Slogging the Word 

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. I think the background noise that you hear is Pastor Steve Cooley.

Steve, you have no idea how much I wanted to make sound effects during that whole thing.

Okay, go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Welcome to another hour of No Compromise Radio.

Well, I'm glad you're in the studio. Would you consider this to be a studio or just like a really cheap table?

I'd rather not say what I'd call it. I would just say if anybody wants to donate to a studio, yes.

I thought about moving this little setup to home because it would probably be quieter.

That would be infinitely more comfortable, may I say.

I know.

Yeah, I mean your house is, no offense, nicer than your office.

No offense.

Well, for those of you that don't know who Steve Cooley is, Steve is the pastor here at Bethlehem Bible Church and a friend, and we've done a lot of shows over the years together.

Literally billions, billions served. That's what we say. Oh, wait, that's McDonald's. Sorry.

Today in real time, it's May 15th. Beware the Ides of March.

I didn't even know that. You're so politically minded.

It was May 4th, driving down the freeway in Massachusetts, and I saw something about Sith, Star Wars, this, that, and the other. I said to Kim, what in the world is going on? Of course, then I figured out May the 4th be with you.

Then you have Cinco de Mayo, and we were surrounded by all these things. There was a lady I read about on Citizen Free Press, and she was upset that there was not a day set aside for single ladies because you have Mother's Day, but she wanted a singles ladies day.

There probably has to be a singles ladies day.

Yeah, it's called All the Single Ladies Day. All the single ladies.

Jerry Bridges on Grace, Slog, and the Christian Life

Today on No Compromise Radio, Pastor Steve and I are going to talk about a book called Transforming Grace by Jerry Bridges, subtitled. Where do we ever get the idea of a subtitle? There's got to be a background for that.

You know what? Usually the subtitle is more helpful than the title. If you want to know what's in a book, the subtitle helps. I guess there are books that don't have subtitles, but they're usually fiction or something.

Speaking of which, Steve, I conflated by accident two different books that I've just released. Cancer's Not Your Shepherd, a 31-day guide to suffering. And then I said on the air, Steve, the updated Sexual Fidelity book, a 31-day guide, and I meant to say a 31-day guide to purity, but I said Sexual Fidelity, a 31-day guide to suffering.

Oh, the joys of conflation.

Transforming Grace, Living Confidently in God's Unfailing Love, Jerry Bridges. Now, you don't know what I'm going to talk about today specifically, but before we get into that, what do you like about Jerry Bridges?

Why would you read Jerry Bridges? Why would you encourage other people to pick up and read Jerry Bridges?

I think Jerry Bridges, I think most of the people I read, has just this unique knack of putting things in such a way, you know, in simple language where virtually anybody can get what he's talking about.

So, and I like, I mean, if I were to write a book, I'd want somebody to say, you write like Jerry Bridges, right? That's probably as good as it gets.

That is as good as it gets. Probably he's a great writer, and probably the audience that he's writing to helps because he, for most of his adult life, was a minister to younger people, college people and navigators, right?

So that probably helps. How do you communicate to college students?

I mean, I was talking about another book not written by Jerry Bridges the other day, and I said, you know, people just talk about what a slog it is to read. And I'm like, who would want, you know, hey, Steve, I slogged my way through your book.

I would never want somebody to say that. I'd want them to say, I really enjoyed reading it or, you know, I couldn't wait to see what was next or, you know, whatever. Or I knew where you were going, and then you took that turn and, whoa.

I wouldn't want somebody to say, dude, I made it through your book, but I don't know. Do I get time out of purgatory for that?

That reminds me, Steve. It's similar to preaching and listening to sermons, right? You can have somebody who's doing, quote-unquote, expository preaching, and basically as you're sitting and listening to it, they're slogging through.

They, the pastor, are slogging through verses. Oh, I read that, and I was really encouraged.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Slog the word.

Yeah, let me just find all the things that I liked in this passage and throw them out in no particular order and in no, you know, organized fashion. Just little droplets of information. Yeah.

Steve, I know you'll agree with me. I, we also like Jerry Bridges because his theology is so good, yet he doesn't wear, and of course, I love creeds and catechisms and confessions, but he doesn't really wear them on his sleeve in his books.

You can tell they're the undergirding rebar behind everything, and for instance, with sanctification, he has a Reformed view of that, i .e., monergistic sanctification. He has views of law gospel that are correct.

He has views of Christ as preeminent as correct. So, that's all there, but it's just not bound up in, I don't know, dork college publishers.

Yeah, I wish he wasn't King James only, but other than that, he has shoon.

He is not.

So, what we're going to do on the show today, Transforming Grace, Jerry Bridges, I'm going to read a quote, and the quote's right here in front of you, and then we're just going to talk.

Oh, I thought you were going to say, and I'm going to see if you like it or not.

True or false, it's a no-go poll. I hear some podcasters, they call themselves, they call the podcast pods, and, of course, I never liked that because that makes me think of invasion of the body snatchers.

Well, I mean, why not casts, right? I mean, why pods?

Yeah, pods. Yeah, I don't know why these are casts. And sometimes I hear them say, well, we're going to have a quote, and then we're going to just riff back and forth. I don't know if I really do much riffing.

Like dueling banjos.

Moreover, Bridges says, we are always challenging ourselves and one another to try harder. We seem to believe success in the Christian life is basically up to us, our commitment, our discipline, and our zeal, with some help from God along the way.

What are your thoughts on that?

Slug, you know.

Back to slug.

This is your best slug now.

The slug of Despond, as Bunyan would say.

Well, I mean, I think this is typical of evangelicals. It's so hard for us to look at our Christian life as anything but life on a hamster wheel. It's a sanctified Christian life, right? But it's definitely one that's lived on a performance wheel.

You and I were talking off the air, and I'm just like, I think people get confused because they see passages like Galatians 5, and they think, okay, fruit of the Spirit. Am I producing sufficient works of the Spirit so that I can call myself a Christian?

And that's how we live our lives. We're chasing that fruit of the Spirit. If I just do this more, if I just do that more, if I just do, then I'll see more fruit of the Spirit. Okay, there might be some truth to that.

On the other hand, I think what you're really doing is conflating justification and sanctification. You're mashing everything together.

Well, Steve, not only that, it's a pietistic view. So, we are all for holiness and obedience and piety. But pietism is something that I'm sure started earlier than this, but really came together in Germany in the 1500s.

And it's a look to the self always. And the next quote I have here on the same page of the Bridges book helps us. 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.

But it is not meant to be a one-time experience. The truth needs to be reaffirmed daily. That is what this book is all about. So, instead of looking at ourselves all the time, do I have enough fruit?

Am I obedient enough? Am I holy enough? Kind of like with kids, they ask you when they're little, am I growing? Daddy, am I growing?

Well, it's kind of the semi-Pelagian, he loves me, he loves me not. And why does he love me? Because I'm beautiful enough. Because I'm strong enough. Because I'm kind enough. Because I'm obedient enough.

Are we going to start doing Saturday Night Live? Is that Stuart Smalley?

Yeah.

Was that his name?

That was a pretty good skit, by the way.

People like me. They really, really like me. They like me because I'm good enough. I'm strong enough. I'm kind enough. Yeah, I mean, this whole idea, if God, the triune God, if his satisfaction in me is found in me, well, then, of course, my works are dependent upon that.

And I can be, you know, I mean, how sad would it be? Just imagine for a moment, you adopt a child and you tell that child, I love you unconditionally unless, you know, you disappoint me. Unless you do this or that.

And in that case, I'm going to have no choice but to boot you out of the house. Well, then you really didn't adopt that child and love them unconditionally. You had conditions. You just didn't spell out what they were.

And so, somehow, we take this idea that God's love for us is conditional. And I guess you could argue that it is, but the conditions are all met in Christ Jesus. So, if we're in Christ Jesus, then all this introspection and hamster wheel work are all for naught.

Steve, that ties beautifully into that Bridges quote regarding the Lord Jesus and his infinite merit.

I try.

The truth, he said, of that needs to be reaffirmed daily. And so, it's easy for us, affected by the fall, to get into this,. I'm accepted by God because of what I do. And we realize as Christians, oh, I'm initially accepted by God by what Jesus did.

But now, we've got Jesus behind us and now it's based on us. And so, back to your point about a parent. If a parent adopts a child,. I love you so much that I spent 25 grand and flew to the Ukraine. But now, my love for you, now that you do have my last name, is based on your performance.

Isn't that ridiculous?

It's crazy. And how much more, if we can understand that as a human being, how much more, you know, the infinite God who truly did set his affection upon us, because it's not like our affection. He did this before we were ever created, before time began.

So, the idea that then he would, you know, I'm Steve. How could you? You're out. Or, you know, fill in the blank, put your name in there. This idea, again, is not a biblical one, but it's the one that we most labor under, and I say we, in evangelical circles.

It's do this or you're out.

I think that's probably my new preaching series. You know, these churches have these eight-part series with really cool graphics and stuff. That's my new series.

Do this or you're out.

And probably a lot of people would show up.

They would love it.

Oh, my people love it so. We'd probably have to do, you know, you say, I don't want to do two services a day. We probably couldn't. We'd have three, four services.

Parking lot services.

Oh, yeah.

When I was a kid, I went to our cabin with my mom and dad, and then dad would go back to work. It was 165 miles back home to Omaha, and we stayed there most of the summer. And so my mom wanted to take us to the Lutheran Church.

And who wants to go inside the church building in the summer in Nebraska or South Dakota? You know, Lyle Alzado was from Yankton, South Dakota. I did not know that. We would go to Yankton, South Dakota, and we would go to the Lutheran Church service on Sunday morning at the drive-in.

And so the pastor had a speaker and a microphone and would stand on top of the snack bar. And you would put those little speaker things on your window. And here was the worst part about it, Steve.

Singing.

Because then it was just the Ebendroths in the car singing. There's nobody who would sing well except us.

Couldn't they just pump some, like, music through the speakers?

They should have. Bridges, quote three. One of the best-kept secrets among Christians today is this. Don't you like when people say that and you're like, okay, what's really the best-kept secret? Jesus paid it all.

I mean all. He has not only purchased your forgiveness of sins and your ticket to heaven. He purchased every blessing and every answer to prayer you will ever receive. Every one of them, no exceptions.

Yeah, but you don't live with me. You don't know how bad I am. You don't know all my sins.

I know, but the Lord does.

And he paid for it. I mean, that goes back to, honestly, when I first got saved, reading Isaiah chapter nine, and just thinking, okay, my secular therapist, because that's what I had back then. My secular therapist doesn't know everything about me.

And, you know, he says things that aren't always helpful to me. But the God of the universe loved me and gave himself for me. And that thought, you know, I'm like, I can remember even thinking, I don't even like me.

Matter of fact, I really kind of despise myself. And Jesus died for me. That is overwhelming. And I just don't think we should lose that. And we're wont to lose that. I mean, this is what we do, and this is what Bridges is talking about.

We get caught up in this idea, well, if Jesus knew about this sin, I don't think he'd pay for that.

Back to your Galatians fruit of the Spirit stuff. This is, he purchased every blessing and every answer to prayer, and he's also given us the Spirit of God who produces fruit in us. Everything comes from him.

All right. But here's the proverbial rub. Why don't more pastors talk this way? Bridges gives the answer. Page 19, Transforming Grace. Why is this such a well-kept secret? For one thing, we are afraid of this truth.

So before I read any farther or further, which is it, farther or further?

You choose.

At least I didn't say irregardless. What do you think people are afraid of when it comes to grace?

Well, I mean, the most obvious one is they're afraid that you're going to turn into some kind of antinomian.

Okay, there we go. Is that the Ant-Man? Every time I see the Ant-Man Marvel character, is it Marvel or is it somebody else?

No, it is Marvel.

Okay. He's the antinomian man.

Well, and it's interesting to me because Paul wrote about this. You know, he said, what then? You know, shall we sin that grace may abound all the more? In other words, there was this he's asking the question.

He's like, if we get the gospel right, well, what's the response? The response is going to be, well, then we can go ahead and sin because we can do whatever we want. And the answer is no. You know, you're either a slave to sin or you're a slave to righteousness.

And what does that mean? Does that mean you obey fully? No, because then he goes on in Romans 7 and talks about, you know, the various struggles that he has. He doesn't do what he wants to do and he does what he doesn't want to do.

And then in Romans 8, I mean, there's a nice flow to Romans. It's almost like the Holy Spirit was guiding him. And he says, you know, he culminates things with who then will deliver me from this body of death?

And then he says, but thanks be to God that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Well, why is that? Because in spite of this struggle, in spite of the fact that he fails, in spite of everything else, there is no condemnation.

God is fully satisfied with the price that Jesus Christ paid for all who will ever believe. It's done. Not something that you're adding to, not something that you're completing, not something that you're exhibiting in you, you know, that so that God will go, oh, he really gets it.

No, he, it's done.

I came across Steve Cooley, No Compromise Radio. Steve, I say a hearty, verily, verily, amen, amen, truly, truly to what you said. Bridges echoes what you said or you echo bridges. We are afraid to tell ourselves that we don't have to work anymore.

The work is all done. If we believe this truth, we are afraid that if we really believe this, we will slack off in our Christian duties. But the deeper core issue is that we don't really believe that we're still bankrupt.

That's interesting. He ties in not only, well, people will be tempted to, they'll be tempted to sin that grace might abound, which is a possibility based on sovereign free grace. It should be something we shouldn't do, but it's possible.

We could do it, but we shouldn't do it. But also, we then forget about who we really are and what our resources are like. We forget we're still bankrupt.

The hymn writer says it well, prone to wander. Well, I think we're prone to wander in a number of directions. And what's the answer to antinomianism or legalism, whatever it is? It's to keep our eyes on the object of our faith, the author, the perfecter.

When we look at Christ Jesus, we'll avoid either ditch of legalism or antinomianism.

Steve, maybe what we could do if this was videotaped, we could start playing some YouTube fails. You ever watch fails on YouTube?

I don't usually because they just make me cringe. Because I usually, you know, I'll see the things where the guy jumps onto the ice thing. And, you know, they just make me feel bad for whoever it is. I want to laugh, but on the other hand, I go, man, that hurts.

And the older I get, the more I identify with falling down and getting hurt and everything. So I just think—.

I so agree, especially if I watch mountain bike fails or something like that and how many times their neck— they do some crab, scorpion, weird thing on their neck and they don't break their neck. It's amazing.

But what if we watched treadmill fails? That's basically what this is. It's a treadmill fail where you're trying to do things on your own and you're trying to do harder. And then you get your eyes off of the line of sight or the board and you look down and you just go spiraling backward.

I'll tell you what I would enjoy if we were doing this as a feature would be preaching fails. Where people said, you know, if you don't do X or if you are doing Y, how dare you call yourself a child of God?

That's pretty popular.

Yeah, I know it is.

I've done that before.

Well, join the club.

I was telling Steve before the—.

But we're not on video, so.

I'm so thankful for that. I can kind of rub my nose. And you've got something in your mouth. You kind of look like you're spitting snuff or something over there.

I am, as a matter of fact.

Someone—I think they're called Honest Youth Pastor. They critiqued one of my sermons the other day on YouTube, so you can probably pull that up.

They don't have the guts to do one of mine.

Bridges, you are loved and accepted by God through the merit of Jesus, and you are blessed by God through the merit of Jesus. Sounds like Christ for pardon, Christ for power to me. Nothing you will ever do—let me repeat that.

Nothing you will ever do will cause him to love you any more or any less. He loves you strictly by his grace given to you through Jesus.

But, Pastor, what about Romans 8 when it says, you know, nothing in all—oh, yeah, that kind of—. What about?

Well, it's interesting you bring that up because the love of God, the love of Christ in Romans 8, sometimes we read that because we're so selfish with our Bible reading often, is we make that our love for God.

Nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. That's God's love for us. It's not how, well, my love's less, so he loves me less. Plus, getting back to just the doctrine of God and who God is, I think last time I checked, God's immutable.

God doesn't change. There's no mutation. There's no differences. There's no anything else. So, we're just trying to, today, encourage people to read Bridges' book, Transforming Grace, and sounds like from the title, The Grace of God Transforms.

Wait, what?

I mean, shouldn't it be Obedience Transforms?

Yeah, yeah, let's—we've got to get the right subtitle. Obedience, Transforming Obedience, Living—what if you're scared or frightened?

Living frightened, living something of God's, you know, tendential love, you know, his fleeting love or his failing love.

Well, let's just change the God's part to us.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, ultimately, though, we really, I think when I say we, the evangelical church, broadly speaking, thinks God, he saves us, and then he puts us on a performance, you know, basis, and if we do well enough, then we get in.

And that ties into what you said just moments ago. What you just said now is the preaching du jour for most churches in evangelicalism, and not just the Rick Warrens, the Bill Hybels, and those of last generation, but today as well with people who really believe the true gospel.

They believe in sola fide, five solas. They feel, sense, think, to put people back underneath the treadmill again. Here are five more things you need to do this week, apart from who the Lord is who gave you those commands.

Well, Pastor, we don't want to sit in here every week and just hear about the grace of God every week.

I know.

I mean, if you're not giving us something to do, then what good are you?

Steve, let's play a little psychoanalysis here for a moment. Are you like me? At least, were you like me?

I was never like you.

You mean you were better or you were worse?

I mean, I couldn't jump. You know, there are a lot of things I just couldn't do.

We didn't play basketball much together, but when you were at your house in Santa Cruz, we went to that little court down the street and shot a little bit.

Well, that was probably when I wasn't that afraid of spending three days on my couch with ice packs on.

Last year, I played tennis with Gracie in California for about 45 minutes. I could hardly walk the next couple of days. That's why I don't play pickleball.

The stopping and starting. I mean, honestly, there's nothing mentally in my mind that I want to do more than that stopping and starting. I mean, I would shove everything in if I could just play basketball.

I mean, that would be awesome.

There's a guy named Cliff, and he was about 60, and I played with Cliff back in the late 80s, and he just had about a 25-foot set shot on the right-hand side. He could barely get up and down the court, but if you got him in a sweet spot, I'd kind of like to be Cliff today.

Yeah. I mean, I would just be afraid. Well, you know, like when my mom, she played girls basketball in Idaho or wherever it was.

Iowa.

That's six on six. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Half court. Yeah, three on three.

And I'm like, I can't even imagine that, but that would be something like, you know, I could almost survive. Well, I couldn't really because, you know, it wouldn't be any fun, and this is why I won't even venture onto a basketball court.

It wouldn't be any fun for me to just stand there and shoot. I'd be like, no, I want to rebound. No, I want to guard. No, I want to do this. And then I'd be like, after a couple minutes, going, what was I thinking?

And then, you know, for days afterwards, what was I thinking?

I used to play basketball pretty well in my mind, and I was in Omaha last October at my brother's house, Pat Ebendroth, and his son, Owen, is a great basketball player. And so he was outside in the backyard shooting around, and Pat was grilling, and so I picked up the ball, and I was trying to drive past Owen and trying to guard Owen.

It wasn't too good.

But my mind said, hey, son, and when I was 17, I could whoop you.

Yeah, so for a few minutes, Owen was like, I must be the next Kobe Bryant. You know, it's like, here I go.

One last quote from Jerry Bridges, Transforming Grace, Living Confidently in God's Unfailing Love. How does this emphasis on God's free and sovereign grace make you feel? Does it make you a little nervous?

Does it seem a bit scary to hear that nothing you will ever do will make God love you more or less? Do you think, well, if you take the pressure off like that and tell me that all my effort will never earn me one blessing, I'm afraid I'll slack off and stop doing the things I need to do to live a disciplined Christian life?

What's your response, Pastor Steve?

Well, I think that's the right view of the gospel, right? It should sound frightening. It should sound like, wow, you're giving me a license to sin, because a Christian will think to themselves, okay, he won't love me less, but that's not how I want to live in light of what Jesus Christ has done for me.

This is not the desire. This is no longer the desire in my heart to see what I can get away with.

Or how close I can get to the edge without falling off, right? When people are dating, what can I do without doing everything?

What's the max I can do, you know?

Sounds like to me it's kind of a paradigm that you must be talking about, Steve. Guilt, grace, and….

Gratitude.

And slogging. Guilt, grace, slog.

Yeah, we should come up, you know, sin, then something, and then slog, you know?

Sin, salvation, slog.

That's it.

That's exactly right, because….

Well, that's the evangelical paradigm, right?

That is. So, in Rome, it seems to be law, and then for unbelievers, it's law, and then for believers, it's law. And then for a lot of evangelicalisms, it's for unbelievers, it's law gospel, and then for believers, it's law.

I mean, your life is a slog. That would be the next great book to….

A couple weeks ago, I interviewed Todd Friel on the show, Steve. I don't think you probably heard it, but he said something about a guy that's been talking a lot about the love of God lately, and he asked me, who?

And I said, I didn't know. And then he said it was Paul Washer that's talking about the love of God, and I didn't say to Todd, you know, you should probably listen to my podcast on Paul Washer or whatever, my theological differences with Paul.

But then Friel said, I've been saved 25 times listening to Paul Washer preach or something like that. And so, you know what? If Paul's move passed law for preaching to Christians, I rejoice. If he's talking about the love of God, I rejoice in that.

Amen.

All right. Mike Ebenroth, Steve Cooley, No Compromise Radio Ministry. You know what? I almost pushed this button, and it's the wrong button. It was our outro music, but it was this instead.

And how long had you been on that medication?

Some Judge Judy thing.

Thanks for listening.