The following message is by pastor John Piper.

More information from Desiring God Ministries is available at

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Desiring God.org.

Father in heaven, we need your help now to see how Romans 12, your word, plows into this church, shapes everything

we do from budget building to vision casting to

fundraising to all of our interpersonal lives so come and give me grace and help me to make the application of the word

plain I ask in Jesus name. Amen. Most of my sermons are real short on application at the end. This one is all application almost,

and so they kind of even out. So if you don't like it that I don't do application, then like this sermon.

And if you do like application, don't like this sermon, and if you do like application, don't criticize me that this

one is 90% application.

Romans 12, keep your Bibles open there because we are there. I want to take a little byway in

Romans 12. It's not away from Romans 12. A byway into the practicalities of the life of this church.

I want you to see how Romans 12 confronts the way this church functions.

We need to think and feel as a people how the Bible makes its way into elder meetings, makes its way into vision

casting, makes its way into booklet construction, and makes its way into fundraising. And so go with me on a tour of Bethlehem by means of Romans 12.

We'll present to you this Wednesday night a six million dollar budget for next year.

That's the budget for next year. You need to come and find out about it. We will also talk about

Treasuring Christ together, which is going to cost upwards of 13.5 million

dollars in addition to that. Now let me give you some examples of the way Romans 12 is working

its way into the emergence of that

that budget. Last year, many of you were frustrated and rightly so by receiving the budget

...