True Biblical Fellowship

On vactaion, I read through Jerry Bridges' The Crisis of Caring: Recovering the Meaning of True Fellowship. This is not Bridges' best book (that is The Dicipline of Grace or The Great Exchange). However, it is an excellent primer on the nature and foundation of true Biblical fellowship. Bridges exalts the importance of living our lives together in the local church. He encourages us all to have a few people who know us as completely as possible. As always, Bridges bases true fellowship with each other in the power of the Gospel. Because we have fellowship with God, we also have fellowship with each other.

Preaching the Gospel to Yourself

In The Bookends of the Christian Life, Bridges and Bevington give some very practical advice about how to preach the gospel to yourself. This is how they do it: They take a different gospel promise each day of the week and apply it to their own sins.

Here are some examples (Notice the personal pronouns):

Sunday: But he was wounded for my transgressions of ____________; he was crushed for my iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought me peace, and with his stripes I am healed. Like a sheep, I have gone astray; I have turned to my own way; and the Lord has laid on him my iniquity (Isaiah 53:5-6).

Tuesday: Blessed am I, whose lawless deeds of ___________ are forgiven, and my sins are covered; blessed am I against whom the Lord will not count my sin (Rom. 4:7-8).

Friday: As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove my transgressions of ________ from me (Psalm 103:12).

Every day: God, be merciful to me, the sinner! (Luke 18:13).
Every day: Christ's work for me is finished! (John 19:30).

Seeing and Rejecting our Functional Saviors

Jesus Christ is the only and all-sufficient Savior. However, sometimes (most of the time?) we look to other things to satisfy and fulfill us.

Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington help us identify our functional saviors with these questions (The Bookends of the Christian Life, p. 73):

-I am preoccupied with __________.
-If only _________, then I would be happy.
-I get my sense of significance from ____________.
-I would protect and preserve __________ at any cost.
-I fear losing _________.
-The thing that gives me the greatest pleasure is _________.
-When I lose ______ I get angry, resentful, frusturated, anxious, or depressed.
-For me, life depends on ____________.
-The thing I value more than anything in the world is _________.
-When I daydream, my mind goes to ___________.
-The best thing I can think of is __________.
-The thing that makes me want to get out of bed in the morning is ________.

You would be wise to spend some time filling in the blanks and repenting of these idols and false saviors.

The Bookends of the Christian Life

Everything by Jerry Bridges is worth reading. His newest book is extremely helpful: The Bookends of the Christian Life.

Basically, here is the point of the book:

Bridges and Bevington compare our lives to a book shelf. Each book represents something about us. Our bookshelves are full of activities and roles. In order to keep all these books stable, we need some sturdy bookends to lean our books on. Without bookends, our books will fall.

Bridges proposes that every Christian should have two particular sturdy bookends that we lean everything in our lives against:

Bookend #1: The Righteousness of Jesus Christ

Bookend #2: The Power of the Holy Spirit

The first bookend is the Gospel. We are accepted by God because of what Christ accomplished, not because of what we have done.
The second bookend is dependence on God's power to enable us to live the Christian life.

This is a brilliant and Biblical illustration. Indeed, these are the bookends of the Christian life. If we try to lean our lives on anything else, we will fail constantly.

I hope this book gains wide readership and that these two bookends begin to shape our worldview.

Bookends Now Available

Jerry Bridges' newest book is now available: The Bookends of the Christian Life. I've been looking forward to this one ever since I heard Bridges describe it a few months ago on an interview with CJ Mahaney.

The two "bookends" are: the righteousness of Christ imputed to the believer and the power of the Holy Spirit enabling the beliver.

Here are some of the questions it addresses:
-How can I overcome persistent guilt?
-How can I deal with the pressure to measure up?
-Where can I find the motivation it takes to grow?
-How can I live the Christian life with both my head and my heart?
-How can I be sure God loves me ?
-How can I change in an authentic and lasting way?

The Bookends of the Christian Life

I'm pretty excited about the new Jerry Bridges book coming out in March: The Bookends of the Christian Life. Everything Bridges writes is helpful and gospel drenched.

You can see a little description of what this books deals with at the WTS site.

This looks like a helpful book.

Holiness Day by Day is a new devotional book that consists of excerpts from the writings of Jerry Bridges. This could be a great resource for learning to preach the gospel to ourselves every day.

Here is a Bridges' quote I found recently:
"Jesus did not die just to give us peace and a purpose in life; He died to save us from the wrath of God. He died to reconcile us to a holy God who was alienated from us because of our sin. He died to ransom us from the penalty of sin – the punishment of everlasting destruction, shut out from the presence of the Lord. He died that we, the just objects of God’s wrath, should become, by His grace, heirs of God and co-heirs with Him."

Repent of our Repentance

"Even our tears of repentance need to be washed in the blood of the Lamb."

"So our best works can never earn us one bit of favor with God. Let us then turn our attention from our own performace, whether it seems good or bad to us, and look to the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is God's provision for our sin, not only on the day we trusted Christ for our salvation but every day of our Christian lives."
-Jerry Bridges (The Dicipline of Grace, p. 43)

Resource Spotlight: The Discipline of Grace

This is an easy to read and profoundly encouraging book for anyone. The Discipline of Grace: God’s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness is one of Jerry Bridges’ best books. If you have ever struggled with what your role is and what role God takes in your growth as a Christian, this book will comfort and challenge you as you learn to rest in Christ while vigorously pursuing a life of holiness.

The first three chapters alone are worth $10,000. They teach us how to preach the gospel to ourselves daily.

There is also a "Cliff's Notes" version/Study guide available.

The 2 Most Important Books in Jerry Bridges' Life

1. The Apostle's Doctrine of the Atonement by George Smeaton (Love it!)
2. Communion With the Triune God by John Owen

(HT: Justin Taylor)

CovLife Gave Jerry an iPod!

Covenant Life Church gave 77-year old Jerry Bridges an iPod yesterday. I find this piece of news more interesting than anything on CNN.com and quite humorous for a Monday morning. Bridges is quickly moving his way up my list of favorite contemporary authors/speakers. If you've never read anything from Jerry Bridges, start here:

1. The Dicipline of Grace

2. The Great Exchange

3. The Gospel for Real Life