The following message is by pastor John Piper. More information from desiring God is available at

W. W.

D. Desiring God. O.R.G.

Thank you Adam.

And thanks to all of those who are here and to the ones who invited me.

It's a great privilege to be here.

First time for me in this church. I think first time in the city I can't

remember. Let me pray with you for just a minute. Father in heaven I pray for your

help that this 50 minutes that we have together would be maximally useful

for our ministry, for our souls, for our worship, for our families, for our

effectiveness in the world, for your glory.

So come and help me and us as we engage with each other so that truth holds sway and our hearts are awakened and stirred and we move beyond where we presently are to where we need to be in our relationship

with you and those around us. Help me now I pray in Jesus name. Amen.

So Mindstered and affections renewed. That's the way they set up this conference and I take it then that affections renewed means that affections are prized and not threaten here, that it's good to awaken and stir and renew affections that is spiritual emotions. And so I want to underline that and talk for 20 or 30 minutes and stop

and see what kind of questions you have to answer.

I'm going to invite you to, if you have a Bible,

to go with me to 2 Corinthians chapter one.

And I want to admonish you to embrace

the Apostolic Ambition here in verse 24. And I'm just going to spend a little while putting it in

its context and I hope it feels to you unusually compelling and unusually powerful because it is a strange and

a wonderful ambition. So we'll read verse 24 of chapter 1 of 2 Corinthians.

Not that we lord it over your faith,

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