The name of Christ is exalted because disobedience here is not by human strength, but by prayer and reliance and faith, that God will come and God will anoint, and God will will come and God will anoint and God will work

and God will free and God will humble and God will give love and God will give memory and God will give

liberty and God will brood over this congregation and get glory for himself.

This is one of those messages that re-centers us.

Because if we get this wrong, even our obedience can become self-glorifying.

I'm Dan Kruver.

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper opens Romans 1-5 to show us the kind of obedience that magnifies

the grace of God, not the strength or resourcefulness of man. This message was originally delivered

at Bethlehem Baptist Church on May 10th, 1998.

Through the living son of God risen with power, we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith.

So grace is given for a calling like apostleship or motherhood,

for a particular effect in the lives of children, you could say,

or in the lives of the Gentiles. And the effect here is described as the obedience of faith. Now, what is it? What's that phrase referring to? Now,

there are two possibilities here. Those of you have the NIV already see one of them, because they

chose to translate it it to exclude the other

and to choose the one, namely, the obedience which comes from faith. That's one possible meaning.

Another meaning is the obedience which is faith or faith which is obedience.

See, that word of in English is real ambiguous, just like the Greek construction here is ambiguous.

When you say acts of courage, acts of courage, you mean acts which come from courage in your

heart, the acts come out.

Or if you say block of wood, block of wood, it's a very different use of the word of.

The block is made of wood.

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