I don't think that he blesses us materially all the time. And then I also don't want people to think that the only way that God does this is that he runs it through the grid of the American dream. So when you're blessed, you get a nicer car, you get a brand new pair of shoes, a bigger house. And so literally, I'm just trying to kind of broaden our understanding of the word blessing to actually include these categories that Jesus introduces to us and the Beatitudes, where he says that blessing can be accompanied by persecution and suffering and insult and smaller and pain and less, that those are actually part of the biblical equation of blessing too. And so I think a lot of people then, because they don't understand that, they assume that God's against them or forgotten them when in reality, he's actually giving them an insight into the Christian life. And he's actually setting us up to be blessed in a way that the American dream can't bless us.

So that was kind of the heart, you know, in pointing out the distinctions between the two. And so I think, too, that kind of the danger for me with the prosperity gospel is I think it just distorts the character and nature of God. I think it distorts how God actually works. I think it treats God as a kind of like a code to crack. And if we just crack the God code, then God has to bless us. And then I think it sets people up for all kinds of frustration and misguided striving. And so if you aren't getting blessed according to the American dream idea of blessing, then it is a hey, you didn't have enough faith or it was a lack of leanness maybe in the sowing and reaping department on your end. And so what it does then is it creates this driving, this I'm using God to get something for myself rather than finding rest in God and seeing that God is blessing me in ways I don't even know or realize. And he's going to bless me in a way that's actually way more satisfying than something that's bigger, better, faster or more horsepower. Our guest today in the Christian Real View is Troy Dobbs, a senior pastor of Grace Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota and the author of the book we're discussing, The Blessed Life. Now it sounds like it's one of these your best life now books, but it's exactly the opposite of that.

It's the blessed life that no one really wants. And from the Sermon on the Mount, he talks about these Beatitudes. We're going over them today here on the program. I thought this would be a good program to do because we all believers listening today need to understand these Beatitudes and how we can appropriate them in our life, how God gives us the power to do that, especially in these very turbulent times. This is a topic that I think we need to understand how to apply right now in present day America.

We have much more coming up on the program. The book is available at our Web site, theChristianrealview.org, and go there to find out more. It explains how one can have peace with God and a confident hope for this life and the next through the good news of the gospel. If you have never contacted the Christian Real View, request the booklet How to Be Free from the Fear of Death for free by calling us at 1-888-646-2233.

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Monthly partners can choose to receive resources throughout the year. Call 1-888-646-2233 or go to theChristianworldview.org. Thank you for your support. And welcome back to the Christian worldview radio program. Today we're talking about the perfect sermon from the perfect Son of God. It's a sermon on the Mount by Jesus Christ himself. And by the way, coming up on the program, we're going to talk about a comment that was made on CNN by their anchor this week that said that admittedly, quote, Jesus was not perfect.

So more coming up on that comment by Don Lemon this week. But before we get to that, let's get back to our interview with Troy Dobbs, who has written a book entitled The Blessed Life on the Beatitudes. And Troy is the senior pastor of Grace Church in Eden Prairie.

And let's get back to the second segment with him. You have a lot of personal reflection in this book, and I want to read a portion from Paige early on in the book where you say, During the first decade of my own journey with Christ, I was in a perpetual state of spiritual exhaustion, trying to earn God's blessing, grace and love. It was only after reading a book by Philip Yancey called What's So Amazing About Grace that I began to learn to rest in Christ. So, Troy, talk more about your coming to saving faith and about this spiritual exhaustion you were feeling for the first 10 years and how that changed to a rest in Christ.

Yeah, I think in hindsight, I understand now the issue, and I think a lot of people struggle with this. You know, I kind of grew up in a church and my understanding was limited in the sense that the gospel applies to salvation. So the gospel, right, is what you believe and trust by faith and are saved. But then no one ever really explained to me, and I'm sure I probably didn't take a lot of initiative either, but no one then ever explained to me that the gospel also applies to your sanctification. And so I think sometimes we can do the kind of what Paul dealt with in church at Corinth. The gospel will get you saved, but it's kind of then we'll take it from there concept.

And I think I did that. I think it was, all right, I'm going to trust Jesus to save me, and then I'm going to work like crazy to work out this salvation with fear and trembling rather than learning to rest in Christ. And then so for me, it became, I think, a radical misunderstanding of grace. And so that book was really helpful because it essentially says that you can't do anything to get God to love you more, and you've never done anything that would cause God to love you less.

Like he loves us because he chooses to love us. And I started to see then that the whole Christian life isn't about what I do for God. It's about me letting God work through me, and then I have to apply the gospel to my sanctification just like I do as I trust it for my salvation. And I think people have a really, really hard time with that. And then I think what can happen is that you start just saying, well, maybe the whole Christian life is just about me pursuing blessing.

Well, then that puts you on a vicious treadmill. And so rather than trying to deepen my relationship with God, I become an opportunist who is trying to use God to get God to bless me. And then it kind of comes at the high cost of missing the greatest blessing of all, which is God himself. So I kind of grew up in a church where it was, if you're faithful, you'll be blessed. And I always assumed that the blessing then would be material. And then I read Genesis 15 one, and you can be faithful and blessed, and the greatest blessing of all is actually God himself. And I'm kind of like, why didn't someone ever tell me that?

The most amazing blessing of all is that I get to know God, and that he knows me and knows my name and loves me. And so that's why I think kind of a casual reading of the Beatitudes leaves people kind of scratching their head in confusion. You would read, and I even say in the book, they don't look like great life strategies to employ in order to be successful, happy, and blessed, right?

Because they're just not American dream-esque enough. And so that's why I tried to write kind of my own version, you know, that if they said this, everybody would sign on to them, right? Blessed are the rich in cash.

Yeah, I want that. But Jesus doesn't say that. He says blessed are the poor in spirit. And so that's why I think, man, we've got to really dig into these Beatitudes because they're giving us secrets and keys to the Christian life that we currently aren't experiencing as we try to figure out how people understand this, I call it the American gospel, where it's really no gospel at all.

It is the pursuit of stuff. It's using God to find a blessed life. And so to me, that's why I just said, man, we've got to take what Jesus says really seriously here because he understands blessing like no one else does. That was kind of the heart behind the whole idea of digging into the book.

And so do a teaching series on it, then thinking, man, they're so rich and so powerful. I've got to explain and put them in a book form so people can read and understand and then realize that God does want to bless us. Troy Dobbs again with us today on the Christian worldview with the senior pastor of Grace Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, talking about his brand new book, The Blessed Life.

We have it linked at our website, thechristianworldview.org. Now, Troy, there are eight listed Beatitudes in Christ's sermon here. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are the merciful, the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers and those who are persecuted because of righteousness. And you have made very clear that these blessings are not necessarily material, physical, tangible blessings that you can hold in your hand. And they don't relate to favorable circumstances, things going well for you in a worldly sense.

In other words, you can have these blessings from God even when things are not going well. All of them are things like you just mentioned that don't seem a part of this positivism of the American dream of things are going to be great and you're going to increase and be better. Let's start with the first one. We're not going to go through all of them.

I just want to touch on a few of them that you go chapter by chapter through each one. How is this first one, blessed are the poor in spirit, how is that one the prerequisite as you write about for becoming a follower of Christ, but also growing as a Christian, being poor in spirit? I think the default mode, David, of every human being to try and prop ourselves up before God by either displaying our goodness or comparing ourselves to others, rather than laying ourselves low before God, acknowledging our neediness. And so the last thing that we want to do is acknowledge that we are spiritually impoverished, that there's nothing good in us.

This was such a hard message. And so I think, and I do think it's a work of the Spirit that gets us to this place. I don't think we just aha and figure it out. I think the Spirit awakens us to it. And the moment we realize that we are in desperate need of help, that we're not our best resource, that self-help is really no help and we acknowledge our neediness, then we open ourselves up to a work of God. And it's then and only then that when you acknowledge that spiritual poverty, then you can experience the richness then of knowing Jesus Christ.

And I just think it's really, really difficult for people to get to that place. The example I always use is the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee. The Pharisee essentially there in Luke 18 prays, and it's kind of a highlight reel of his perceived goodness. Look at me, how amazing I am.

Let me tell you everything I've done. The tax collector can't even look up to heaven, beats his chest and says, woe to me, a sinner. Then Jesus says he's the one that goes home justified or right with God.

The Pharisee continues on to self-righteousness while the tax collector ends up right with God. I think that parable highlights for me the difficulty it is for people who think moralism is the key and self-esteem is the key. The Bible says that brokenness is the key and we shun brokenness.

We don't want to be broken. And that's why I think it's so hard for people to get to this place. So without poverty of spirit, no one can come to Christ. And then I also think without poverty of spirit, no one can continue to grow. It is relevant for salvation and sanctification. And so I think poverty of spirit is foundational because it forces us to see our continued spiritual need for the spirit's work in our life.

Troy Dobbs with us today here on the Christian ReelView. You talk about losing your mother. You were really close to your mom.

I'm just going to let you tell that story. But you said one thing that losing her taught you was about the second beatitude, about blessed are those who who mourn. And it wasn't a literal mourning. It was a mourning over sin. But mourning over your mom helped you to understand better this second beatitude. I just want to read this on page 26 of your book as I begin to unpack this verse from my own situation losing your mom. I read the words of one Bible commentator who pointed out something I hadn't realized. He said Jesus was not referring to the sorrow of bereavement, which you had gone through, but rather to the sorrow of repentance. The idea behind this beatitude is that we'd grieve over our own sins in the same way we grieve over the death of a loved one. So tell us about the story of losing your mom and then how that led to this deeper understanding of what it means to mourn over your sin. Our guest today in the Christian ReelView is Troy Dobbs.

We'll hear that answer about losing his mom and what impact that had on his life, and it had a major impact on his life. So I hope you'll stay tuned for the story of that as we talk about the beatitudes today from the Sermon on the Mount in light of Troy's new book, The Blessed Life, that no one really wants. We have it available for purchase on the ChristianReelView.org for a discount right now.

It's a hardcover book, 112 pages. Just go to theChristianreelview.org and you can get a copy there. And as he was talking, I was writing down some of the opposites of what Christ said in this sermon, and what is said today about the blessed life. And he mentioned this, blessed are the poor in spirit. People would say, blessed are those who are wealthy in this life or confident in this life, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

That's what they would say. Blessed are those who mourn. That's not a value people want to have today.

They don't want to mourn. They want to be happy and they want to be positive and they want to be optimistic in a worldly sense. Humanity is going to get better.

Things are going to turn around. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. They would say today, blessed are those who are self-aware or evolving or woke about the social injustices of our day. These are very, very different realities in someone's life than what we hear coming from the culture and certainly from American Christianity. Coming back after this on the Christian Real View. It is a pain to know that there are people who do not know Jesus. It is a greater pain to know that oftentimes Jesus and Christianity is being distorted. Your destiny is calling out.

It's time to start living large. I don't think God killed Jesus. That's a sick God and a sick story. This is the doctrine of Christianity.

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That's what we try to do every week here on the Christian World View radio program as we look at topics from the current events to things going on in our culture to what we're doing today. Looking at an issue that's straight out of scripture in Christ's Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes. I just want to read something here from a Bible commentator on the whole Sermon on the Mount starting out where he writes, Christ expounded the full meaning of the law showing that its demands were humanly impossible to keep. This is the proper use of the law with respect to salvation. It closes off every possible avenue of human merit and leaves sinners dependent on nothing but divine grace for salvation.

Christ plumbed the depths of the law showing that its true demands went far beyond the surface meaning of the words and set a standard that is higher than the most diligent students of the law had heretofore realized. An example of this in the Sermon on the Mount after the Beatitudes is where he talks about adultery or murder. You've heard that it was said that don't commit adultery, don't commit murder. Christ said in this Sermon on the Mount that it's not just the physical act, it's even the mental desire or thought of it. It's having lust in your heart. That's considered adultery to God or it's hating someone in your heart. That's considered murder to God. So he doubled down on the law.

He didn't say the law is bad, he said the law is good. He said we just can't keep it. And so before he actually gets to that is these Beatitudes, these nine statements at the beginning of this Sermon in Matthew chapter 5. And our guest today, Troy Dobbs, a senior pastor of Grace Church in Eden Prairie, has written a book about it, The Blessed Life That No One Really Wants.

Let's get back to the last part of the part one today with Troy Dobbs. Tell us about the story of losing your mom and then how that led to this deeper understanding of what it means to mourn over your sin. In the book I kind of tell a little bit of the story. I was adopted as a one-month-old, but prior to my parents adopting me, my mom and dad then went through a lot of really difficult, painful seasons of getting pregnant and then having a miscarriage. And my mom probably went through three or four miscarriages, and then she actually had a little girl who lived 24 hours and then died.

They adopted me probably a year later. My mom had a lot of, I called it, pent-up mothering to do. I mean, she just smothered me with love and grace and mercy, led me to Christ.

It really just created an amazingly warm and loving home and a deep relationship. So she was everything to me. I mean, I loved her deeply. And so I think because of that connection with her when she died, it just really hit me in ways that I think were surprising to me. And if I experienced the ache, the dullness, the why am I crying now, kind of the surprise side of grace, you get ambushed by tears when you don't expect them. That whole experience helped me to really fully understand, I think, this beatitude with the idea of being, do we ever really grieve over our sin in the same way that we would grieve over the death of a loved one? And that really hit me hard, David, just from the standpoint of like, I think a lot of times, most people, we spend a little time excusing our sin or rationalizing our sin or belittling our sin or ignoring it.

And then we get around to confessing it. But I thought, do I ever really mourn over my sin? Have I ever ached over my sin in the way that I ached over the loss of my mother? And it really hit, you know, I really need to rethink how I think about my sin and how it affects Christ and how it affects other people. And so it really pushed me then, I think, to take my sin more seriously just because of how Christ thinks about it and not how it impacts me.

I think a lot of people do that. Yeah, we take it seriously because there was a consequence I didn't like. But do I take my sin seriously because it was a part of sending Christ to the cross? So it really forced me to really dig into my own heart and go, I don't know that I've ever mourned over sin in a way that would reflect a level of understanding of the seriousness of my sin.

And so it was super helpful. And then for me, the beatitude says, blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. And so the idea of comfort then in this context is forgiveness. So when you mourn over your sins in a way that you would mourn over the death of a loved one, God comforts you in that. That forgiveness then is a great picture of God comforting the pain that we experience in our soul. And that was a rich image for me as I thought about this whole process of not just confessing my sins, but really mourning over them. Christ had to pay for them. And then when I really take them seriously, that I can actually receive that forgiveness of God in a way that actually comforts me and settles me.

Just a rich beatitude for me personally, especially in light of kind of all that I've gone through. And so I want to use that as an example, then one to hopefully show people that, man, there's a great need for the church to take her needs, to take her sin seriously, because I don't think we often do that. You know, a lot of churches don't even talk about sin anymore. And then I want everybody to understand then that this whole idea that, yeah, Jesus died for us, but he also died because of us. Our sins sent him to the cross. And so he's sinless. So he died for sins. Well, who's sins? Well, yours and mine. And so in that way, we're guilty here.

We've got skin in the game here. And I want us all to take our sins more seriously, because then, you know, then as you've had this experience, right, the longer you know Christ, the more seriously you take your sins. And that's what I'm hoping really be communicated here in this chapter, that people would confess and mourn them, see how serious they are, and then not want to fall into sin and take that seriously. But then if they do, then to be able to rely on the forgiveness and that comfort that God gives us in forgiveness. Well, you write about the illustration in the Old Testament of someone bringing an animal to sacrifice for their own sin and how graphic and how strong of an impression that would make on someone to kill an animal right in front of them and dissect it up and burn it and so forth.

And that was for an animal. And you draw the comparison of our sin would be like us doing that to Jesus Christ himself. That's what our sin caused God to have to do to Christ.

That was very, very impactful. Okay, this is part one this week with Troy Dobbs on his book The Blessed Life on the Beatitudes and hope you gained from hearing this portion of the interview. And next week we'll have part two. Again, the book is available on our website, thechristianworldview.org for a limited time for a discount.

The title is The Blessed Life by Troy Dobbs. And again, stay tuned next week. We'll have the second half of the interview then. And by the way, while you're at the website, just a reminder that the Christian World View golf event is going to be taking place this coming September 21st. Monday, September 21st, same place, Woodhill Country Club, Wazeta, Minnesota. Registration is now open. We already have people register for it.

There's not going to be, likely not going to be, a dinner event this year. So it's kind of attention all golfers this year for the event. This is always a very special day. Monday, September 21st, you can find out more by going to thechristianworldview.org.

Okay, before we get to our last break of the day, I mentioned earlier in the program, in the intro to the program, I said how the Sermon on the Mount is the perfect sermon from the perfect Son of God. And this week, on cable television, on CNN, one of the main anchors, Don Lemon, who hosts an evening program every night, right after Chris Cuomo's program, these two were interchanging with each other over the fact of the Confederate flag. Mississippi, with all the unrest going on right now, there's demands that the Confederate flag be removed from everywhere. It's a symbol of hate and racism and all that. And apparently, President Trump had taken a position of no position on this flag, basically saying, well, for some people, it means one thing, for others, it means another.

And so I'm not going to get involved in this. Let the states decide what they want to do. And then Don Lemon was explaining how the pushback against pulling down statues, as we talked about last week in the program, is really due to the fact that our country deifies, makes us like gods, our founders. And so but in the lead up to talking about how we deify our founders, and that's what this whole thing is really about, Don Lemon, the anchor at CNN, said this. But here's the thing.

Jesus Christ, if you believe in, if that's who you believe in, Jesus Christ, admittedly was not perfect when he was here on this earth. So why are we deifying the founders of this country, many of whom own slaves? And in the Constitution, the original one, they didn't want they put slavery in there, that that slavery should should be abolished because it was the way the king won. And then the Congress said, no way.

And so they had to come up with an alternative about three fifths of a man. They knew. They knew.

OK, we'll stop with they will play the rest of the soundbite after the break. But admittedly, Jesus was not perfect. I mean, this is just a shocking statement. I mean, whether you believe that or not is another thing. But to actually say that and to misrepresent just a core Orthodox teaching of Christianity for two thousand years is a shocking level of ignorance. I mean, first Peter 2.22, he committed no sin.

Neither was any deceit found in his mouth. Hebrews 4.15, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. Second Corinthians 5.20 sin 5.21. God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. First John 3.5, you know that he appeared to take away sins and in him there is no sin.

Not only the worst thing about this is it's blasphemous to ascribe sin to Christ, but it's shockingly ignorant for a national anchor to say such a thing. We'll have the rest of the sound bite after this. David Wheaton here to tell you about My Boy Ben, a story of love, loss and grace. Ben was a yellow lab and inseparable companion at a stage in my life when I was single and competing on the professional tennis tour. I invite you to enter into the story and its tapestry of relationships with Ben, my aging parents, with a childhood friend I would finally marry and ultimately with God who caused all things, even the hard things to work together for good. Order the book for your friend who needs to hear about God's grace and the gospel or the one who has gone through a difficult trial or loss or just the dog lover in your life. Signed and personalized copies are only available at myboyben.com or by calling 1-888-646-2233.

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Perfect for sharing with others. To order, go to thechristianworldview.org or call 1-888-646-2233. That's thechristianworldview.org. Alright, last segment of the day here on the Christian World View radio program.

I'm David Wheaton, the host. Our website is thechristianworldview.org. Now if you missed any of the interview with Pastor Troy Dobbs today on his new book, The Blessed Life About the Beatitudes, and I think it's very, very relevant for what's going on in this country with all the unrest, we need to know how to have this blessed life, not the blessed life that you hear about. The Christian life is all about blessing and being favored and success and all these things. Jesus' sermon is very, very different than that in these nine points you make. As a matter of fact, the last one is, Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Actually, the last one is, Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of things against you because of me.

It says, Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great. Very different perspective than what we get from the culture or even from, sadly, from the evangelical, or certainly the health, wealth, and prosperity churches today. You can hear the interview by going to our website, thechristianworldview.org. You can also sign up for our free podcast.

It's widely available at iTunes and Google and other places where you get your podcasts, so we encourage you to do that. In the last segment here, we were talking about the fact that Don Lemon, the anchor at CNN and their main primetime evening program said that, Admittedly, Jesus was not perfect. Not only blasphemous, of course, that's the worst thing about it, but it is shockingly ignorant that someone would say that of that position. Apparently, Don doesn't understand no context like, Well, some people think he was, some people think he wasn't. That would be one thing, but that's what he actually thinks, that Jesus admitted that he wasn't perfect, of course, which isn't actually the case at all. But then he goes into talking about the topic we had last week on why these statues are being torn down and the fact that our country deifies our founders.

Let's go into the rest of the soundbite here from Don Lemon speaking with Chris Cuomo, two anchors on CNN talking to each other. That they had an inconsistency with their logic. All men are created equal, except these men.

We have to stop deifying them. Yes, they did some great things and they created a constitution and a blueprint for us. That wasn't perfect at the time, and that's good, but they weren't perfect either.

And so as Americans, all of us should come together and have these conversations and get together and stop letting someone divide us. No one is perfect. Nothing is perfect. Not even the Founding Father.

Nothing. He's actually making the case against what he's trying to make the case for. You know, he's saying they're pulling down these statues of our founders all over the country now, and he's actually making the case that no one's perfect, so therefore you should leave the statues up.

But that's not the case he's trying to make. The statues are being pulled down, not because Americans are deifying our founders, like we're idol worshiping, therefore they need to come down, tear down the idols. They're not coming down because of that, because we're deifying them.

They're coming down because leftists are tearing them down. Leftists supported by the Democrat Party, they hate everything about these people, and they hate everything about what these people represented, these founders represented. They were white, they had Christian principles, they were wealthy, and some of them owned slaves. Yeah, they had their imperfections, and they should be maybe taught with the context of they contributed greatly, just as Don Lemon just said accurately, they contributed greatly to our incredible Constitution and our country, and yes, they had their shortcomings as well, as we all do, we're all sinners. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. He's making the point that he's not trying to make. And he's making the point that why they shouldn't be taken down, even though he agrees with, they probably should be torn down.

Here he goes on to say this, Chris Cuomo starts now. Being human is perfect. We are all fallible, especially people who are limited by their time. There's no question about that, but here's the good news. Clarity is a good thing, okay? And the president is worried, and he should be. Everybody who wants reelection in a tight race with their numbers should be worried.

But how do you deal with it? The irony is the most opportunity always in politics, the demagogue gets an early lead. Dividing works, but a uniter is always more powerful in the end.

That was Obama, that was Reagan. People who can bring people together around a big cause is going to win. He has removed all doubt with his press secretary echoing his sentiment that he has no position on whether a Confederate flag is a good or bad thing. He's defending. You see, that is the issue that trumps all issue. What your view of the Confederate flag is, what your view on race is, because they've attributed the Confederate flag to necessarily being about slavery. You support slavery.

They conflated that together, and so that one issue, if you have no position, if you don't take a position on that, you are therefore a racist and you're disqualified. America, you don't need to hear anything else. What I say I say to people who support the president is you don't get a pass. You don't say I support him because I like the deregulation, but I'm not about that.

No. You vote for all of it. You get all of it. But he ignores the empowers and you own it. That's been since the very beginning that I think people of color realize that if you're supporting him, you're supporting a racist, and you're putting racism on the back burner.

There you go. If you support, if you vote for the president, you're a racist. That's the bottom line. People are just not cool with that now. The country's ready to move on. Trump is a relic when it comes to these issues, and the people who support him, get on the train or get off because it's going to keep moving. And the longer there are people on earth who are like us, who embrace diversity, interracial couples, and on and on and on, it's over, buddy. It's a last gasp for bigotry and racism, and they are fighting it tooth and nail.

I've got to run. I've already been told eight times that my- Okay, so if you take no position. He didn't actually take a position in favor of the Confederate flag or against.

He took no position. I'm not going to get involved in this debate. You're there for a racist. If you vote for Trump, you're a racist because you vote for all of it. When you vote for Trump, you vote for all of it.

Well, that's true to a certain point. When you vote for a candidate, you necessarily vote for all of his platform. But it's the same thing when you vote for a Democrat as well. I like to think of it this way, that the Republicans are the party of sinners and some wickedness. The Democrats are the party of sinners and some wickedness. The Democrats are the party of wickedness and outright God rejection. So when you vote for a Democrat, what you're voting for is the party of really division and racism as you see the Black Lives Matter disrupt the nuclear God, nuclear family. You're voting for the party of transgenderism and homosexuality, which God calls perversion. You're voting for all the things against Israel because they're always against Israel. You're voting for the party of big government. You're voting for the party of Black Lives Matter. You're voting for the party of Marxism that wants to fundamentally transform this country.

So Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon were very helpful in describing that. When you do vote for a candidate, you're voting for their entire platform. Now, you may not support their entire platform. I get that.

I don't support everything Donald Trump stands for and him personally in some regards and so forth. But it comes down to this. It's a binary choice. Yeah, we have other choices not to vote or third party. But the reality is either Donald Trump's going to become president and the policy he stands for or George Biden's going to become president and the Marxist policies that he's going to give in and stand for.

That's really the choice. So thank you to Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo for not only clarifying Don Lemon's ignorance on who Jesus Christ actually was, but what it means to vote for one of the two parties. We do live in a changing and challenging America. Things are certainly changing. But there is one thing, Christian, we can always count on and trust in.

Jesus Christ, the perfect one, is the same yesterday, today and forever. Have a great weekend, everyone. That is furnished by the Overcomer Foundation and is supported by listeners and sponsors. Request one of our current resources with your donation of any amount. Go to the Christian worldview dot org or call us toll free at one triple eight six four six twenty two thirty three. Or write to us at Box four zero one Excelsior, Minnesota, five five three three one. That's box four zero one Excelsior, Minnesota, five five three three one. Thanks for listening to the Christian worldview. Until next time, think biblically and live accordingly.