On April 26th, 1998, John Piper preached a sermon on Romans 1, verse 1.

It was sermon number 1 in a new series he called Romans, the greatest letter ever written.

He announced to his church it would be, quote, a great 10 years in Romans, in quote, and

people applauded that.

He would go on to complete the book in 225 sermons in just 8 years and 8 months finishing

up on Christmas Eve 2006.

This Roman series is now legend, but back in the early months of the series, the church

had to be prepared to plunge into Romans 118 to 320, a prolonged argument from Paul that

diagnosis the world's sin problems, and God's righteous, wrathful response to it.

This section alone would require 22 of those sermons, and to prepare his congregation

for such a heavy season ahead, Pastor John explained how hard texts about sin and wrath are

vital for creating sages in a local church.

Here's a clip of him explaining this from his August 30th, 1998 sermon titled, The Wrath

of God Against Unguidliness and Unrighteousness.

Here he is.

For a couple of years, I've been throwing out from time to time a goal that I have for

the church in the word sage.

I want us to be through Sunday school, Wednesday night, efforts, track one TBI, small groups,

preaching, worship.

I want us to become a church in which we nurture and cultivate sages, sagacious.

People, that is, people who are wise, discerning, penetrating, people loving, heart-knowing,

God-exalting sages, I've put it like this, all of you 20, 30, 40-year-old people should

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