Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream

by David Platt

In that holy moment, all the righteous wrath and justice of God due us came rushing down like a torrent on Christ himself.

At the Cross, Christ drank the full cup of the wrath of God, and when he had downed the last drop, he turned the cup over and cried out, “It is finished.” This is the gospel.

We have taken the infinitely glorious Son of God, who endured the infinitely terrible wrath of God and who now reigns as the infinitely worthy Lord of all, and we have reduced him to a poor, puny Savior who is just begging for us to accept him.

Accept him? Do we really think Jesus needs our acceptance? Don’t we need him?

According to Jesus, one day not just a few but many will be shocked—eternally shocked—to find that they were not in the kingdom of God after all. The danger of spiritual deception is real.

Biblical proclamation of the gospel beckons us to a much different response and leads us down a much different road. Here the gospel demands and enables us to turn from our sin, to take up our cross, to die to ourselves, and to follow Jesus. These are the terms and phrases we see in the Bible. And salvation now consists of a deep wrestling in our souls with the sinfulness of our hearts, the depth of our depravity, and the desperation of our need for his grace. Jesus is no longer one to be accepted or invited in but one who is infinitely worthy of our immediate and total surrender.

I pray continually for this kind of hunger in the church God has given me to lead and in churches spread across our country’s landscape.

The revelation of God in the gospel is good. I invite you to receive it. Maybe to trust in the Christ of the gospel for the first time and for the first time to receive a new heart, a heart that is not only cleansed of sin but that now longs for him. Or maybe simply to recover a passion for God’s Word—his radical revelation of himself—and discover once again the reward that is found in simply knowing and experiencing him.

The most solemn part of the day was a moment of silence for two of their classmates who had died at the hands of Muslim persecutors.

So Raden walked outside, pulled up a chair, and sat down in front of the witch doctor. He told his challenger, “I don’t do the fighting. My God does the fighting for me.” Raden recounted what happened next. “As the witch doctor attempted to speak, he began to gasp for air. He was choking and couldn’t breathe. People came running to see what was wrong, and within a few minutes the witch doctor had fallen over dead.”

The question for us, then, is whether we trust in his power. And the problem for us is that in our culture we are tempted at every turn to trust in our own power instead. So the challenge for us is to live in such a way that we are radically dependent on and desperate for the power that only God can provide.

The dangerous assumption we unknowingly accept in the American dream is that our greatest asset is our own ability.

As long as we achieve our desires in our own power, we will always attribute it to our own glory.

here the gospel and the American dream are clearly and ultimately antithetical to each other. While the goal of the American dream is to make much of us, the goal of the gospel is to make much of God.

In direct contradiction to the American dream, God actually delights in exalting our inability. He intentionally puts his people in situations where they come face to face with their need for him. In the process he powerfully demonstrates his ability to provide everything his people need in ways they could never have mustered up or imagined. And in the end, he makes much of his own name.

This is how God works. He puts his people in positions where they are desperate for his power, and then he shows his provision in ways that display his greatness.

Clearly, it doesn’t require the power of God to draw a crowd in our culture. A few key elements that we can manufacture will suffice. First, we need a good performance.

So even if we have to show him on a video screen, we must have a good preacher. It’s even better if he has an accomplished worship leader with a strong band at his side. Next, we need a place to hold the crowds that will come, so we gather all our resources to build a multimillion-dollar facility to house the performance.

Finally, once the crowds get there, we need to have something to keep them coming back. So we need to start programs—first-class, top-of-the-line programs—for kids, for youth, for families, for every age and stage. In

We can so easily deceive ourselves, mistaking the presence of physical bodies in a crowd for the existence of spiritual life in a community.

This is the group that the spread of Christianity depends on. So what are they doing? They are not plotting strategies. They are “joined together constantly in prayer.”

Did you hear the passive language? They were added. It begs the question “Who added them?” Go down to verse 47 in the same chapter, and Luke makes sure we get the right answer. There he writes, “The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Remarkably, and intentionally, he never asked for money or other resources to provide for these orphans. Instead he simply prayed and trusted God to provide.

If I, a poor man, simply by prayer and faith, obtained without asking any individual, the means for establishing and carrying on an Orphan-House, there would be something which, with the Lord’s blessing, might be instrumental in strengthening the faith of the children of God, besides being a testimony to the consciences of the unconverted, of the reality of the things of God. This, then, was the primary reason for establishing the Orphan-House.… The first and primary object of the work was (and still is:) that God might be magnified by the fact, that the orphans under my care are provided with all they need, only by prayer and faith without anyone being asked by me or my fellow-laborers whereby it may be seen, that God is faithful still, and hears prayer still.8 Muller decided that he wanted to live in such a way that it would be evident to all who looked at his life—Christian and non-Christian alike—that God is indeed faithful to provide for his people. He risked his life trusting in the greatness of God, and in the end his life made much of the glory of God.

The more they look to me for that love and find it, the more they trust in me as their dad.

The Holy Spirit is the Comforter, the Helper, the Guide, the very presence of God living in you.

This is the great promise of God in prayer. We ask God for gifts in prayer, and he gives us the Giver. We ask God for supply, and he gives us the Source. We ask God for money, and he doesn’t give us cash; instead, so to speak, he gives us the bank!

Expecting them to share in my excitement, I paused to listen for their response. After an awkward silence, one of the deacons leaned forward in his chair, looked at me, and said, “David, I think it’s great you are going to those places. But if you ask me, I would just as soon God annihilate all those people and send them to hell.”

These were his words: “Brother David, we are so excited about all that God is doing in New Orleans and in all nations, and we are excited that you are serving there.” He continued, “And, brother, we promise that we will continue to send you a check so we don’t have to go there ourselves.” He wasn’t finished. “I remember a time at my last congregation when a missionary from Japan came to speak,” he said. “I told that church that if they didn’t give financial support to this missionary, I was going to pray that God would send their kids to Japan to serve with that missionary.” Wow. Did the pastor just threaten his congregation with the punishment of going to the world? He continued, “And my church gave that man a laptop and a whole lot of money.” Apparently the threat worked.

Could it be that this deacon and this pastor expressed what most professing Christians in America today believe but are not bold enough to say? This may sound a bit harsh, but consider the reality.

There is a twofold purpose evident from the beginning of history. On one hand, we were created by God to enjoy his grace. Apart from everything else God created, we were made in his image.1 We alone have the capacity to enjoy God in intimate relationship with him. The first word the Bible uses to describe that relationship is blessing. God blessed the human race, not because of any merit or inherent worth in us, but simply out of pure, unadulterated grace. God created humankind to enjoy his grace. But that was not the end of the story, because on the other hand, God immediately followed his blessing with a command. “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.’”2 God gave his people his image for a reason—so that they might multiply his image throughout the world. He created human beings, not only to enjoy his grace in a relationship with him, but also to extend his glory to the ends of the earth.

Simple enough. Enjoy his grace and extend his glory.

God blesses his people with extravagant grace so they might extend his extravagant glory to all peoples on the earth. This basic, fundamental truth permeates Scripture from beginning to end.

JESUS DIDN’T DIE FOR JUST YOU We live in a church culture that has a dangerous tendency to disconnect the grace of God from the glory of God. Our hearts resonate with the idea of enjoying God’s grace. We bask in sermons, conferences, and books that exalt a grace centering on us. And while the wonder of grace is worthy of our attention, if that grace is disconnected from its purpose, the sad result is a self-centered Christianity that bypasses the heart of God.

Because if “God loves me” is the message of Christianity, then who is the object of Christianity?

This is the version of Christianity that largely prevails in our culture. But it is not biblical Christianity.

The message of biblical Christianity is “God loves me so that I might make him—his ways, his salvation, his glory, and his greatness—known among all nations.” Now God is the object of our faith, and Christianity centers around him. We are not the end of the gospel; God is.

God centers on himself, even in our salvation.

We are not the end of his grace?

we are usually referring to foreign missions as an optional program in the church for a faithful few who apparently are called to that. In this mind-set, missions is a compartmentalized program of the church, and select folks are good at missions and passionate about missions.

I find it interesting that we don’t do this with other words from Jesus. We take Jesus’ command in Matthew 28 to make disciples of all nations, and we say, “That means other people.” But we look at Jesus’ command in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,” and we say, “Now, that means me.” We take Jesus’ promise in Acts 1:8 that the Spirit will lead us to the ends of the earth, and we say, “That means some people.” But we take Jesus’ promise in John 10:10 that we will have abundant life, and we say, “That means me.” In the process we have unnecessarily (and unbiblically) drawn a line of distinction, assigning the obligations of Christianity to a few while keeping the privileges of Christianity for us all.

we say,"the gospel is for me,gods law is for others"

Every saved person this side of heaven owes the gospel to every lost person this side of hell.

God has created us to accomplish a radically global, supremely God-exalting purpose with our lives.

The more I read the Gospels, the more I marvel at the simple genius of what Jesus was doing with his disciples. My mind tends to wander toward grandiose dreams and intricate strategies, and I’m struck when I see Jesus simply, intentionally, systematically, patiently walking alongside twelve men. Jesus reminds me that disciples are not mass-produced. Disciples of Jesus—genuine, committed, self-sacrificing followers of Christ—are not made overnight.

Disciple making is not a call for others to come to us to hear the gospel but a command for us to go to others to share the gospel. A command for us to be gospel-living, gospel-speaking people at every moment and in every context where we find ourselves.

Disciple making involves inviting people into a larger community of faith where they will see the life of Christ in action and experience the love of Christ in person.

What would be the most effective way for this new follower of Christ to learn to pray? To sign her up for a one-hour-a-week class on prayer? Or to invite her personally into your quiet time with God to teach her how to pray? Similarly, what would be the most effective way for this new follower of Christ to learn to study the Bible? To register her in the next available course on Bible study? Or to sit down with her and walk her through the steps of how you have learned to study the Bible? This raises the bar in our own Christianity. In order to teach someone else how to pray, we need to know how to pray. In order to help someone else learn how to study the Bible, we need to be active in studying the Bible. But this is the beauty of making disciples. When we take responsibility for helping others grow in Christ, it automatically takes our own relationship with Christ to a new level.

In our Christian version of the American dream, our plan ends up disinfecting Christians from the world more than discipling Christians in the world.

disinfecting Christians involves isolating them and teaching them to be good, discipling Christians involves propelling Christians into the world to risk their lives for the sake of others. Now the world is our focus, and we gauge success in the church not on the hundreds or thousands whom we can get into our buildings but on the hundreds or thousands who are leaving our buildings to take on the world with the disciples they are making.

The Bible nowhere teaches that caring for the poor is a means by which we earn salvation. The means of our salvation is faith in Christ alone, and the basis of our salvation is the work of Christ alone.