The question sounds strange at first, but I’ve come to ask it of myself: Am I in danger of losing Christ in my Christianity?

Among those of us who truly know Jesus, love him, believe upon him for eternal life — have we lost our first love? Does the greater light now shine as the lesser in our hearts? Has he traveled unnoticed from his place as the great Object of our souls to an adjective modifying other pursuits? Books on Christian living sell today — books on Christ himself usually remain in stock.

Can we still say in truth, “My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning” (Psalm 130:6)? Is the one thing we ask of our Lord to gaze upon his beauty and converse with him (Psalm 27:4)? If he returned today, would it feel like an interruption, or would he only interrupt us asking each other, “Have you seen him whom my soul loves” (Song 3:3)? Do we feel the pain of his absence? Do we miss him?

Of late, I have peered less over the walls of this world, waiting for his coming. Instead, I have busied myself with good and even godly pursuits — those that are from him, to him, and through him, but are not him. To my surprise, I realized I began to lose Christ, of all places, in my Christianity. And losing sight of him here seems subtler, easier.

I shall attempt to describe how we can lose sight of him in a few places most precious to us: the gospel, the Scriptures, the pursuit of holiness, and the church.

Have we lost him in the gospel?

I’ve misplaced Jesus in the gospel when the gospel becomes faceless, when it becomes part of an equation where gospel plus faith equals heaven. Michael Reeves gets at this when he writes that Charles Spurgeon

preferred to speak of preaching “Christ” than preaching “the gospel,” “the truth,” or anything else, because of how easily we reduce “the gospel” or “the truth” to an impersonal system. Christ himself is, in person, the way, the truth, and the life; the glory of God; the life and delight of the saints; the Bridegroom that the bride is invited to enjoy. (Spurgeon on the Christian Life, 71)

If I do not keep guard, the gospel and the truth can be reduced to a bloodless, pulseless science. Against this personless scheme, Paul describes God’s gospel as that

which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 1:1–4)

“If I do not keep guard, ‘the gospel’ and ‘the truth’ can reduce to a bloodless, pulseless science.”

Paul did not dedicate his life to a static formula, but God set him apart for the gospel, the gospel “concerning his Son.” This gospel, God’s power for salvation, is the good news of a person — Jesus Christ, the long-prophesied Son of David, crucified for sin, resurrected in power, and ascended to the right hand of the Father, soon to return.

Have we lost him in the Scriptures?

“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life,” Jesus told the Pharisees, “and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:39–40). Have we learned bad habits of Bible reading that imitate these blind Pharisees?

Ask yourself, What have I seen in the Bible lately? You may answer that you’ve learned about contentment, how to suffer, or how to better love your wife. You may have explored the disciples’ boldness in the book of Acts or gleaned from the minister’s heart in the Pastoral Epistles. You may have bent low in humility while traveling through Philippians or been taught to pray in the Psalms or contemplated your assurance in 1 John. All good lessons.

Next, ask yourself, What have I seen of Christ lately? What about him has emblazoned your heart and satisfied your soul? Which of his words has captivated your attention? Which of his excellencies has harpooned your affections? What about his cross has humbled you, what of his resurrection has sustained you, what of his return fixes your eyes upon the skies, waiting?

I suspect with most of us, the first question will be much easier to answer than the second. We have thought about much — but how much about Christ himself? We speak much of faith — but how much about whom our faith is in? The Pharisees searched out many holy topics but missed seeing the Messiah right in front of them.

Have we lost him pursuing holiness?

When we lose sight of Jesus in our sanctification, Christlikeness comes to mean perfect virtue, and sin a nonpersonal infraction.

Instead of seeing our own love as imitating Christ’s love (John 15:12), we seek to possess a generic love to the full extent, a general patience overflowing, a basic joy and gentleness and self-control to the superlative. Holiness soon becomes ethical math, where we take a positive attribute and calculate how much more of it we need.

And when we think of sin, we come to mean merely breaking a soulless law. Sin happens when the sign said the speed limit was 70 miles per hour, and the speed camera clocked us going 80. We broke the law. The cold eye of justice catches us — a ticket is sent in the mail.

Instead, our holiness looks at Jesus, looks like Jesus. Beholding his glory, we are changed into the same image (2 Corinthians 3:18). The Father predestined us to be conformed to his Son’s likeness (Romans 8:29). We do not attain shining virtues for their own sake; we “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14). And we obey not an abstract law, but his law: we bear one another’s burdens “and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). Instead of confessing sin as those who broke the speed limit, we confess sin against our triune God.

Have we lost him in the church?

Our increasingly post-Christian society prefers the Golden Rule to the Golden Ruler. Humanitarianism pats the conscience on the back — love of neighbor remains, though many pretend God is dead.

Yet we can be guilty of a more holy version. We are to be known by our love for each other, it is true, but not merely by our love for each other. We cannot major on horizontal love for other Christians and forget vertical love for Christ, thus taking seriously the second great command to love one another as ourselves while ignoring the first to love God with everything.

The temptation is like the short-term-mission-trip temptation — dig the well; forget the living water. We can cook for the small group, lead the prayer meeting, visit the recluse members, set up the chairs for service, practice for worship, set up a meal train, send a card, attend the funeral — and lose focus on Jesus. Christian community, for it to remain such, must be community founded upon the work of Christ, full of the Spirit of Christ, and existing for the glory of Christ.

Our life in the body is life in his body. Jesus “is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent” (Colossians 1:18). We are not the best version of the world’s social clubs, the best humanistic society with sprinkled platitudes about Jesus. We remain his possession, his sheep, his bride. As the King leaves, so goes our lampstands.

Searching the Unsearchable

“The study of Jesus Christ is the most noble subject that ever a soul spent itself upon,” writes John Flavel. “Those that rack and torture their brains upon other studies like children, weary themselves at a low game; the eagle plays at the sun itself. The angels study this doctrine, and stoop down to look into this deep abyss.” The angels never tire from gazing upon the King in his beauty. Have we?

“The angels never tire from gazing upon the King in his beauty. Have we?”

Christian, “though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:8–9). To know him is heaven on earth and the very heaven of heavens. The saints’ eternal happiness is to see God in the face of Christ and become like what we see. Heaven orbits him. Will we settle now for a Christianity malnourished of Christ?

Let’s spend our lives beholding his manifold glories. Let’s plunder the riches of Christ until we too verify that they are “unsearchable” (Ephesians 3:8). Let’s make his love — which surpasses knowledge — our all-engrossing subject. Let’s request of our ministers, as the Greeks did Philip, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus” (John 12:21).

We all have more of him to see. Flavel again:

It is the studying of Christ, as in the planting of a new discovered country; at first men sit down by the seaside, upon the skirts and borders of the land; and there they dwell, but by degrees they search farther and farther into the heart of the country. Ah, the best of us are yet but upon the borders of this vast continent!

Travel onward, dear Christian, in the knowledge of him — do not settle for his ethic, his marriage counseling, his worldview without him. You will explore this vast continent for coming ages, for all eternity, and ever have more left to discover.

Audio Transcript

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 we can address, and we do today, on this Monday. Welcome back to the podcast. And we’re going to get there through another question. How do I serve in God’s strength? That question is sparked by 1 Peter 4:10–11. It was sent to us by a listener named Jacob in Minneapolis.

“Dear Pastor John, thank you for looking at my question. First Peter 4:10–11 says, ‘As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as 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 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 1 Peter 4:11, which says, “Whoever serves, as one who serves by [or in] the strength that God supplies.” So there’s the command, and Jacob is just saying, “Please help. How do you do that?” What a mystery, what a miracle that is. We serve, but we serve by the strength supplied by another. “How?” Jacob asks.

All Across Scripture

Of course, this is not the only text that presses this huge issue upon us. There’s also Romans 8:13: “By the Spirit you 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?

And we have Philippians 2:12–13: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” So we are to work, but the willing and the working are God’s willing and working. How? How do we experience that?

And 1 Corinthians 15:10 says, “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” So Paul did work hard, but his effort was in some way not his. How do you do that?

And then there’s Colossians 1:29, where Paul says, “I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within 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?

APTAT

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 has gone 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. In it, on page 125, he gives his answer to this question. I’m going to read you his quote, just one paragraph.

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 good will 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 en route, and request more help for the next task.

Well, I was 38 years old when I read that. I had been a pastor for four years, and what thrilled me about his answer to the question — “How do you do this, Packer? Tell us, how do you live this life in the strength of another?” — is that he spelled out exactly what I had preached the year before on March 13, 1983. I called it APTAT, an 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, “I’m not quirky here at all. This is just old-fashioned.” He calls it “Augustinian sanctification,” or something like that.

How Christians Neglect Trust

But the difference between my APTAT and Packer’s paragraph is this: he barely mentions my middle T, to trust a specific promise about your situation that you’re about to walk into. You can hear that he means and believes it — of course he does. You can hear it in his third point, but it’s almost lost. He says it this way: “Third, you go to work with a good will and a high heart,” and then he says, “expecting to be helped.” I say yes, exactly — that’s faith: expecting to be helped according to your request for help.

But I think there is still a difference because it’s a matter of emphasis. I think this middle T — admit, pray, trust, act, thank — is so crucial. I wrote a whole book about it called Future Grace. That’s a four-hundred-page book on T. We need a book for every one of those letters, but for me, it was so huge for it not to get muted in other points that it got blown up in Future Grace. So that book was really about the middle T, to 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’ attempts 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, A (admit helplessness) and P (pray for help). But then we move straight from admit and pray 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.

Walking by Focused Faith

After we pray for God’s help, we need T. We should remind ourselves of a specific promise that God has made, and fix our minds on it, and put our faith in it. 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’ve got myself a promise”? Like the promise of, “I will help you, John Piper.”

“We should remind ourselves of a specific promise that God has made, and fix our minds on it, and put our faith in it.”

For the promise of help, I go to Isaiah 41:10 specifically: “I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” 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 promise is true. Help is on the way. Increase my faith. I’m trusting you, Lord. Here I go.” And then you act.

Now Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:7 that “we walk by faith,” and he says in Galatians 2:20 that we “live by faith.” But for most of us, this remains vague. I walk through the day like, “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. As 2 Corinthians 1:20 says, “All the promises of God find their Yes in [Jesus].” We consciously trust the promises that we have, and we act on them.

Promises in Hand

So here’s my suggestion to Jacob for how to put this into practice. Read the Bible 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 cannot do this on your own — not fruitfully, not with any eternal significance.
Pray for the help you need.
Call to mind one of your memorized promises and trust it. Put your faith in it.
Act, believing that God is acting in you and through you according to his promise.
Thank him.

“Read the Bible every day, always on the lookout for specific promises God may want to give you for that very day.”

Here are a few of my go-to promises day by day. I suppose the most common one over the last fifty years is Isaiah 41:10. In this verse I hear God talking. I hear Jesus say, “I bought this promise for you, John: ‘Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you [in the next half hour], I will help you [in the next hour], I will uphold you 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. Another promise I lean on is Philippians 4:19: “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Every need. No question. What you need, you’ll have. Go.

Or Hebrews 13:5–6: “‘I will never leave you nor 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 except what God at my side omnipotently permits him to do because he loves me.

And foundational for every one of those promises I’ve written down is Romans 8:32, which says, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all [that’s the foundation of absolutely everything, that Christ died for me], how will he not also with him graciously give us [that includes you, 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 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 putting your faith in a particular, precious promise.

It is those who are asleep who need to be awakened. Those who have become listless and lethargic need to be stirred to liveliness and labor.

The Lord was pleased to do this in wonderful ways during the eighteenth century in various parts of the world and by various human instruments. In England, he raised up George Whitefield (1714–1770) and the Wesley brothers, among others. In America, the name of Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) is well-known, as both a preacher and a theologian, and in connection with Whitefield’s transatlantic labors.

And then in Wales, God employed a number of men to glorify his name. Again, Whitefield was involved, but among the other prominent names for us to learn from today is that of Daniel Rowland (c. 1711–1790).

Land of Spiritual Dullness

The work in Wales was manifestly a work of mercy and grace. Little in the country at the time commended it. Wales was poor and deprived, both naturally and spiritually. Some had recognized gospel needs during an earlier time and, in 1649, a particular Baptist church at the Glaziers’ Hall in London held a day of prayer “to seek the Lord that he would send laborers into the dark corners and parts of this land.”1 Two men offered their services and were sent to Wales.

God blessed their labors mightily. Conversions and baptisms followed, and a church was constituted at Ilston that had 43 members by October 1650. Yet by the early to mid-1700s, even this gospel progress of about a century before seems to have stuttered and stalled. One well-known statement suggested that Christianity in Wales was less a subject of inquiry and more a subject of mirth and ridicule.2 Faithful ministers were few and far between, though some knew a measure of spiritual effectiveness. Churches of all stripes were typically sleepy and dull, if not altogether dead. Does that sound familiar to us today?

Daniel Rowland was born into this environment. He grew up manifestly gifted, typically passionate, and evidently godless, in a family that had known something of true religion but that seems to have declined. His education directed him toward the clergy, and he was ordained deacon on March 10, 1734. He walked from the little Welsh village of Llangeitho to London and back for the occasion. Up to this point, Rowland’s ministry had been sadly empty of any gospel fervor and force. However, about this time, Rowland heard the truth through a godly preacher, Griffith Jones (c. 1684–1761), and became a new man in Christ. Rowland was ordained as a priest in the national church on August 31, 1735. His preaching began revealing his genuine change of heart.

‘The Angry Clergyman’

The same earnest soul that had once run in ungodliness now showed itself zealous to declare divine truth. A heart once given over to wickedness had been stirred by a sense of God’s holy majesty and stricken by the cutting edge of his righteous law. Like John Bunyan before him, Rowland preached what he felt, what he smartingly (deeply, acutely) did feel.3

“The same earnest soul that had once run in ungodliness now showed itself zealous to declare divine truth.”

Constrained by a heavy sense of his own sinfulness before God, Rowland inclined toward Scriptures that emphasized God’s holy hatred of sin and the fearful punishments that hung over the heads of the unrepentant. It was a far cry from what seems to have been the tame, tepid, and toothless homilies of his earlier ministry. He preached as a son of thunder, a true Boanerges (Mark 3:17), bound by the majesty of God’s person and the value of men’s souls. Under the influence of the Holy Spirit, such preaching, with its emphasis on God’s holy law, drew and slew many hearers, earning Rowland the nickname of “the angry clergyman.”

This kind of ministry was powerful and effective, but its unrelenting force over the space of a couple of years was in danger of driving sinners to an unscriptural despair. Rowland’s ministry of judgment was not tempered with much mercy; his hearers were marked more by profound distress of soul than anything else.

Jerusalem of Wales

At this point, a godly Dissenting pastor by the name of Philip Pugh (1679–1760) stepped in to help the younger man. He advised Rowland to apply the blood of Christ to the spiritual wounds he was causing. His hearers needed to know not just that they needed a Savior; they also needed to know the Savior!

Rowland, still young in spiritual years, felt that he lacked sufficient sense of that reality himself — his faith in the Lord lacked something of what he felt was its necessary vigor. Pugh pressed him with the need to let some beams of light through the storm clouds before he killed his hearers. He told Rowland to preach till he felt more of that for which he yearned. Now the gentle tones of a Barnabas began to mingle with the piercing cries of a Boanerges, and the sweet gospel balm was readily poured into the wounds that God’s holy law had righteously inflicted.

Alongside his enlivened ministry of the word of God, Rowland had become a man of earnest prayer. He would often climb the hills around his home. The panoramic view of the region stirred his heart to plead for God’s blessing upon the people. Gripped by the gospel of Christ and sustained by his communion with God, Rowland’s preaching now began to have an even wider range and deeper effect. Crowds flocked to hear the gospel minister of Llangeitho, and they were transformed by the transformed man and his transformed preaching.

Previously, groans of distress had risen from hearers gripped by conviction of sin; now, cries of “Glory!” began to mingle with those groans, as convinced sinners looked to Christ and saw in him the beauty and majesty of the Savior. Soon Rowland was preaching to hundreds, if not thousands. He preached as “a seraph in tears.”4 God drew near to preacher and hearer alike, and some of the descriptions of his preaching leave us aching for the sense of heaven that often seemed to accompany his efforts.

Eventually ejected from the Church of England, Rowland continued to preach with spiritual force, enjoying the favor of many who relished the word of God. Howell Harris (1714–1773) reckoned that by 1763 as many as ten thousand were coming to hear him at Llangeitho. The little village was becoming known as the Jerusalem of Wales.

Lessons from Revival

This is a mere snapshot of the beginnings of the labors of one man in one place. In conclusion, let me offer three observations for pastors today.

Coordinated Efforts

First, consider that Rowland was one man among several, each one blessed of God in similar ways. He did not stand alone. In Wales, a few godly men had faithfully labored for years and had known a measure of real fruitfulness, as evidenced both in Rowland’s conversion and in the salvation of other men in his generation in Wales — such as Howell Harris and William Williams, Pantycelyn (1717–1791).

Recall also that Whitefield was converted at about the same time as Rowland and became a firm friend of and co-laborer with the Calvinistic Methodists in Wales. It is too easy to isolate, romanticize, and even idolize individuals. Nevertheless, we need not become spiritual or historical cynics. It is proper to recognize the distinct gifts and contributions of men raised up by God, seen and appreciated in their broader context.

Lively Men, Lively Ministries

Furthermore, learn that spiritually lively ministries come from spiritually lively men. Do not imagine that potent sermons will spring from dull hearts. Our desire for striking sermons or a powerful ministry must not be for its own sake, but for the glory of God and as the consequence of heart communion with him. Grace gripped godless Rowland, drew him out of darkness into God’s light, and made him both a faithful Christian and a useful preacher. What then seemed to mark him out was his deep meditation on divine truth and his seeking the face of God in prayer. Like him, we can learn to long for God’s blessing for his own glory’s sake and for the good of mankind, never for our own exaltation.

Preaching Under God’s Eye

Finally, Rowland’s power as a preacher derived from his profound and primary consciousness of the eye of God upon him. Like the apostle Paul, he spoke “not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts” (1 Thessalonians 2:4). He was clearly a gifted man, capable of high flights of spiritual oratory, his own fervor impacting his hearers. Nevertheless, his usefulness was at least as much a matter of heavenly substance as heavenly style.

“Spiritually lively ministries come from spiritually lively men.”

Rowland preached a full-orbed gospel, increasingly marked by the supremacy and centrality of Christ. He preached felt truth, both the law and the gospel. He set out to bring sinners to see their need of a Savior, and to show them the Savior they needed. Another well-known Welsh minister, Thomas Charles of Bala (1755–1814), converted through Rowland’s ministry, described it thus: “Rowland preached repentance, until the people repented; he preached faith until men believed. He portrayed sin as so abhorrent that all hated it; and Christ so glorious as to cause all to choose Him.”5

Brothers, are we preaching for repentance and faith, preaching the law and the gospel, preaching an abhorrent sin and a glorious Christ, for the glory of God and for the blessing of sinners? This is the ministry God blesses, and a ministry worth pursuing.