What Makes My Life Christian?

What distinguishes my life from the lifetime of a non-Christian? What makes the Christian life distinct on this world? It’s one of the vital subjects we are able to deal with, and we do in the present day, on this Monday. Welcome again to the podcast. And we’re going to get there by one other query. How do I serve in God’s power? That query is sparked by 1 Peter 4:10–11. It was despatched to us by a listener named Jacob in Minneapolis.

“Pricey Pastor John, thanks for taking a look at my query. First Peter 4:10–11 says, ‘As every has acquired a present, use it to serve each other, nearly as good stewards of God’s various grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the power that God provides — so that in every part God could also be glorified by Jesus Christ.’ In my battle for religion and love and holiness, I need to glorify God. I don’t need my work to be in useless. So my query is that this: What does serving by the power of God imply? How do I do it? And the way am I to work in such a means that it’s God’s power in me?”

I feel that is nearly essentially the most elementary query you may ask about find out how to reside the distinctively Christian life. How do you reside in order that it isn’t you who reside, however Christ who lives in you? How do you exert your self and make resolutions in such a means that you’re not relying in your exertions and your resolutions, however on the supernatural work of the Spirit of God in you?

The textual content that Jacob is specializing in — certainly one of my favorites for ministry — is 1 Peter 4:11, which says, “Whoever serves, as one who serves by [or in] the power that God provides.” So there’s the command, and Jacob is simply saying, “Please assist. How do you try this?” What a thriller, what a miracle that’s. We serve, however we serve by the power equipped by one other. “How?” Jacob asks.

After all, this isn’t the one textual content that presses this enormous situation upon us. There’s additionally Romans 8:13: “By the Spirit you set to demise the deeds of the physique.” So we’re to do the sin-killing, however we’re to do it by the Spirit. How?

And we’ve got Philippians 2:12–13: “Work out your personal salvation with concern and trembling, for it’s God who works in you, each to will and to work for his good pleasure.” So we’re to work, however the prepared and the working are God’s prepared and dealing. How? How will we expertise that?

And 1 Corinthians 15:10 says, “I labored tougher than any of them, although it was not I, however the grace of God that’s with me.” So Paul did work arduous, however his effort was indirectly not his. How do you try this?

After which there’s Colossians 1:29, the place Paul says, “I toil, battling all his vitality that he powerfully works inside me.” Wow. We toil, we battle, we expend effort and vitality — however there’s a solution to do it in order that it’s God’s vitality, God’s doing. How?

So there it’s. It’s a pervasive situation. It’s elementary. It’s proper on the coronary heart of what it means to be a Christian. I want all people have been asking this query. In 1984, J.I. Packer, who has gone to be with the Lord now, revealed his guide Preserve in Step With the Spirit. I actually loved it. I keep in mind studying it the 12 months it got here out. In it, on web page 125, he provides his reply to this query. I’m going to learn you his quote, only one paragraph.

First, as one who needs to do all the great you may, you observe what duties, alternatives, and duties face you. Second, you pray for assist in these, acknowledging that with out Christ you are able to do nothing — nothing fruitful, that’s (John 15:5). Third, you go to work with will and a excessive coronary heart, anticipating to be helped as you requested to be. Fourth, you thank God for assist given, ask pardon in your personal failures en route, and request extra assist for the following activity.

Effectively, I used to be 38 years previous once I learn that. I had been a pastor for 4 years, and what thrilled me about his reply to the query — “How do you do that, Packer? Inform us, how do you reside this life within the power of one other?” — is that he spelled out precisely what I had preached the 12 months earlier than on March 13, 1983. I referred to as it APTAT, an acronym:

A: Admit you are able to do nothing.

P: Pray for supernatural assist.

T: Belief a selected promise about your scenario.

A: Act; use your will; transfer.

I used to be simply blown away that, the 12 months after I wrote APTAT, I discovered in my favourite theologian nearly a replica of what I used to be pondering. I believed, “I’m not quirky right here in any respect. That is simply old school.” He calls it “Augustinian sanctification,” or one thing like that.

How Christians Neglect Belief

However the distinction between my APTAT and Packer’s paragraph is that this: he barely mentions my center T, to belief a selected promise about your scenario that you just’re about to stroll into. You may hear that he means and believes it — in fact he does. You may hear it in his third level, however it’s virtually misplaced. He says it this manner: “Third, you go to work with will and a excessive coronary heart,” after which he says, “anticipating to be helped.” I say sure, precisely — that’s religion: anticipating to be helped in response to your request for assist.

However I feel there’s nonetheless a distinction as a result of it’s a matter of emphasis. I feel this center T — admit, pray, belief, act, thank — is so essential. I wrote a complete guide about it referred to as Future Grace. That’s a four-hundred-page guide on T. We want a guide for each a type of letters, however for me, it was so enormous for it to not get muted in different factors that it received blown up in Future Grace. In order that guide was actually in regards to the center T, to belief a selected promise once you’re dealing with a scenario that causes you uncertainty or anxiousness or concern.

And I feel that step of T — belief in a selected promise — is lacking in most Christians’ makes an attempt to reside the Christian life. It’s actually my commonest mistake. Most of us face a tough activity that makes us anxious, and we keep in mind to say, “Assist me. Assist, God. I want you.” So we kind of reflexively categorical the primary two steps, A (admit helplessness) and P (pray for assist). However then we transfer straight from admit and pray to behave. We pray, after which we act.

However this robs us of a really highly effective step in strolling by the Spirit, strolling within the power that God provides.

After we pray for God’s assist, we’d like T. We should always remind ourselves of a selected promise that God has made, and repair our minds on it, and put our religion in it. I want I did it completely constantly as a result of it’s so treasured once you constantly do it. What number of instances have I mentioned, “I consider you — I’ve received myself a promise”? Just like the promise of, “I’ll allow you to, John Piper.”

“We should always remind ourselves of a selected promise that God has made, and repair our minds on it, and put our religion in it.”

For the promise of assist, I’m going to Isaiah 41:10 particularly: “I’ll strengthen you, I’ll allow you to, I’ll uphold you with my righteous proper hand.” And I say, “I consider you. I consider you. Proper now, I’m strolling into this pulpit. I consider you, strolling onto the stage. I consider you, strolling into this tough dialog I’m going to have down right here at Maria’s. I consider you proper now. This promise is true. Assistance is on the way in which. Improve my religion. I’m trusting you, Lord. Right here I’m going.” And then you definitely act.

Now Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:7 that “we stroll by religion,” and he says in Galatians 2:20 that we “reside by religion.” However for many of us, this stays imprecise. I stroll by the day like, “Yeah, I suppose I’m a believer.” After all, I’m a believer as I stroll by the day, however am I believing something particular about God, something particular about what he’s going to do within the subsequent half hour that I’m battling?

Hour by hour, we have to do that. We do it by reminding ourselves of particular, concrete guarantees that God has made and Jesus has purchased together with his blood. As 2 Corinthians 1:20 says, “All the guarantees of God discover their Sure in [Jesus].” We consciously belief the guarantees that we’ve got, and we act on them.

So right here’s my suggestion to Jacob for find out how to put this into follow. Learn the Bible daily, all the time looking out for particular guarantees God might need to provide you with for that very day, however don’t lean solely on the Bible studying for the day. Memorize just a few guarantees which are so universally relevant to each scenario that they’ll serve you once you face a activity to be accomplished within the power that God provides. Then as these duties come, undergo APTAT:

Admit you can not do that by yourself — not fruitfully, not with any everlasting significance.

Pray for the allow you to want.

Think of certainly one of your memorized guarantees and belief it. Put your religion in it.

Act, believing that God is performing in you and thru you in response to his promise.

“Learn the Bible daily, all the time looking out for particular guarantees God might need to provide you with for that very day.”

Listed below are just a few of my go-to guarantees daily. I suppose the commonest one over the past fifty years is Isaiah 41:10. On this verse I hear God speaking. I hear Jesus say, “I purchased this promise for you, John: ‘Concern not, for I’m with you; be not dismayed, for I’m your God; I’ll strengthen you [in the next half hour], I’ll allow you to [in the next hour], I’ll uphold you with my righteous proper hand [in the next day].’ I’ll. Do you consider me, John Piper? Do you consider me?”

Oh, what a distinction it makes when you’ve a concrete phrase from God, from the Scriptures, and also you consider it as you stroll right into a tough, attempting scenario. One other promise I lean on is Philippians 4:19: “My God will provide each want of yours in response to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Each want. No query. What you want, you’ll have. Go.

Or Hebrews 13:5–6: “‘I’ll by no means depart you nor forsake you.’ So we are able to confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I can’t concern; what can man do to me?’” Man can’t do something to me besides what God at my facet omnipotently permits him to do as a result of he loves me.

And foundational for each a type of guarantees I’ve written down is Romans 8:32, which says, “He who didn’t spare his personal Son however gave him up for us all [that’s the foundation of absolutely everything, that Christ died for me], how will he not additionally with him graciously give us [that includes you, John Piper] all issues?” What an important promise to stroll into each scenario with.

So by no means stop to ponder Paul’s phrases in Galatians 2:20: “I’ve been crucified with Christ. It’s now not I who reside, however Christ who lives in me.” There’s that swap — now not I, however Christ. After which he explains it: “And the life I now reside” — oh sure, you do reside a life — “within the flesh I reside by religion within the Son of God, who liked me and gave himself for me.” So not I, but I by religion. And I’m merely saying, make it particular by placing your religion in a specific, treasured promise.’ from the Transcript

John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and trainer of Wanting God and chancellor of Bethlehem School and Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He’s creator of greater than 50 books, together with Wanting God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most lately Foundations for Lifelong Studying: Training in Severe Pleasure. Learn extra about John.