The supernatural birth of Isaac is a picture of your

kingdom and my birth

into the kingdom.

And the grace that performs it

is the kind of grace

that looks into your heart and sees demerit and overrides it and sees deadness and creates life. How does God's grace conquer all our sins? In this episode of

light and truth John Piper turns to Romans 4, 16 to 21, to explore how God's

grace actually works.

The sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on September 19th, 1999.

He comes to the end of verse 16 saying that grace guarantees the promise for all the descendants of Abraham, Jews who keep the law but also have the faith of

Abraham and Gentiles who don't even know the law perhaps but have the faith of

Abraham. Both kinds are the descendants of Abraham

who are justified and he quotes Genesis 17-5 at the beginning of verse 17 that Abraham

will be the father of many nations. That is you and me, we come from all different kinds of ethnic backgrounds and all those are included if they have the faith of Abraham and then he comes in the middle and the end of

verse 17 to this absolutely crucial statement.

This faith of Abraham and this faith of all his descendants is, pick it up in the middle now, in the presence of him,

of him, whom he, believed, who, God, what kind of God? And then he unpacks the God of Grace. Who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.

Now why does he say that? Why does he direct our attention to a sovereign divine work of God that involves him in taking deadness and doing what no human can do, bringing life out of death,

and looking at nothing and doing what no human can do, namely bringing

something out of nothing.

Why does he talk like this? What's he getting at? Where's he going? Where's

this coming from? What's he up to with these words. He's up to talking about grace and a dimension of

...