Jerry Bridges on Gospel-Driven Sanctification

Early in my Christian life I heard someone say, "The Bible was not given to increase your knowledge but to guide your conduct." Later I came to realize that this statement was simplistic at best and erroneous at worst. The Bible is far more than a rulebook to follow. It is primarily the message of God's saving grace through Jesus Christ, with everything in Scripture before the cross pointing to God's redemptive work and everything after the cross--including our sanctification--flowing from that work. 

There is an element of truth in this statement, however, and the Holy Spirit used it to help me to see that the Bible is not to be read just to gain knowledge. It is, indeed, to be obeyed and practically applied in our daily lives. As James says, "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves" (James 1:22). 

With my new insight, I prayed that God would use the Bible to guide my conduct. Then I began diligently to seek to obey it. I had never heard the phrase "the pursuit of holiness," but that became my primary goal in life. Unfortunately, I made two mistakes. First, I assumed the Bible was something of a rulebook and that all I needed to do was to learn what it says and go do it. I knew nothing of the necessity of depending on the Holy Spirit for his guidance and enablement. 

Still worse, I assumed that God's acceptance of me and his blessing in my life depended on how well I did. I knew I was saved by grace through faith in Christ apart from any works. I had assurance of my salvation and expected to go to heaven when I died. But in my daily life, I thought God's blessing depended on the practice of certain spiritual disciplines, such as having a daily quiet time and not knowingly committing any sin. I did not think this out but just unconsciously assumed it, given the Christian culture in which I lived. Yet it determined my attitude toward the Christian life.

Read the entire post here.

Jerry Bridges: How to Preach the Gospel to Yourself

3 Words To Describe The Total Christian Experience

The total Christian experience is often described in three distinct phrases: justification, sanctification, and glorification.

Justification-being declared righteous before God through faith in Jesus Christ-is a point-in-time event. It is the time in our lives when we are saved.

Sanctification is our growth in Christlikeness. It is a progressive experience covering our entire Christian lives from salvation to glorification.

Glorification occurs at the time we depart from this life to be with Christ.

Adapted from Transforming Grace by Jerry Bridges

Book Review: Transforming Grace by Jerry Bridges

God's grace is a wonderful thing. We are saved by grace and did not do anything to earn it. Many think that grace is basically a means to be saved, but grace is more than that. Grace also is a means of sanctifying us as well.

Jerry Bridges wrote a book years ago which has been released that addresses God's grace changing us called, Transforming Grace. Bridges begins the book by reminding his readers that we should not let our performance guide us in the Christian life. We are never good and our good works are filthy rags if we think we are getting saved by works. We are saved by grace through faith and not by our performance which is exactly what Ephesians 2:8-9 teach us.

Bridges continues on by giving us what grace truly is. If we read the Bible, we will see that grace is at the heart of the gospel message. There is saving grace, which does bring about salvation, and there is living by grace as we walk with Jesus in this life. We are free in grace so that do not have to perform, but our living by grace is the result of the saving grace we have been given by God.

The rest of the book deals with a more practical approach to the grace of God and how it changes us. We show love to God and one another as we live by grace. Our actions reflect that we are saved. We are also to walk in holiness, which Bridges seems to always go back to in other books. Holiness is that we are set apart by God to be His particular people saved by grace.

I am so thankful this book has been published once again for readers to dive in some of Jerry Bridges' earlier books. This book has a discussion guide in the back which will be great for personal study or even small group. I am delighted to recommend this book to everyone.

Thanks Tyndale for letting me review this book.

Responding to Holiness

This sermon from Jerry Bridges was from the 2001 Ligonier National Conference:

Jerry Bridges on Perseverance

Its hard to believe that is has been one year since Jerry Bridges passed on from this life to meet the Savior. He has written numerous books which I had the privilege of reading and reviewing his final book last year.

Recently, Desiring God Ministries shared this video which featured an interview with Bridges on perseverance:

Book Review: The Blessing of Humility by Jerry Bridges

If there is one author I can read over and over again, it is Jerry Bridges. I became a fan of his books ever since I read The Pursuit of Holiness. I have read almost every book he has written and hopefully will finish everyone of them.

Earlier this year, Jerry Bridges departed from this world to meet the Savior face-to-face. Many bloggers, including myself, wrote about how Bridges have influenced them. Many on social media posted their favorite quotes from him and he was even a trending topic on Twitter. After Bridges's death, I learned that he wrote one final book, which it was not called that at the time, but now it is. If there is one word to describe Jerry Bridges, it would be humble. He always made sure God's glory was magnified through his writings, the sermons he preached, and in the life he lived as he walked with Jesus. His last book happens to be on humility, which is called, The Blessing of Humility.

Bridges begins the book by saying humility is the second most frequently trait taught in the Bible. He wrote, "All other character traits, in one way or another, are built upon love and humility." No one is more qualified to teach (if there truly was one) about humility then Jerry Bridges himself.

Bridges taught that Jesus was the most humble man who walked the earth. He not only taught humilty, He also lived it. Bridges goes through several passages of scripture that teaches about humility in the Christian life. God also promises to give grace to the humble and exalt those who are humble.

Bridges uses the bulk of the book to go back to the beatitudes taught by Jesus on what it means to be humble. Every ounce of humility comes from a dependence of God in everything for the Christian life from the spiritual things to the most insignificant material object. In the last chapter of this book, Bridges reminds his readers on the gospel message. Being humble means depending on the grace of God in daily living and also knowing that our salvation is intact.

Bridges reminds his readers that the gospel is not just for unbelievers but for all believers which he addresses in great detail in his book, The Gospel for Real Life. In the last paragraph of the book, Bridges says that as we grow in the Christian life, we will become more dependent on the righteousness of Christ which is shown to us in the gospel as well as the Holy Spirit. Dependence on the righteousness of Christ and the Holy Spirit will lead us the humility.

I have that last paragraph underlined because these were Bridges's last written words that I am aware of. Bridges is a genuine believer who loved Jesus and the people he wrote to even though he had never met them, which he did count them as brothers and sisters in the Lord. I have always recommended books by Bridges and will continue to do so. I am delighted to recommend The Blessings of Humility for all Christians to read.

I want to thank Tyndale for allowing me to review Jerry Bridges's last book.

Memorial Service for Jerry Bridges

Last week, learned about the passing of Jerry Bridges. A speaker and author who affected many lives including mine. This past Friday, a memorial service was held at his church, Village Seven Presbyterian Church in Colorado Springs, CO.

Remembering Jerry Bridges

This past weekend, author and speaker Jerry Bridges past away. He was 86-years-old. Jerry was, and still is, one of my favorite authors. God had used him to impact my life through his book.

I remember reading The Pursuit of Holiness before I went off to college and did not get much of it. During my sophomore year, I decided to give it another shot and I was blown away by Jerry's simplistic yet deep theological teaching. I immediately became a Jerry Bridges fan.

I read The Practice of Godliness a few months later and it changed my perspective on what it means to be a godly person. I was hit hard with his teaching on humility which sprang from Jerry's life. In fact, he wrote one last book, which is on humility called, The Blessing of Humility: Walk within Your Calling, which will come out in June.

Jerry was the first person I heard that the gospel was not just for unbelievers but for believers as well. He introduced me to preaching the gospel to myself which I thought was weird because when I thought of preaching, it was to those who were your audience. Glad that perspective changed.

Jerry always wrote in a user friendly format that all readers can enjoy his books yet he was also deep in his teaching. He always made much of Jesus in his books. One thing that I loved about his books, he always backed up everything with the Word of God. When you pick up a book by Jerry Bridges, you know you were going to get a Bible study. I must confess, I have not read all of Jerry's books, but I plan too which there are not many I have not read by him.

I am grateful to God for Jerry Bridges. I will always be thankful for the impact he had on me. I always said, when I get to heaven, the one theologian of old I want to talk with was John Owen. Now I can say, there are two: John Owen and Jerry Bridges.

Jerry Bridges on The Relevance of the Gospel

Desiring God:

The Gospel For Real Devotions

How does the gospel relate our personal devotional time? Jerry Bridges answers the question in this video which from the recent Desiring God National Conference:



Here is a list of my favorite books by Jerry Bridges:

Respectable Sins

The Discipline of Grace

The Joy of Fearing God

Who Am I?

The Gospel for Real Life

The Great Exchange with Bob Bevington

The Pursuit of Holiness

The Practice of Godliness

Around The Web-October 11, 2013

John Calvin on the Holiness of Life by Jerry Bridges

20 Tips for Personal Devotions in the Digital Age by David Murray

Does Grace Make You Lazy? by Tullian Tchividjian

Has God Hardwire Us For A 7 Day Week? by Mark Driscoll

What if you do not like the church you are attending? Seth McBee answers that question.

John Piper Talks With Jerry Bridges

Jonathan Parnell:

Few people work faithfully for the same organization for almost 60 years. Yet it was 1955 when Jerry Bridges, a Korean War veteran, joined the team at The Navigators where he continues to this day. An author of several books, Mr. Bridges is a leading voice in explaining the significance of the gospel in everyday life, including The Discipline of Grace, The Gospel for Real Life, and The Pursuit of Holiness, to name a few.

John Piper recently sat down with Mr. Bridges in Minneapolis to talk about life and ministry. In this 25-minute video, they discuss key issues regarding God's providence, spiritual disciplines, and the Christian life.

Who You Are In Christ

I recently finished Jerry Bridges' latest book, Who Am I? Identity In Christ. Many people in church know they are in Christ, but not many Christians know who they are in Christ. Bridges covers who we are in Christ in eight short chapters where each concludes with a statement talking about our identity in Christ:

I am a creature, created in the image of God, fully dependent on him and fully accountable to him.

By the work of God, I am no longer in Adam: I am in Christ, through a union that is both living and representative.

I am justified, I am righteous before God, because God has charged my sin to Christ and credited to me his perfect righteousness.

I am an adopted son of God. I'm a child of the King. I have the privilege in this life of an intimate father-child relationship with him, and I look forward with expectant hope to an eternal inheritance that is far more glorious than anything I can imagine.

I am a new creation, with a new heart, a new spirit, and a new identity before God. Having been delivered from the dominion of sin and united to Christ, I am always able to resist temptation. When I do sin, I am always welcome to the cross, for all my sins have been forgiven in Jesus.

I am a saint: I do not belong to myself, but to God. I have been purchased and declared holy by God, and set apart for God. Thus, God is ever at work to cause me to grow in spiritual maturity, a process in which he calls me to cooperate, in every way, out of gratitude for his mercy.

I am a servant of Jesus Christ. By God's grace, I serve him by serving others in the particular role or roles to which, in his providential wisdom, he has called me.

In this life I am and always will be imperfect, a saved sinner, seeking to grow in holiness and relating to God on the basis of his grace that is mine because I am...in Christ!

Jesus Had To Be Divine and Man

In order for Jesus Christ to qualify as the atonement for the sins of the redeemed, he must be personally perfect-that is, holy, having lived a sinless life. In order to be perfect, Christ must be more than a mere man-he must be divine. God's chosen mediator, Jesus Christ, is himself fully God (John 1:1, 18) and thus uniquely qualified to complete the work of redemption.

However, because man sinned, man must bear the penalty of sin, so in addition to being fully God, the mediator must also be fully man in order to bear the sin of man as their representative. Also, the mediator must be a man since the mediating act of atoning for sin requires a sacrificial death (Lev. 17:11; Heb. 9:22), and it is impossible for God to die.

Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington, The Great Exchange

Jerry Bridges on Preaching the Gospel to Yourself

To preach the gospel to yourself means that you continually face up to your own sinfulness and then flee to Jesus through faith in His shed blood and righteous life. It means that you appropriate, again by faith, the fact that Jesus fully satisfied the Law of God...To preach the gospel to yourself means that you take at face value the precious words of Romans 4:7-8: "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin"...To preach the gospel to yourself means you appropriate by faith the words of Isaiah 53:6: "The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." It means you dwell upon the promise that God has removed your transgressions from you as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12), that He has blotted out your transgressions and remembers your sin no more (Isaiah 43:25)

Taken from Holiness Day by Day by Jerry Bridges: Kindle edition.

New Book on the Transformation that Comes from The Gospel

Jerry Bridges has a new book coming out later this month that I am very excited about. The book is titled, The Transforming Power of the Gospel.

Here is a basic description of the book from Westminster's Bookstore:

From Jerry Bridges about what makes The Transforming Power of the Gospel different from his other works: The first distinguishing mark of The Transforming Power of the Gospel is that it begins with a consideration of the infinite holiness of God and the consequent seriousness of sin in the light of that holiness (Chapters 2 and 3). The second mark is the increased emphasis on gratitude for the gospel as the primary motivator for the pursuit of transformation (Chapter 6). Third, the chapter on grace, addresses some common misunderstandings of the nature and application of grace that I have not dealt with before (Chapter 7). Fourth, is the greater emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit in our transformation (Chapter 8). I have covered this subject before but not to the extent I do in the present book. I am convinced the evangelical church needs a greater emphasis on the role of the Holy Spirit and I have had to address that need.

The apostle Paul writes that we are to be transformed, but for many Christians, figuring out how to approach spiritual transformation can be elusive. Jerry Bridges helps us understand that we have available to us the ultimate power source for true spiritual growth: the gospel.

In The Transforming Power of the Gospel, Bridges guides you through a thorough examination of:
what the biblical meaning of grace is and how it applies to your life
how Jesus' work in His life and death applies to the believer in justification and adoption
why basic spiritual disciplines are necessary for spiritual growth
what role the Holy Spirit plays in both definitive and progressive sanctification

Every book by Bridges is very deep in theology, but also easy to read. I hope many Christians will pick up this book to embrace how the gospel will transform you based on what God has done through the finished work of Christ on the cross.

Also check out my list on The Top 5 Books by Jerry Bridges that I posted last year.

Can A Christian Be Ungodly?

As Christians, we are called to love God with everything we've got and lead people to Jesus. We gather with fellow believers in corporate worship and in small groups (Sunday School or community groups depending on your church's context), and even have fellowships as people's home or lunch at Taco Bell. We honor God in our lives and live a life of continual repentance, but can we still be ungodly.

A lot of times, we think of ungodly as being impure. Jerry Bridges wrote, in his book, Respectable Sins, Ungodliness describes an attitude toward God...Ungodliness may be defined as living one's everyday life with little or no thought of God, or of God's will, or of God's glory, or of one's dependence on God.

We can honor God on Sunday and can give him the stiff-arm the rest of week by not even acknowledging who he is and how dependent we are in Him. You can be ungodly in your relationships because you leave God out of them. You can be ungodly in your work thinking it is the work place where God is not welcomed so why bother. You can even be ungodly while listening to a sermon. You might be looking at your watch wondering how long is the Pastor going to be so I can get to lunch before the other churches get out.

We are commanded in scripture to give God glory in everything we do (see 1 Corinthians 10:31, Colossians 3:17, and 3:23). Bridges said, We are not only to eat for the glory of God, we are to drive for the glory of God, we are to shop for the glory of God, and we are to engage in our social relationships to the glory of God. Everything we do is to be done to the glory of God. The good news of the Gospel is that, For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly (Romans 5:6). While we had no thought of God in our daily life and even during our worship, Christ died for us who could not help ourselves.

My Top Five Books By Jerry Bridges

One of my favorite author is Jerry Bridges. The first time I read one of his books was the summer before I left for college. I love how he has a user-friendly approach to his writings and how his books a saturated with Scripture. The following list are my five favorite books by Bridges and would recommend to any Christian (recently converted or maturing in Christ):

The Pursuit of Holiness


Discipline of Grace


The Gospel for Real Life


The Joy of Fearing God


The Great Exchange