“Paul would state his life mission like this: “I exist (by the grace of God) to bring about the obedience of faith among all the gentiles (or peoples) for the sake of the glory of the name of Christ.”
Now if that’s his life mission—to glorify the name of Christ by bringing about the obedience of faith among the nations—then we would expect that this would also be the aim of his greatest of all letters, the letter to the Romans. And that is what we see in verses 8–15. We see Paul making a case to the Romans that even though he has not yet come to visit them, he has been and is now utterly devoted to building the obedience of faith in their lives and fulfilling his mission in their lives.”
In verses 8-15, Piper identifies Paul’s life mission as bringing about the obedience of faith among the peoples for the glory of God. And then Piper shares how that will come about, by faith, through his prayers, for the glory of God.
“Surely we should learn from this that the great aim of our ministry should be the same as Paul’s—to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of Christ’s name and God’s glory. I said a moment ago that faith glorifies God in at least two ways. One we saw here: namely, that God is the Giver and the Giver gets the glory. The other is that faith by its nature depends on God and calls attention to his trustworthiness.[2]”
So he explains faith as coming from God, so we cannot boast, so that He gets all the glory. But the other is that when someone has faith, that faith becomes visible as it depends on the glory of God. So, truly faith is from start to finish, from the inception to the end. And in the midst of this faith, obedience, is the fruit of faith, that the world can see, the invisible becoming visible from the inside out.
But, what encouraged me so much in this message was how he longed for that faith by praying for them night and day that he could visit them and establish them with his spiritual gifts and be encouraged by their spiritual gifts. Everything is to the glory of God. Their faith. His praying for them. Encouraging them in His spiritual gifts. Them encouraging him.
This brilliant man, educated, passionate, the lead apostle of the church, not only expresses his humility through his love for these people, but clearly demonstrates that nothing he does is by himself. It is all grace. Even his longing for them to be established is from God.
This aim for the church is also a wonderful insight to us that it is by faith, through faith, in faith, which is a gift of His grace, for the Glory of His Name.
Steve Allen
ACTION Zambia
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