2nd day at SMBC 2009 Preaching Conference – Jerry Bridges

I like the way this conference is structured. Bryan Chapell focuses on Biblical Theology and his FCF (Christ-centered preaching), Kanishka Raffel on eternity (Judgment, Hell and Heaven), John Woodbridge helps us to look at  preaching from a historical perspective, esp in the context of the Great Awakening, and Jerry Bridges on preacher’s spirituality. What a wonderful combination!

It is great to here Jerry Bridges in person and hear this teaching. His topic is “The Respectable Sins of the Preacher.

This morning he just addressed two kinds of sins: 1) pride 2) envy and jealousy

Pride:

1. a desire to look good as a good preacher in the eyes of people. (1 Peter 4:11; 2 Cor. 2:17)

• while we preach to glorify God, we also want ourselves to look good, we want to share the glory with God
• two ways to avoid: knowing preaching as privilege, as well as responsibility
• we are accountable to God. God is sitting in the front row.
• We preach to the audience of One.
• We just want to please God
• We should be never satisfied with our own sermons
• We should always ask God to give us the living bread for the people

2.   we fail to preach to ourselves before preach to people (Rom. 2:31)

• we teach people to be like us not like God
• consistent life style as we preach (Phi. 3:12)

3. Pride of judgmentalism between preachers and pastors without Scriptural understanding

• He used some examples : woman’s involvement in ministry, music war
• not discussing the doctrine differences in spiritual humility, but taking a personal approach
• He said that we need to be true and kind at disagreement, rebuke only when it is necessary
• He gave a case study that how we should handle disagreement (Rom.12:5, consider the one you disagree with is your brother, and pray for him, rather than confrontation)

Envy & Jealousy

• The difference between Envy and Jealousy
• Envy – desire something good that I don’t have
• Jealousy – worry about someone will take away something good from you.
• Envy someone in the same league is a hard case
• The problem with people moving to a church that is next to yours

• how to deal with this?
• answer: to realize that you have a ministry by the grace of God (1 Cor 15:9-10; Eph 3:8)
• The example of Paul – “For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them – yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.“
• At this point, Jerry clarifies the concept of Grace. Grace is not an unmerited favor, but God’s blessings through Jesus to people who deserve His wrath.
• Paul sees that he is privileged to be an apostle. The power of HS given to him that he doesn’t deserve