A person in order to weep over the lack of holiness must have been brought to a point of delighting in holiness for its own sake.

Delight must precede brokenness.

If you want tears, you must preach joy.

The idea that joy leads to tears, that delight in holiness is what breaks us over sin, is so very helpful.

It reframes how we think about our fight with sin every day.

I'm Dan Kroover.

In this episode of Light and Truth,

John Piper helps us see why the path to real obedience

always begins with joy.

This message was originally delivered

in Birmingham, Alabama at the William E. Conger Lectures

on February 26, 1998.

Let me begin with a definition and then try to connect the message this morning with the message from yesterday.

What do I mean by radical obedience? I mean the kind of obedience to God that comes from the root of your life,

which is planted in God, and is drinking up joy and hope and satisfaction from the subterranean streams of grace embodied in the promises of God.

So if the root of your life is sunk in grace and you're feeding that root on promises, and that's coming up and giving hope and joy

and satisfaction and on the limbs of that strong tree are growing the fruit of obedience.

That's what I mean by radical obedience. It's the kind of obedience that's described in Hebrews 10 when the early

church found out that some of their friends were in jail, and at the cost of plundering, the plundering

of their property, they joyfully went to the jail to visit them.

That's radical obedience when you do such a thing joyfully.

Or like Moses, when he had the opportunity to stay in the posh palaces of Egypt,

...