This new ideology of Grace can be implemented very practically. I am going to use a system that John Piper teaches to his leadership staff at Bethlehem Baptist Church. It is called APTAT: Admit Pray Trust Act Thanks.

Step one: Admit that you can not transform in your own power or will; it is going to take an act of the Spirit.
Step two: Pray to God earnestly for Him to work in you; there need be no more said on the importance of prayer in the christian life.
Step three: Trust in God and His revealed promises for His adopted sons; don’t be bothered with anxiety or worry.
Step four: Act proactively for God to move; dig some ditches, and labor to be brought closer to God (notice the determiner).
Step five: Thank God from whom all goodness is birthed and prospers; realize that He is the one worthy of the praise, for you did not succeed in anything that He didn’t work.

This process can be applied to 1) struggling sins of commission, as well as 2) struggling apathy in sins of omission. I say this because my first reaction to this system was only focused on the first: how it could expel sin in my life. BUT it is just as easily applied to the latter: equipping to accomplish things for God proactively (starting a church, accomplishing a spiritual discipline, acting charitably, etc).

The Holy Spirit is given to complete a task. We have watered down the Holy Spirit to be a mere worship experience aid rather than the power of grace (this is a post for another time, but moving on…). So this begs the question: what is the task, that grace is used to accomplish, of the christian life? Is it to live in a manner worthy of the gospel? Is it to live holy and blameless lives? I would wager, at this present time, that the great task is: The Great Commission. These sub-goals of the pursuit of holiness are mere benefactors to the focal goal of making and reproducing disciples.

I do not know if you have realized, but many pastors are caught up in this message of “God’s plan for your life”. Being at college, I feel like I hear this message almost every other week. And do not get me wrong, God does has a plan for His followers; He does have a specific purpose for His children, BUT… We as the church, the body and bride of Christ, are called to one great plan: the great commission. The church already has a revealed plan: to make disciples; and if I am not executing the revealed plan of God for my life, then why do I seek more rather than execute what I already have been commanded?

“What is God’s will for my life?” “Where does God want me in ten years?” “Who is to be my God-given spouse?” It seems that these are all of the Christian Life Questions that the church centers around now. I fell into this trap early in college, but God quickly got a hold of me and shook me free of my egotism. I say that I was egocentric because, I was so concered about how God was going to use me rather than simply living in the holiness God had already called me to. What is God’s will for your life? Well if you live in obedience today, and continue in that power of grace, you will find yourself where He wants you to be in ten years. Through perseverance by the scriptures and obedience to His already revealed commands, we will find ourselves where God wants us. Obey what He has already commanded rather than searching for a way for God to obey your desired plans!

Pardon the rant, but I think it makes us zero in on the purpose of Grace. It is by Grace that we accomplish anything in our spiritual walk: defeating sin (not merely overlooking it) and making disciples. We aren’t equipped only to defeat sin, but to execute the task of God’s revealed plan! Grace is the power of the gospel. Grace is the working of the Spirit. “Oh to grace, how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be.”

Our ministry is the bowl underneath the cup that represents our own spiritual life. If we wish to see our ministry being filled, it must be through the overflow of our own personal walk with God.

Today’s convocation speaker, Afshin Ziafat, reminded me of a Dr. David Platt. It was not his etiquette, nor his manner of speech, it was simply the impassioned burden the Holy Spirit had birthed in his soul: escaping the mediocrity of Christianity, and realizing the cost of discipleship. 

I retraced a journal entry I wrote the evening after I heard David Platt speak at convocation, this is what a portion of it read: 

This morning I heard the spirit of God. It was disguised in the voice of man by the name of David Platt. I had previously read his best selling book entitled Radical, and was notably excited to hear him bring the Word live. He took the podium, almost seeming nervous, and the next words out of his mouth would explain his restlessness. In a dull-tone whisper Platt expressed how he was in over his head. This is a man who has more doctorates, training, and experience that would qualify any man to stand upon LIberty’s stage, and he first notes his unworthiness. My jaw dropped. This man understood what it meant to have a Christ-centric focus in life, negating his own accolades in utter awe of the power and grace of his creator and savior. 

His each sentence was laced with conviction and passion, stirring within my heart the need to mobilize my faith. The joy of my personal salvation compounded with the billions of lost souls on this planet created in me a restless pursuit. It led me on a trail of motivation, realizing that I do not sacrifice anything for Christ. What do I give up for Christ? What is Christ costing me? How can I be so comfortable in my life while I claim to have Christ, who said he came to bring a sword and not peace, indwelling within me?

We have bought into a systematic, narcissistic, comfortable form of Christianity, becoming idolators to a more palatable gospel. We have taken God and formed Him into our image; we have things reversed. We made Christianity into our weekly admission rather than our grace-given identity. We have sold out, put on a masterful charade, and all of this in the name of Christ.

Where is the cost? Would we have followed Jesus if the first thing He told us was to hate our father and mother? The Christian culture today is raised with the ideology: the more people to hear, the more loving the message. Jesus, on the other hand, spoke His most harshest and loaded statements with immense crowds surrounding Him. Think of the man or woman who came to hear Jesus, the man everyone was blabbering about, speak for the first time, and the first words out of His mouth were, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” Here is the first-time hearer, and Jesus is demanding the cross, the most excruciating form of execution, as a prerequisite to his discipleship.

We are caught up in living by sight. We see the crowds, and we see the numbers, and we become cautious. But if we commit to faith, in doing an act where we will only succeed if God’s Holy Spirit rains down, we are doing what Paul calls,’walking by faith.’ Living by sight all dwindles down to comfortability; it is more comfortable to live by faith, to not sacrifice our dignity for God. It is more comfortable to preach how Christ can save you of your sins, without mentioning the cost of following Him.

I see it as this: if I can be perfectly content and rest in my walk with God, my Theology is wrong. If I have a doxology that supposes I am glorying God to His potential, then my view of God is severely distorted. When the rich man came to Jesus proclaiming that He had followed the ten commandments and presumedly done all that was required of salvation, Jesus commanded an action that would cost the man something. When we think we have done enough, thought enough, or believed enough, Christ shatters our man-made machine until we see that we are nothing apart from God.

Jesus paid it all, but to follow Him costs my life. 

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

- Philippians 1:21