Some people may assume that John Piper was born a Calvinist. In fact, no, he wasn't. His embrace of reformed soteriology came at the expense of some very painful life experiences, some of which he shared in a 2002 sermon. Here's Pastor John explaining one of those key moments from his life in seminary, when he came face to face with Philippians 2.12 and the ninth chapter of Romans.

Here he is to explain. There are two experiences in my life that make Romans 9 one of the most important, if not the most important chapter in the Bible in shaping the way I think about everything and in determining where I have been led by God to minister, namely at Bethlehem.

And the reason I open in this autobiographical way is not because it really matters what happened to me. It really is neither here nor there what I think about anything or what I experienced about anything. I tell it autobiographically because the doctrines of Romans 9 are about life. They're about choices that you will make behind which you will never turn again.

You come to certain points in your life in crisis, and you know that if you cross the line, you'll never go back again. And you need to know that that's what we're dealing with in Romans 9. This is not just about controversy. This is not just about intellectual thought.

It's not just about doctrine. It's about what will happen to your life because of a vision of God and a vision of salvation that's in this chapter. When I entered seminary in 1968, I believed in the freedom of my will in the sense that I thought it was ultimately self-determining.

I hadn't learned that from the Bible. I had absorbed that from the self-infatuated, self-exalting, self-esteeming, self-sufficient air you and I breathe in this country every day. That's where I had absorbed it. It isn't in the Bible. Not one verse teaches the self-determining will of man. But I believed it just like most people believe it.

The sovereignty of God meant to me he can do anything with me. I give him permission to do. That's what the sovereignty of God meant. And with this frame of mind, I entered a class on Philippians taught by Daniel Fuller and I entered a class on the salvation of man taught by James Morgan who died of cancer while I was at Fuller.

In Philippians, I hit head-on, verse 12, chapter 2, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling." And then I hit like a brick wall the ground clause, "For God is that one who is at work in you to will and to work for his good pleasure. Beneath my willing is God's willing and beneath my working is God's working." The question wasn't, "Do I have a will?" The question was, "Why do I will what I will?" And the ultimate answer, not the only answer, was God.

Then I entered this systematic theology class with James Morgan. We dealt, as all systematic theology classes do, with the doctrine of election and grace. Romans 9 proved to be the watershed text in that class. I ran into these verses in chapter 9, verse 11, "Though Jacob and Esau were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, in order that the purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls, she was told, Rebecca was told, the older will serve the younger, before they done anything good or evil, in order that election might stand, Esau was made subservient to Jacob." And it raises the question of the justice of God.

And therefore in verse 14, we read in that class, and you can read right now in your Bible, "Is there then injustice on God's part?" And he answers, "No," and he quotes Moses. Verse 15, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." Which raises the question of his irresistible will, which Paul raises in verse 19, "Why then does he still find fault?

Who can resist his will?" And he answers in verse 21, "Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use?" Now, emotions run very high in a 22 year old or 82 year old who finds his man-centered world collapsing around him.

So, one day I met James Morgan in the hall who was confronting me with these texts that were making me very angry and making me cry in the afternoon as I read my Bible. And I pulled my pen out of my pocket, and I stood in front of him and after a few minutes of heated discussion, I held my pen in front of his face and I dropped it on the floor.

And with far less respect than a 22 year old ought to have for a teacher, I said, "I dropped it! I dropped it!" As though that would settle the issue. That there were no divine authority or power that might have somehow governed my dropping it. Emotions run very high when your world is collapsing.

By the end of the semester it was in ruins. And I wrote in my blue book, I can picture the place in the class where I was sitting, "Romans 9 is like a tiger going about devouring free-willers like me." And that was the end of my love affair with human autonomy and the ultimate self-determination of my will.

And it was the beginning of a love affair with the supremacy of God. That was from Pastor John's sermon delivered on November 3rd, 2002, aptly titled, "The Absolute Sovereignty of God. What is Romans 9 about?" You can find the full sermon at ZyronGod.org. And of course, John Piper on Romans 9 is gold.

A number of people are unaware that he published a whole academic book on this chapter in 1993. It's a book titled, "The Justification of God." If you have some Greek in you, you should check that out. And if you have a favorite sermon clip of Pastor John's in a recent message or an old message, conference message, something you heard him share locally in your hometown, whatever, give me the timestamps of the audio clip of when it begins and ends.

Tell me why that clip impacted you and email me those details at askpastorjohn@zyrongod.org. That's an email address, askpastorjohn@zyrongod.org. Give me your name, your hometown, or the city you live closest to, and put the word "clip" in the subject line as well. I'm always interested to hear which sermons have most impacted you, and specifically which clips from those sermons have been most impactful.

And I would love to share those with the whole audience. Well, next time we ask, "Is angry prayer okay?" It's an important question that we need to address. Is angry prayer okay? Don't miss it. I'm Tony Renke. We'll see you back here on Friday.