This therefore, in verse one, I appeal to you to live a certain way

because something happened, and therefore I'm making this appeal.

Because something happened in history and something happened to you and God is a certain way,

reality is a certain way, there is objective worldview behind these two chapters.

And it's signified by that word, therefore.

If we're not careful, it's easy to look past that word, therefore, that we find here in Romans 12-1.

But fortunately, John Piper doesn't.

Because it turns out that word carries a massive amount of weight.

I'm Dan Kruver.

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper shows us that one little word is holding up an entire worldview shaped by mercy.

This message was originally delivered at the Cove in Asheville, North Carolina,

on July 27, 2007.

Well, we have before us Romans 12 and Romans 13, and I'll tell you, I'm really struggling.

I preached 350 pages of sermons on these two chapters.

It took me six years to get through chapters one to 11,

and then two years to finish the book, and about

30 sermons on these two chapters.

And I must condense that into five hours, which I'm finding extremely difficult to do.

And when we're done tonight, your conclusion will be he gave up.

Because we're only going to cover a half a verse in this first session.

And my biggest fear is that some of you are going to write letters back to the Billy Graham

Association and say, I came to figure out what the end of chapter 13 was about.

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