Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] I want to play a word association game.
[00:00:04] I will say a word. If it has a positive connotation, I want you to hold your thumbs up.
[00:00:10] If it has a negative, I want you to put your hands down. Do you want a practice round?
[00:00:17] Softballs. Love.
[00:00:19] Good.
[00:00:21] Bob. It's this way. Okay. Hate.
[00:00:24] Yeah. Okay. Are you ready?
[00:00:27] Puppies Training puppies.
[00:00:33] Yeah, that's not too good.
[00:00:37] Ice cream.
[00:00:41] Brain freeze.
[00:00:43] Those are miserable. Aren't they Avocados?
[00:00:49] No, It's edible green slime.
[00:00:59] They're in the world of olives and mushrooms.
[00:01:04] That's what Kim has to put up with with my culinary desires. Okay, here's another one.
[00:01:12] The cats.
[00:01:18] The.
[00:01:21] I better not say that one, because there are some of them in this room, and we're told to love them.
[00:01:35] Okay, here's the last one. And the whole point of this ambition.
[00:01:43] It's kind of a curious word, isn't it?
[00:01:48] There's people who are overly ambitious and they're obnoxious to be around, but there are those people who have this good ambition and drive.
[00:02:01] And Scripture distinguishes that there are two types of ambition.
[00:02:07] It calls them either a selfish ambition or a godly ambition.
[00:02:11] And so we're going to look at a couple texts here, and the reason I bring that up is Paul in Romans 15:20 says, it has always been my ambition.
[00:02:22] And we're gonna see. His ambition was a virtue because it was a godly ambition.
[00:02:29] Which will bring up this question for us this morning. What is godly ambition?
[00:02:36] And a directly related question to that is, what is your life's ambition?
[00:02:41] Is it a thumbs up or is it a thumbs down?
[00:02:46] Now, in the Bible, the word ambition is used, as I mentioned, in both positive and negative sense. It condemns selfish ambition. Philippians 2, 3 reads, do nothing from selfish ambition.
[00:02:57] And James 3:16 warns, for where you find envy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder in every evil practice.
[00:03:08] But when Paul writes, he says, it has always been my ambition.
[00:03:15] It is a positive ambition. So what's the difference?
[00:03:19] Here's a chart that kind of compares and contrasts selfish ambition versus a godly ambition. A selfish ambition wants to make a name for myself.
[00:03:30] A godly ambition makes Christ's name known.
[00:03:35] Selfish ambition, build my kingdom. Godly ambition, build. Build Christ's kingdom.
[00:03:42] Selfish, be recognized.
[00:03:44] Godly seek Christ recognized.
[00:03:48] Selfish, seek comfort.
[00:03:51] Godly embrace sacrifice. If Christ is glorified, fundamentally, a selfish ambition asks, what do I want?
[00:04:02] And the godly ambition asks, what does Christ desire?
[00:04:07] So as we study Romans, chapter 15, verses 14 through 25, let's learn what godly ambition looked like in the life of Paul. And here's one of the first things that we'll notice.
[00:04:19] God's glory was Paul's motivation.
[00:04:24] God's glory was Paul's motivation.
[00:04:27] So what we see here in Romans chapter 15, beginning with verse 14.
[00:04:36] Uh oh, uh oh, There we go.
[00:04:44] The tech guys are so nervous right now.
[00:04:55] I did it. Is it up there?
[00:04:58] Okay, here's verse 14.
[00:05:03] I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters. So he's talking to the Roman Church, and you can tell he's starting to wind the book down here, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge, and competent to instruct one another.
[00:05:20] So when he begins talking about ambition, he says there's three things about you're good. You have knowledge and you have a competency.
[00:05:29] You have a capacity to do certain things. And he reminds them of these gifts that he has and what God has given them. He points to some of the things that they are doing. And the reality is, if you think you're bad, you're ignorant and incompetent, then you're not going to fulfill God's ambition for you.
[00:05:50] Really Godly ambition begins at one point with the godly view of yourself that if you're a child of God, you're not a bad person. You've been imputed with the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.
[00:06:03] And along with that, you have a set of gifts that he has given you. We've been talking about that in Romans chapter 12.
[00:06:09] You have a competency that you can do and you are able to instruct other people.
[00:06:15] So he was just reassuring them of what they already had.
[00:06:20] So then, moving on.
[00:06:23] Yet I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them. Again, because of the grace, God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, he gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God so that Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God.
[00:06:47] I am so thankful as a Gentile that God called Paul to go to the Gentiles.
[00:06:58] Paul's ambition was to take the gospel to those who weren't in God's covenant family and bring them in.
[00:07:06] If you're a Gentile, you should thank Paul because he started this whole thing of bringing Gentiles into the body of Christ sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, look at this. I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God.
[00:07:24] God's glory was his motivation. He was motivated to fulfill that which he had been called to do. And so we see in this text that he was set apart to be a minister to the Gentiles as well. And so what Paul is doing is he's taking Jesus teachings and applying them to himself and to them and to us.
[00:07:46] So one of the things that Jesus or Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount is In Matthew chapter 5:16, he says, Let your light shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify the Father which is in heaven.
[00:08:00] And so what, Paul is just taking that teaching of Jesus well, how do we let our light shall shine before others that they may see our good works and glorify the Father which is heaven? For Paul, he was to take the gospel to the Gentiles.
[00:08:16] He began to fulfill what God had set apart in his life. And so his motivation was God's glory. And the next thing we see then is God's Christ's mission became Paul's ambition.
[00:08:30] In verse 70, he says, I glory in Christ Jesus and my service to God.
[00:08:35] So in Romans 15:19, 21, he describes his service to to God like this.
[00:08:41] He says, so from Jerusalem all the way to Illyricum, and this is the modern Balkan peninsula.
[00:08:51] So all the way from Jerusalem to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the Gospel of Christ.
[00:08:57] It has always been. And here it is my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation.
[00:09:10] Rather, as it is written, those who were not told about him will see and those who have not heard will understand.
[00:09:21] So what we see in this text is we can unpack it. I believe there's three things that really help him and help us understand and discern our godly ambition.
[00:09:33] I think the first thing is this, is that his godly ambition was specific.
[00:09:39] It was specific.
[00:09:40] He says, it has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation.
[00:09:51] That was Paul's ambition and it's not mine.
[00:10:01] I don't want to do that.
[00:10:04] I've not been called to do that primarily because I would be bad at it.
[00:10:13] I am not a pioneering missionary to go into an unreached people group and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
[00:10:23] I would not be good at that because that's my gift set.
[00:10:28] Here's the cool thing Journey Church is we have people from our church who are gifted to do that. And when you give to this church, you support a couple in East Asia who are going to unreached people groups. They are doing that because they are gifted for that.
[00:10:49] And so one of the things about godly ambition is specific.
[00:10:54] I whispered to Audrey, who you just met before she came on stage.
[00:11:02] I said, do you want to switch places?
[00:11:07] And she said, no.
[00:11:11] So I'll preach this sermon and she'll stand next to Brian and be introduced as our leader.
[00:11:20] I don't want to be the youth pastor, and you don't want me to be the youth pastor, and the youth don't want me to be the youth pastor.
[00:11:33] Here's the cool thing. It's liberating, isn't it? You don't have to do everything.
[00:11:38] You just have to do your thing.
[00:11:40] And there is something that you have been gifted to do well, you're competent in, you've been called to.
[00:11:50] It aligns with your passion, your calling in life.
[00:11:54] It's uniquely you as your fingerprint is.
[00:12:00] There's that work that God has created you to do and you can do it. It's that work which you can bring glory to God.
[00:12:09] When you fulfill that, it is the light of Christ finding coming from you. So that is not my ambition.
[00:12:18] My ambition was the complete opposite.
[00:12:22] To be a local church pastor to people who knew Christ, building on someone else's foundation.
[00:12:31] Primarily, my ministry career has been lead pastor in two different churches. One in Arkansas for 13 years, the other here in Bozeman for 12 years.
[00:12:40] I went to a church filled with Christians that was started by someone else. And I built on that foundation that was laid and I shepherded and pastored a local church.
[00:12:54] That's what I'm created and called to do.
[00:12:58] And in one sense, at least for right now, that's what I'm doing now.
[00:13:04] And you're me and I'm you. This is our church.
[00:13:10] And when Bob asked me to stand up here and preach, I just pastor you.
[00:13:15] I didn't start this church someone more creative than I did, but I built upon the foundation that was laid and I'm happy to fulfill in this row.
[00:13:29] We all have different gifts according to God's desire.
[00:13:33] And it's good to know what your ambition is and isn't. And Paul's ambition was different from mine. Second thing, it was scriptural rather as it is written. And then what he does is quotes Isaiah 52:15 where it says, those who are not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will, will understand.
[00:13:57] There was something about that verse that just resonated with him. And when Paul saw that verse in Isaiah 52:15, Paul said to himself, that's me.
[00:14:08] That's me.
[00:14:10] That's what I'm called to do.
[00:14:14] And frequently, I think what happens sometimes is there is a particular verse that you're reading and it just pops out and you go, that's me.
[00:14:27] That's me.
[00:14:28] That's what I was created to do. This is what I was created to do. And we see this scriptural basis for it.
[00:14:38] So I've said this before.
[00:14:40] I know, you know, as I age, I repeat myself, but I know I'm repeating myself. So this is not an age issue right here.
[00:14:51] Here's a verse that just is so special to me.
[00:14:55] And I'll repeat it again.
[00:14:57] It's John 17:4, Jesus Prayer before he's crucified, where he says, I have brought glory to you on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.
[00:15:08] That verse has settled in my soul and it drives me.
[00:15:13] It drives me.
[00:15:15] John 17:4, when it speaks in that way.
[00:15:18] I want to bring glory to God on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.
[00:15:24] I love one of the things I've always loved in pastoring churches is the older women in the church.
[00:15:31] And now the ironic thing is now the older women are my age and there's some ladies afterwards, I preach, they come up and they talk to me and. And it means a lot to me. One of them corrects my dictation.
[00:15:47] And that's good.
[00:15:50] But I don't know if you know, but Kim and I recently retired and this lady from Journey, I can't remember who it is right now, but she came up to me and she saw me in the lobby afterwards and she looked at me. She says, you're not going to be one of those preachers that when they retire, they just quit.
[00:16:08] And I said, no, I can't quit.
[00:16:13] I have to do this.
[00:16:16] I will do it as long as I can, because I want to bring glory to God by completing the work that he's given me to do.
[00:16:26] That's a good verse for you, isn't it, in finding and fulfilling your ambition that you want to finish the work that. That God has given you to do. And that's scriptural.
[00:16:38] So there was a scripture driving him. His scripture was Isaiah 52:15.
[00:16:43] Mine's John 17:4. But there's also a source, so be specific. It's crafted for you. It's scriptural. Here's the source.
[00:16:52] Where did Paul's ambition come from?
[00:16:56] It came from an encounter with Jesus.
[00:17:00] Read the story. I think it's told three times in the book of Acts. This is how significant it is. But in Acts, chapter nine, we first time see the story where Paul was persecuting Christians. He was on the road to Damascus to go kill and arrest Christians. And all of a sudden, it was a supernatural bright light that knocked him down to the ground.
[00:17:22] And Jesus spoke to him as he was blinded by that light.
[00:17:27] Paul. Paul. Saul. Saul, why are you persecuting me?
[00:17:33] Then he told him to get up, go into town. And there was a man named Ananias who was a Christ follower. And so this is what God told Ananias to tell Paul.
[00:17:42] He told him, this man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and to their kings and to the people of Israel.
[00:17:57] So in his encounter with Jesus, he had a very clear, specific point as to what he was called to do.
[00:18:07] You are going to go to Gentiles and proclaim my name to you.
[00:18:15] And Paul's ambition was to make Christ known where Christ had not yet been named.
[00:18:21] And he did it well.
[00:18:23] We stand here today as beneficiaries of the Apostle Paul, obeying that which God had called him to do.
[00:18:32] We reap so many benefits from that word. And ambition comes from an encounter with Jesus Christ.
[00:18:39] And when I was grappling with being a pastor, I worked at United Parcel Service nights.
[00:18:47] Ray Cruze one night walked up to me and said I was reading Jeremiah, chapter one. It's amazing.
[00:18:55] I had no idea what was in there.
[00:18:57] I got off the night shift, I read it. It was Jeremiah's call into the ministry.
[00:19:05] And I said, that's me and that's my call.
[00:19:10] And it was a personal encounter with Jesus when I knew I had to say yes to God's call for me to be a pastor.
[00:19:21] Have you ever had this personal encounter with Jesus?
[00:19:25] Sometimes it starts with convicting you of your sin and you repented and you turned to faith in Jesus.
[00:19:32] I don't have these a lot of times, but they're very special when I do have them and I hold on to them and I am confident enough, if you're willing to do and fulfill your godly ambition in life, that he'll communicate it clearly enough that you get it.
[00:19:53] Finding and fulfilling your ambition really begins with encounter with Jesus Christ. That was the source of his fulfillment of his ministry.
[00:20:02] So what does godly ambition actually do in us?
[00:20:08] Here's the third thing. Godly ambition gives direction to your life.
[00:20:13] Godly ambition gives direction to your life.
[00:20:18] Verses 22 through 25 show that Paul's ambition govern his calendar, travel, relationships, and future plans. So let's look at verse 22.
[00:20:30] This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you. So one of the reasons for this writing, he meant to come visit them in Rome. He's in Corinth with this, but he's just saying, hey, I was meaning to come but I couldn't make it. So I'm going to write this book of Romans.
[00:20:46] Isn't that cool?
[00:20:49] Because he was hindered to come. He wrote the entire book of Romans and now we get to read it.
[00:20:56] Sometimes hindrances work out for God's glory, don't they?
[00:21:00] So he said this, this is why I've often been hindered from coming to you. But now there is no more place for me to work in these regions. He's talking about Jerusalem, Illyricum and Corinth.
[00:21:11] Since I've been longing for many years to visit you, I plan to do so when I go to Spain. So here's this travel itinerary.
[00:21:20] So he goes on, I hope to see you in Rome while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there and after. I've enjoyed your company for a while now, however, I'm on my way to Jerusalem in the service of God's people there.
[00:21:39] Do you see this itinerary he has?
[00:21:42] When he wrote the letter he was probably in Corinth and he goes hey, I'm going to go down Jerusalem, that's 850 miles.
[00:21:49] After Jerusalem I'm going to go to Rome, that's 2,000 miles. And then after visiting you in Rome, my plan is to go to the western extreme of the Roman Empire to Spain and I'm going to preach the gospel there. And that's another 800 miles.
[00:22:07] He was going to travel about 3,500 miles in the first century world.
[00:22:14] And so he had this geography, this plan of what God had called him to do. And it's a geographical example of how God's ambition gives direction to Paul's life.
[00:22:24] And as someone who's a little further down the road than many of you, here's something I've learned.
[00:22:29] A life without a God given ambition eventually drifts.
[00:22:37] I saw there was a Gallup poll recently about Gen Z and one of the characteristics, about 40 something percent of Gen Z I think it was, says they lack direction in life.
[00:22:51] And I know what that was like when I was a teenager.
[00:22:57] And I think you look at our society in general, I think people lack a direction in life and God wants us to find and fulfill that direction in our life.
[00:23:10] And so a life without A God given ambition eventually drifts.
[00:23:15] So here's the question, what is steering your life?
[00:23:20] Something always is.
[00:23:23] Everyone has an ambition.
[00:23:26] The question is, what are you ambitious for?
[00:23:33] What is the thing that drives you?
[00:23:37] And here's the reality is the gospel doesn't destroy ambition.
[00:23:43] It redeems, purifies it.
[00:23:48] So this big question that we've been looking at is, what is godly ambition?
[00:23:53] And so a related question is this, what is the ambition of your life?
[00:23:59] Let me wrap up with a story, a story of how godly ambition gives direction to your life.
[00:24:08] Our church, dirty church, you just met him up here, is led by one of the leaders, is Brian Prebe, the executive pastor here.
[00:24:18] The story about myself and our relationship with Brian Prebe began back in the summer of 2008.
[00:24:26] He had been hired as the assistant basketball coach at Montana State University, and I had been called to be a pastor at a church here in town.
[00:24:37] He came up by himself early to look for a house and try to find a church. And one Sunday he went to the church that I eventually became the pastor at. And he sat there and listened to the message and so on. And after the sermon ended, the pastor said, make sure you come back next week.
[00:24:54] We're going to introduce you to our new pastor, Jim Keenan.
[00:24:59] So Brian said, oh, maybe I'll come back next week.
[00:25:03] He came back next week. I preached and then we met each other.
[00:25:07] They eventually moved, our family moved here and we became good friends.
[00:25:13] We were in our very first community group together.
[00:25:17] It was also in 2008 was the first time I met Bob Schwann.
[00:25:22] And I immediately liked him.
[00:25:25] And I haven't stopped.
[00:25:29] So we were here in 2008. I began my pastoral ministry. He settled into his job, and eventually I asked if Brian would serve on the elder board.
[00:25:39] And he served on our elder board.
[00:25:41] Then one day several years later, I called up Brian. I said, hey, let's have lunch. And we went to go have lunch.
[00:25:49] And as I sat down, I looked across at him and says, hey, I want to hire you as our executive pastor.
[00:25:59] And he was taken aback by that.
[00:26:02] And then he smiled and laughed. He says, I can't because I found a job somewhere else or at something else. He didn't have to move.
[00:26:12] And so I was disappointed at this setback.
[00:26:16] But he continued to serve functionally as an executive pastor because he became the leader of our elder board, the governing board of our church at that particular time, and began to see his gifts and talents develop.
[00:26:32] And so then when I resigned in 2020, shortly afterwards, they also sensed that God was calling them to come to Journey Church. So Brian and Kristen started coming to church here.
[00:26:44] And after a little while, this church hired Brian to be our executive pastor.
[00:26:54] And when I found out that he had been hired here as executive pastor, the first thing I said to him afterwards was I told you so.
[00:27:10] I was right.
[00:27:13] In all humility, I saw within him a gift and calling to be an executive pastor in a church.
[00:27:26] Do you know what executive pastors do?
[00:27:28] They execute things, they get things done, they lead searches for youth pastors.
[00:27:40] And one of the greatest joys of my life is to be here now and see him fulfill his God given ambition.
[00:27:51] Because he is not gifted to be a missionary to an unreached people group, but he is gifted to be an executive pastor in this church.
[00:28:04] And we all are the beneficiaries of him pursuing and fulfilling his God sanctioned ambition.
[00:28:17] And you, if you fulfill your God's choice sanction ambition, you too will be a part of fulfilling the redemptive purpose of Journey Church.
[00:28:31] And so one of the things I recognize this is that when I fulfill what God's created and called me to do, it brings good to others, glory to God and joy to my soul.
[00:28:46] That's why it's so good to know and fulfill your God sanctioned ambition.
[00:28:52] Let's pray. Father. God, thank you for your presence among us and for your word.
[00:28:58] Father, I thank you for calling us to yourself as a follower of you. And if someone here doesn't know you, I pray they will repent and turn to you in faith and receive this free gift of salvation.
[00:29:10] Father, may you speak to us, your church.
[00:29:15] May you give us clarity into this God sanctioned God holy ambition that you've put within us.
[00:29:22] And may we seek to fulfill the unique work that you've called all of us to do.
[00:29:28] Father, be glorified in us as a community of believers. May your kingdom expand and be advanced in Bozeman and around the world because of this local expression of your body. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.
