(music) What distinguishes my life from the life of a non-Christian? What makes the Christian life distinct in this world? It's one of the most important topics that we can address and we're going to today on this Monday. Welcome back to the podcast and we're gonna get there through another question.

How do I serve in God's strength? That's the question that is sparked by 1 Peter chapter 4 verses 10 to 11. It was sent to us by a listener named Jacob in Minneapolis. Dear Pastor John, thank you for looking at my question. 1 Peter 4 10 to 11 says, "As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's very grace.

Whoever speaks is one who speaks oracles of God. Whoever serves is one who serves by the strength that God supplies in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ." In my fight for faith and love and holiness, I want to glorify God. I don't want my work to be in vain.

So my question is this, what does serving by the strength of God mean? How do I do it and how am I to work in such a way that it is God's strength working in me? I think this is just about the most fundamental question you can ask about how to live the distinctively Christian life.

How do you live so that it is not you who live but Christ who lives in you? How do you exert yourself and make resolutions in such a way that you are not relying on your exertions and your resolutions, but on the supernatural work of the Spirit of God in you?

The text that Jacob is focusing on, one of my favorites for ministry, is verse 11 of 1 Peter 4. "Whoever serves, let him serve in or by the strength that God supplies." There's the command and he's just saying, "Please help." How do you do that? What a mystery, what a miracle that is.

We serve, but we serve by the supply of the strength of another. How, he says. And of course, this is not the only text that presses this huge issue upon us. Romans 8 13, "By the Spirit put to death the deeds of the body." So we are to do the sin-killing, but we are to do it by the Spirit.

How? Philippians 2 12, "Work out your own salvation, because it is God who works in you to will and to work for his good pleasure." So we are to work, but the willing and the working is God's willing and working. How? How do we experience that? 1 Corinthians 15 10, "I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that was with me." So Paul did work hard, but his effort was in some way not his.

How do you do that? Colossians 1 29, "I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works in me." Wow. We toil, we struggle, we expend effort and energy, but there is a way to do it so that it's God's energy, God's doing. How? Okay, so there it is.

It's a pervasive issue. It's fundamental. It's right at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. I wish everybody were asking this question. In 1984, J.I. Packer, who's going to be with the Lord now, published his book, "Keep in Step with the Spirit." I really enjoyed it.

I remember reading it the year it came out. Yeah. In it, on page 125, he gives his answer to this question. And I'm going to read you his quote, just one paragraph. Quote, "First, as one who wants to do all the good you can, you observe what tasks, opportunities, and responsibilities face you.

Second, you pray for help in these, acknowledging that without Christ, you can do nothing. Nothing fruitful that is," John 15, 5. Third, you go to work with a goodwill and a high heart expecting to be helped as you asked to be. Fourth, you thank God for help given. Ask pardon for your own failures and rout and request more help for the next task." End quote.

Well, I was 38 years old when I read that. I had been a pastor for four years. And what thrilled me about that answer to, "How do you do this, Packer? Tell us, how do you live this life in the strength of another?" What thrilled me is that he spelled out exactly what I had preached the year before.

You can go to, you can go to Desiring God, March 13, 1983, not four, three. And I called it APTAT, A-P-T-A-T, the acronym. A, admit you can do nothing. P, pray for supernatural help. T, trust a specific promise about your situation. A, act, use your will, move. T, thank God.

I was just blown away that the year after I wrote APTAT, I found in my favorite theologian, just about, a duplicate of what I was thinking. I thought, this is not, I'm not quirky here at all. This is just old fashioned. He calls it Augustinian sanctification or something like that.

The difference between my APTAT and Packer's paragraph is, is this. He barely mentions my middle T. Trust a specific promise about your situation that you're about to walk into. You can hear that he, he means it. He believes it. Of course he does. You can hear it in his third point, but it's almost lost.

He says, he says it this way. Third, you go to work with a goodwill and a high heart. And then he says, expecting to be helped. I say, yes, yes, yes, exactly. That's faith. Expecting to be helped according to your request for help. But I think this is the biggest difference.

It's a matter of emphasis. I think this middle T, ask, pray, trust. So trust is the middle T, ask, pray, trust, act, thank APTAT. The middle T is so crucial. I wrote a whole book about it called Living by Faith in Future Grace. That's a 400 page book on T.

We need a book for every one of those letters. But for me, it was so huge that it didn't get muted in 0.3. It got blown up in Future Grace. That book was really about the middle T, trust a specific promise when you're facing a situation that causes you uncertainty or anxiety or fear.

And I think that step of T, trust in a specific promise is missing in most Christians attempt to live the Christian life. It's certainly my most common mistake. Most of us face a difficult task that makes us anxious. And we remember to say, help me help God. I need you.

So we more or less reflexively express the first two steps, AP, ask or admit, admit helplessness and ask for a pray for help. But then we move straight from pray and admit to act. We pray and then we act. But this robs us of a very powerful step in walking by the spirit, walking in the strength that God supplies.

After we pray for God's help, this is T now, we should remind ourselves of a specific promise that God has made and fix our minds on it and put our faith in it. How many times, and I wish I did it absolutely consistently, because it's so precious when you consistently do it.

How many times have I said, I believe you, I caught myself a promise, like the promise of, I will help you, John Piper. I will strengthen you. I'll uphold you. And I say, I believe you. I believe you right now, I'm walking into this pulpit. I believe you walking onto the stage.

I believe you walking into this difficult conversation I'm going to have down here at Maria's. I believe you right now. This is true. Help is on the way. Increase my faith. I'm trusting you, Lord. Here I go. And then, then you act. Now Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, 7, we walk by faith.

Galatians 2, 20, we live by faith. But for most of us, this remains vague. It's vague. Like I walk through the day and yeah, I guess I'm a believer. Of course, I'm a believer as I walk through the day, but am I believing anything specific about God? Anything specific about, what he's going to do in the next half hour that I'm struggling with?

Hour by hour, we need to do this. We do it by reminding ourselves of specific concrete promises that God has made and Jesus has bought with his blood. 2 Corinthians 1, 20, all the promises of God are yes in Jesus. And we consciously trust the promises that we have and we act on them.

So here's my suggestion practically to Jacob for how to put this into practice. Read the Bible every day, every day, always on the lookout for specific promises God may want to give you for that very day. But don't lean only on the Bible reading for the day. Memorize a few promises that are so universally applicable to every situation that they will serve you when you face a task to be done in the strength that God supplies.

Then as those tasks come, go through Aptat. Admit you can't do this on your own, not fruitfully, not with any eternal significance. Pray for the help you need. Then call to mind one of your memorized promises and trust it. Put your faith in it. Then act, believing that God is acting in you, through you, according to his promise, and then thank him.

So here are a few of my go-to promises day by day. I suppose the most common one over the last 50 years is Isaiah 41, 10. "Fear not, John." So I can hear it. I hear God talking. I hear Jesus say this. "I bought this for you, John. Fear not, for I'm with you.

Be not dismayed. I'm your God. I will strengthen you in the next half hour. I will help you in the next hour. I will hold you up with my righteous right hand in the next day. I will." Do you believe me, John Piper? Do you believe me? Oh, what a difference it makes when you have a concrete word from God, from the scriptures, and you believe it as you walk into a difficult, trying situation.

Or Philippians 4, 19, "My God will supply every need of yours, according to his riches in glory." Every need. No question. What you need, you'll have. Go. Or Hebrews 13, 5 and 6, "I will never leave you. I will never forsake you." So we can confidently say, "The Lord is my helper.

I will not fear. What can man do to me? Man can't do anything to me but what God at my side omnipotently permits him to do, because he loves me." And foundational for every one of those, I've got, goodness, I don't know how many of these promises are written down, but here's the last one I'll mention.

Romans 8, 32, "He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all." So that's the foundation of absolutely everything. "Christ died for me. How will he not with him graciously give John Piper all things?" What a great promise to walk into every situation with.

So never cease to ponder Paul's words in Galatians 2, 20, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." There's that switch. No longer I, but Christ. And then he explains it. "And the life that I now live, oh yes, you do live a life.

In the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." So not I, yet I by faith. And I'm simply saying, make it specific. By faith in a particular precious promise. Yeah, very applicable. Thank you, Pastor John. This episode reminds me of one other episode that featured this trio of texts.

1 Corinthians 15, 10, and Colossians 1, 29, and 1 Peter 4, 11. It was back in our first year, I think it was, APJ 143. And it's titled, "Work like an Arminian, Sleep like a Calvinist?" Question mark. "Work like an Arminian, Sleep like a Calvinist?" Great episode to compliment this one.

Check it out. Thank you for joining us today. Ask a question of your own. Search for APJ 143 in the archive or subscribe to the podcast. You can do all that at AskPastorJohn.com. That's AskPastorJohn.com. I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you back here on Wednesday.