New Jerry Bridges Book

True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

Here is the description:

Fellowship among believers is more than just talking over coffee after church service. Biblical fellowship in New Testament times—or koinonia—had rich and varied meanings, including covenant relationship, partnership in the gospel, communion with God and others, and the sharing of earthly possessions.

In True Community, best-selling author Jerry Bridges guides you through koinonia and its implications for today’s church. With discussion questions at the end of each chapter, this book will help you dig deeper into what Christian community in the twenty-first century should look like. You will come away with a new appreciation for fellowship, the church, and what God intended the body of Christ to be.

Are You Performance Driven?

I need to keep hearing this over and over again.

Jerry Bridges:

Evangelicals commonly think today that the gospel is only for unbelievers. Once we’re inside the kingdom’s door, we need the gospel only in order to share it with those who are still outside. Now, as believers, we need to hear the message of discipleship. We need to learn how to live the Christian life and be challenged to go do it. That’s what I believed and practiced in my life and ministry for some time. It is what most Christians seem to believe.

As I see it, the Christian community is largely a performance-based culture today. And the more deeply committed we are to following Jesus, the more deeply ingrained the performance mindset is. We think we earn God’s blessing or forfeit it by how well we live the Christian life.

Most Christians have a baseline of acceptable performance by which they gauge their acceptance by God. For many, this baseline is no more than regular church attendance and the avoidance of major sins. Such Christians are often characterized by some degree of self-righteousness. After all, they don’t indulge in the major sins we see happening around us. Such Christians would not think they need the gospel anymore. They would say the gospel is only for sinners.

For committed Christians, the baseline is much higher. It includes regular practice of spiritual disciplines, obedience to God’s Word, and involvement in some form of ministry. Here again, if we focus on outward behavior, many score fairly well. But these Christians are even more vulnerable to self-righteousness, for they can look down their spiritual noses not only at the sinful society around them but even at other believers who are not as committed as they are. These Christians don’t need the gospel either. For them, Christian growth means more discipline and more commitment.

Then there is a third group. The baseline of this group includes more than the outward performance of disciplines, obedience, and ministry. These Christians also recognize the need to deal with sins of the heart like a critical spirit, pride, selfishness,envy,resentment, and anxiety. They see their inconsistency in having their quiet times, their failure to witness at every opportunity, and their frequent failures in dealing with sins of the heart. This group of Christians is far more likely to be plagued by a sense of guilt because group members have not met their own expectations. And because they think God’s acceptance of them is based on their performance, they have little joy in their Christian lives. For them, life is like a treadmill on which they keep slipping farther and farther behind. This group needs the gospel, but they don’t realize it is for them. I know, because I was in this group.

Gradually over time, and from a deep sense of need, I came to realize that the gospel is for believers, too. When I finally realized this, every morning I would pray over a Scripture such as Isaiah 53:6,” All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all,” and then say, “Lord, I have gone astray. I have turned to my own way, but you have laid all my sin on Christ and because of that I approach you and feel accepted by you.”

I came to see that Paul’s statement in Galatians 2:20, “The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me,” was made in the context of justification (see vv. 15-21). Yet Paul was speaking in the present tense: “The life I now live ….” Because of the context, I realized Paul was not speaking about his sanctification but about his justification. For Paul, then, justification (being declared righteous by God on the basis of the righteousness of Christ) was not only a past-tense experience but also a present-day reality. Paul lived every day by faith in the shed blood and righteousness of Christ. Every day he looked to Christ alone for his acceptance with the Father. He believed, like Peter (see 1 Pet. 2:4-5), that even our best deeds–our spiritual sacrifices–are acceptable to God only through Jesus Christ. Perhaps no one apart from Jesus himself has ever been as committed a disciple both in life and ministry as the Apostle Paul. Yet he did not look to his own performance but to Christ’s “performance” as the sole basis of his acceptance with God.

So I learned that Christians need to hear the gospel all of their lives because it is the gospel that continues to remind us that our day-to-day acceptance with the Father is not based on what we do for God but upon what Christ did for us in his sinless life and sin-bearing death. I began to see that we stand before God today as righteous as we ever will be, even in heaven, because he has clothed us with the righteousness of his Son. Therefore, I don’t have to perform to be accepted by God.

Now I am free to obey him and serve him because I am already accepted in Christ (see Rom. 8:1). My driving motivation now is not guilt but gratitude. Yet even when we understand that our acceptance with God is based on Christ’s work, we still naturally tend to drift back into a performance mindset. Consequently, we must continually return to the gospel. To use an expression of the late Jack Miller, we must “preach the gospel to ourselves every day.” For me that means I keep going back to Scriptures such as Isaiah 53:6, Galatians 2:20, and Romans 8:1. It means I frequently repeat the words from an old hymn, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.

Discomfort of the Justified Life

Jerry Bridges:

God wants us to find our primary joy in our objectively declared justification, not in our subjectively perceived sanctification. Regardless of how much progress we make in our pursuit of holiness, it will never come close to the absolute perfect righteousness of Christ that is ours through our union with him in his life and death.

So we should learn to live with the discomfort of the justified life. We should accept the fact that as still-growing Christians we will always be dissatisfied with our sanctification. But at the same time, we should remember that in Christ we are justified. We are righteous in him.

--Jerry Bridges, 'The Discomfort of the Justified Life,' in Justified: Modern Reformation Essays on the Doctrine of Justification

(HT:  Dane Ortlund)

Living By Works Rather Than Grace

My observation of Christendom is that most of us tend to base our personal relationship with God on our performance instead of on His grace. If we’ve performed well—whatever “well” is in our opinion—then we expect God to bless us. If we haven’t done so well, our expectations are reduced accordingly. In this sense, we live by works rather than by grace. We are saved by grace, but we are living by the “sweat” of our own performance.

Moreover, we are always challenging ourselves and one another to “try harder.” We seem to believe success in the Christian life (however we define success) is basically up to us: our commitment, our discipline, and our zeal, with some help from God along the way. We give lip service to the attitude of the apostle Paul, “But by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Corinthians 15:10), but our unspoken motto is, “God helps those who help themselves.”

- Jerry Bridges, Transforming Grace: Living Confidently in God's Unfailing Love

(HT:  Tullian)

James MacDonald - Wise Up About Alcohol - Part 4

Today I will continue to interact with Pastor James MacDonald's sermon called "Wise Up About Alcohol" (here and here). Here is his fifth reason for his belief that total abstinence is the wisest choice for all believers.

5. Because Alcohol Is Addictive

Yes, and so is sex, eating, exercise, and a whole host of other things. Just because alcohol (or anything else) may be addictive for one Christian, doesn’t mean that alcohol should be abstained from for all believers. Should we abstain from sex because it has even more addictive power than alcohol?

I wish he would have made this distinction: Alcohol MAY be addictive. Many Christians, myself included, drink alcohol and don’t feel any slavish addiction to it. To make a definitive statement that alcohol IS addictive would give a power to the substance of alcohol that is doesn’t inherently possess.

This is the phrase from his message that disturbed me the most:

(Said in very passionate tones):

“I can’t imagine for the life of me why a follower of Jesus Christ, a blood purchased son or daughter of the living God, would involve themselves with something that is reeking the havoc in our society that it is!! I don’t understand it.”

I can’t imagine for the life of my how a pastor who is the shepherd of thousands of people would make a statement like this. It would be like me getting up in front of my church and saying “I can’t for the life of me understand why a follower of Jesus Christ would ever send their kids to public school!”

This may be my strong personal conviction, but sending kids to home school or public school is an extra-biblical issue that should NOT divide our churches. As their shepherd, I should seek to uphold the unity of the body and not make strong statements like this that will only divide my people on a matter that should never be divided upon.

Pastor MacDonald says at the end of his message that he isn’t making a law here for his people, but he does essentially say in his statement above, “You may be a Christian and drink but I don’t get you! You are weird to me!” This is not a very loving statement for his people and it grieves me deeply. When you have that much power and influence over your people and make statements like this that have zero Biblical foundation the detrimental fallout is potentially huge.

How much better would it be to say, “I know that this issue of alcohol is potentially divisive among Christians today. As your shepherd, it is my conviction that I will personally abstain, but I want you to know that we will not be divided at this church over abstinence from or participation in the consumption of alcohol. Even though I choose not to, as a Christian, you have the freedom to drink alcohol in such a way that does not promote drunkenness and if you choose to do so I will not pass judgment upon you.” How much more unifying, biblical, and helpful would that we for his people?

Jerry Bridges is very helpful on this topic. If you have not read his book, Transforming Grace, you should. It is one of the most helpful, easy to read, books on the Christian life that you could ever find. He has a very helpful chapter that deals with these matters and I could do no better than to quote him at length.

...legalism insists on conformity to manmade religious rules and requirements, which are often unspoken but are nevertheless very real. To use a more common expression, it requires conformity to the “do’s and don’ts” of our particular Christian circle. We force this legalism on other or allow others to force it on us. It is conformity to how other people think we should live instead of how the Bible tells us to live. More often than not, these rules have no valid biblical basis. Like the Pharisees of Jesus’ time, we have tried to “help” God by adding our manmade rules to His commands (p. 120).

These manmade rules are what Bridges calls, “fences”. Fences are not all bad. For us personally, they can be quite helpful at times but we need to be cautious with our fences. Bridges writes:

For all of us, it may be good to have some fences, but we have to work at keeping them as just that - fences, helpful to us but not necessarily applicable to others. We also have to work at guarding our freedom from other people’s fences.

Some of the fences in our respective Christian circles have been around a long time. No one quite knows their origin, but by now they are “embedded in concrete.” Although it may cause conflict if you violate one, you must guard your freedom. To paraphrase Paul, “Stand firm in your freedom, and don’t let anyone bring you into bondage with their fences.”

I’m not suggesting you jump over fences just to thumb your nose at the people who hold to them so dearly. We are to “make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification” (Romans 14:19). Use discretion in embracing or rejecting a particular fence. But don’t let others coerce you with manmade rules. And ask God to help you see if you are subtly coercing or judging others with your own fences (p. 124).

Bridges’ quote here gets to the heart of my problem with Pastor MacDonald’s message. Bridges writes:

As Christians we can’t seem to accept the clear biblical teaching in Romans 14 that God allows equally godly people to have differing opinions on certain matters. We universalize what we think is God’s particular leading in our lives and apply it to everyone else.

When we think like that we are, so to speak, “putting God in a box.” We are insisting that He must surely lead everyone as we believe He has led us. We refuse to allow God the freedom to deal with each of us as individuals. When we think like that, we are legalists.

We must not seek to bind the consciences of other believers with the private convictions that arise out of our personal walk with God. Even if you believe God has led you in developing those convictions, you still must not elevate them to the level of spiritual principles for everyone else to follow (p. 126).

This is why I can’t believe that Pastor MacDonald would stand up in front of thousands of Christians and say what he said above. When your spiritual leader says something like this in reference to an extra-biblical matter I can’t see how it can possibly be helpful for the Body. Will it not drive a wedge between those in his church with differing convictions on alcohol? He has not served his people well in this way. We should not be dividing our people over this issue. Pastors (and all believers), be wary of how you communicate your views on extra-biblical matters.

Performance Vs. Grace

Jerry Bridges:

My observation of Christendom is that most of us tend to base our relationship with God on our performance instead of on His grace. If we’ve performed well–whatever “well” is on our opinion–then we expect God to bless us. If we haven’t done so well, our expectations are reduced accordingly. In this sense, we live by works rather than by grace. We are saved by grace, but we are living by the “sweat” of our own performance.

Moreover, we are always challenging ourselves and one another to “try harder.” We seem to believe success in the Christian life (however we define success) is basically up to us: our commitment, our discipline, and our zeal, with some help from God along the way. We give lip service to the attitude of the Apostle Paul, “But by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Corinthians 15:10), but our unspoken motto is, “God helps those who help themselves.”

The realization that my daily relationship with God is based on the infinite merit of Christ instead of my own performance is a very freeing and joyous experience.

- Jerry Bridges, Transforming Grace

(HT: Tullian Tchividjian)

Reflections on Time Spent With Jerry Bridges

Stephen Altrogge:

Most old people do two things very well: rotary clubs and television. Jerry Bridges isn’t most old people.

Two weeks ago I had the privilege of listening to Jerry teach for a week on the topic of “Grace and Sanctification”. The teaching was killer, and if you haven’t had the chance to read one of Jerry’s books, stop what you’re doing and go buy one on Amazon. Now. (Z comment - I would recommend, Transforming Grace)

But it wasn’t only Jerry’s words that affected me - it was his life as well. Here’s a few lessons I picked up by observing Jerry Bridges.

The Gospel Matters

Health Matters

Discipline Matters

Read his post to see how he fleshes these out.

Jerry Bridges - New Devotional - Holiness Day by Day

Here is a new devotional from Jerry Bridges. There are few men who write so clearly and helpfully about the gospel. You can read some samples by clicking here.