How Do I Live the Authentic Christian Life?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Pastor John, over the years you have referred

00:00:07.120 | to the acronym Aptat, A-P-T-A-T,

00:00:10.880 | in your books and sermons and your classes.

00:00:13.960 | It's been with you for a long time,

00:00:15.460 | and it seems to be central to your understanding

00:00:17.640 | of how the Christian life should be lived each day.

00:00:20.040 | And I know a lot of our listeners

00:00:21.980 | have probably never heard you explain Aptat

00:00:24.280 | and why it's so important.

00:00:25.560 | So today, introduce it to us and explain the big issue

00:00:29.640 | that it addresses for you.

00:00:30.940 | - Okay, here's the big issue.

00:00:33.620 | How do you go about living the Christian life

00:00:39.160 | in such a way that you are actually doing the living,

00:00:44.160 | doing the acting, doing the willing,

00:00:48.240 | and yet Christ or the Holy Spirit

00:00:53.000 | is decisively doing the living and doing the acting

00:00:57.280 | and doing the willing in

00:00:58.620 | and through your acting and willing and doing.

00:01:01.600 | That's the key issue, it seems to me,

00:01:03.920 | of the Christian life.

00:01:05.800 | That's the way Paul says he lived.

00:01:09.680 | And he means for us to live that way.

00:01:12.080 | He says, 1 Corinthians 15, 10,

00:01:15.280 | by the grace of God, I am what I am,

00:01:17.800 | and his grace toward me was not in vain.

00:01:21.280 | On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them,

00:01:26.800 | though it was not I,

00:01:30.620 | but the grace of God that was with me.

00:01:33.720 | Now my question is,

00:01:35.440 | and I think everyone listening to me right now should ask,

00:01:39.340 | how do I do that?

00:01:41.900 | How do I work hard

00:01:46.020 | and yet be able to say, when I'm done,

00:01:50.860 | God's grace was the worker in and through me?

00:01:55.860 | Now that's what APTAT, A-P-T-A-T,

00:01:59.740 | an acronym is intended to answer.

00:02:02.820 | Or to put it another way,

00:02:04.500 | how do you obey Philippians 2, 12?

00:02:07.660 | Work out your salvation with fear and trembling,

00:02:10.140 | for God is the one at work in you.

00:02:15.060 | What are the strategies that we take

00:02:17.640 | to make sure we can say that with integrity

00:02:21.300 | about our Christian life?

00:02:24.300 | Or to put it another way,

00:02:25.900 | how do you serve others in a strength that isn't your own?

00:02:30.900 | 1 Peter 4, 11, "Whoever serves,

00:02:35.580 | let him serve as by the strength that God supplies."

00:02:40.580 | How do you do that?

00:02:41.640 | Or Romans 8, 13,

00:02:43.320 | "By the Spirit put to death the deeds of the body."

00:02:48.140 | So how do you put to death the deeds of the body?

00:02:50.940 | Yes, you put to death the deeds of the body,

00:02:53.820 | the sinful deeds, and you do it by the Spirit.

00:02:58.060 | Now what does that mean?

00:02:58.900 | How do you do it?

00:03:00.020 | That's what I'm trying to get at.

00:03:03.020 | Or Galatians 5, 16, "Walk by the Spirit."

00:03:06.220 | 5, 18, "Be led by the Spirit."

00:03:09.180 | 5, 22, "Bear the fruit of the Spirit."

00:03:12.220 | 5, 25, "Keep in step with the Spirit."

00:03:15.620 | So my answer to all of that is APTAT.

00:03:20.460 | It's what I did hundreds of times,

00:03:23.540 | sitting on the front pew in the sanctuary,

00:03:27.520 | two minutes before I'm supposed to preach,

00:03:30.420 | and I did APTAT.

00:03:31.580 | I walked through APTAT in my heart,

00:03:34.740 | because when I stood behind that pulpit,

00:03:38.000 | I wanted to preach by the Spirit.

00:03:41.640 | I wanted to preach in the strength that God supplies.

00:03:45.900 | I wanted to preach in a way so that I could say,

00:03:49.980 | not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

00:03:54.500 | I didn't want to get up there and do nothing.

00:03:57.500 | It's my job, I'm supposed to preach.

00:03:58.940 | I must preach.

00:04:00.220 | And yet the devil can preach.

00:04:02.340 | People can preach without the Holy Spirit,

00:04:04.700 | but that's not the Christian life.

00:04:06.460 | Okay, so here it is, APTAT, A-P-T-A-T.

00:04:09.580 | Each of those letters stands for an action that I take,

00:04:14.580 | and you can do this in one minute

00:04:17.460 | before you face some challenge.

00:04:19.780 | So A, admit.

00:04:21.940 | I admit that without Christ, I can do nothing.

00:04:26.180 | John 15, five, I am the vine, you are the branches.

00:04:29.300 | Whoever abides in me, and I in him,

00:04:31.380 | he it is that bears much fruit,

00:04:32.620 | for apart from me, you, John Piper, can do nothing.

00:04:36.620 | So I admit that, I say that, I believe that.

00:04:40.220 | I am helpless to do anything of any significance,

00:04:43.340 | any eternal value, any spiritual worth whatsoever

00:04:47.300 | in any way without Christ.

00:04:50.500 | P, I pray.

00:04:52.660 | Of course, you pray, right?

00:04:53.540 | If you admit you can do nothing, you, oh God, help me.

00:04:57.980 | Ask and you will receive, Jesus said.

00:05:01.020 | You do not have because you do not ask, James 4, 2.

00:05:04.620 | Call on me in the day of trouble, Psalm 50, 15.

00:05:09.200 | So I asked the Lord, I sat there on the pew,

00:05:12.140 | and I asked the Lord for freedom from self-consciousness.

00:05:16.940 | Give me liberty, give me memory,

00:05:19.580 | give me authentic emotion, protect me from error.

00:05:23.460 | I don't wanna mislead these people.

00:05:25.580 | Give me a prophetic anointing so that words come to my mind

00:05:30.580 | that are miraculously penetrating and liberating

00:05:35.120 | and saving and purifying and emboldening for the people.

00:05:38.620 | I wanted all of that to happen by the Holy Spirit,

00:05:41.380 | so I'm asking for it.

00:05:43.360 | T, A-P-T, I trust a specific promise.

00:05:48.360 | I think this is right at the heart of the matter.

00:05:50.960 | I trust a specific promise that God has tailor-made,

00:05:55.080 | and it might not be just a preaching situation,

00:05:57.160 | it might be a financial situation or a sexual temptation

00:06:00.520 | or you name it, I need a specific promise

00:06:03.580 | to believe right now 'cause I just, I wanna trust Him,

00:06:06.980 | and I don't wanna just trust in general,

00:06:09.400 | I wanna trust that He promised to do something for me.

00:06:12.920 | So I might say, generally, I am your God,

00:06:17.320 | I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you.

00:06:20.080 | I use that when, I've used that good night

00:06:22.460 | in the last 40 years, a thousand times

00:06:26.160 | as I've faced challenges in my life.

00:06:29.380 | I will help you, I will strengthen you.

00:06:32.020 | That's Isaiah 41, 10.

00:06:34.440 | I will make all grace abound to you.

00:06:37.520 | 2 Corinthians 9, 8.

00:06:38.840 | I am your God, I'll supply every need, Philippians 4, 19.

00:06:43.160 | Or in preaching, I might say,

00:06:45.920 | my word will not come back to me empty, John Piper.

00:06:49.200 | Isaiah 55, it is not you who speak,

00:06:52.060 | but the Holy Spirit who speaks through you, in Matthew 24.

00:06:55.520 | So I take a promise and I trust it,

00:06:58.640 | I consciously preach it to myself and put my faith in it.

00:07:03.640 | So APT, A, I act, act.

00:07:07.920 | In obedience to God's word,

00:07:09.560 | expecting God to act under and in and through my acting

00:07:13.920 | so that it is decisively His acting.

00:07:16.880 | We act the miracle.

00:07:18.520 | We did a whole conference on this

00:07:20.000 | and wrote a whole book about it called "Act the Miracle."

00:07:22.320 | In fact, my book, "Future Grace,"

00:07:23.880 | is just nothing but an unpacking, you might say, of APTAT.

00:07:27.920 | So act, work out your salvation, Philippians 2.

00:07:31.800 | I worked harder than any of them, 1 Corinthians 15, 5.

00:07:36.000 | I now live in the flesh by the faith of the Son of God,

00:07:39.560 | Galatians 2, 20.

00:07:41.240 | Put to death the deeds of the body, you, by the Spirit.

00:07:44.340 | So we do the acting, we are the actor,

00:07:48.120 | and God is the miracle maker.

00:07:50.760 | So APTA, and then finally, when I'm done and I sit down,

00:07:55.760 | I thank Him, T, thank.

00:07:58.400 | I thank God for whatever good comes.

00:08:01.520 | I thank Him and I give Him glory.

00:08:04.280 | Give thanks always, Ephesians 5, 20.

00:08:07.600 | But the key, the key, the fulcrum in this sequence,

00:08:12.600 | where everything hangs, I think, is that point of trusting.

00:08:16.720 | Trusting God's promised help, future grace,

00:08:20.920 | for the next five seconds or five minutes or five hours.

00:08:24.320 | It's called living by faith in future grace.

00:08:27.320 | It's called God will help you, I will help you,

00:08:31.080 | I will strengthen you, I'll meet every need,

00:08:34.000 | and you trust Him for that.

00:08:35.280 | That's APTA, and that's what I think it means

00:08:39.800 | to live by the Spirit and walk by faith and by the Spirit

00:08:44.800 | and work out your salvation

00:08:47.320 | and act the miracle of the Christian life.

00:08:49.320 | And I'll just say one last thing.

00:08:52.040 | I was thrilled.

00:08:54.360 | I don't know how many years ago this was,

00:08:55.680 | maybe 15 years ago, 'cause I've been doing APTA

00:08:58.040 | for 35 years plus.

00:09:00.320 | I was thrilled on page 126 of J.I. Packer,

00:09:05.320 | Keep in Step with the Spirit, to find these exact steps.

00:09:10.800 | I mean, it was uncanny.

00:09:12.480 | If you go to the top of page 126, anybody,

00:09:15.320 | and look at how he describes Augustinian sanctification.

00:09:20.320 | He gives APTA, and I just came out of my chair.

00:09:25.200 | You know, he doesn't use the acronym,

00:09:27.700 | but the steps are all there in sequence.

00:09:30.320 | So I just say that at the end here,

00:09:33.120 | lest anybody think this is kind of a quirky,

00:09:35.320 | quirky Piper thing, but I think it's just biblical

00:09:38.960 | through and through, and it's one of the most central

00:09:41.280 | and important discoveries I've ever made.

00:09:43.800 | How do you walk by the Spirit?

00:09:46.680 | - Confirmed by Augustine and J.I. Packer.

00:09:48.760 | That's beautiful and deeply helpful and practical.

00:09:51.440 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:09:52.320 | These are the types of practical questions

00:09:54.680 | that we address in the podcast every weekday,

00:09:56.800 | and for more information, go to our online home

00:09:59.480 | at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:10:03.440 | There you can download the apps and send us an email

00:10:06.800 | and sift through all of the, the entire archive

00:10:09.520 | of episodes that we have on hand.

00:10:12.020 | Well, next time we hear from a listener who is burned out,

00:10:15.080 | who finds life to be an unceasing grind,

00:10:18.960 | and who wants Pastor John to give him perspective

00:10:21.140 | to keep him going.

00:10:22.920 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and I'll see you tomorrow

00:10:24.760 | on the Ask Pastor John podcast.

00:10:26.460 | (upbeat music)

00:10:29.040 | (upbeat music)

00:10:31.620 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

How Do I Live the Authentic Christian Life?

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