Understanding Your Ambition

Paul never sought great things for himself. He always thought great things for God.

Everything you did, he did to the glory of the Lord. This is the pervasive reality of Christian living. This is the basic principle of all that we are all doing it is to please the Lord, not just on the outside but on the inside as well. Ambition.

So what do you think what sort of ambition should a Christian have more important, what does the Bible say well today on grace to you. John MacArthur is going to look biblically at the issue of ambition as he continues a series of messages. He originally preached during chapel at the Masters University to study that spells out for you a course for life. Here's the lesson. Second Corinthians chapter 5 gives us a biblical understanding of ambition verse nine second Corinthians 59 Paul speaks here regarding himself. He likes to use the plural pronoun. We sort of sort of takes the sting out of the eye pronoun which, if you had written as many epistles he did to get a little overbearing and so he likes to use the sort of editorial we.

And he says this therefore also we have as our ambition.

Paul had ambition but ambition enough.

I think in our world today has to overtones that are negative when somebody talks about the word ambition, you sort of assume that maybe somewhere along the line in parentheses the word unscrupulous auto appear. Thomas Brooks wrote ambition is a gilded misery a secret poison.

A hidden plague ambition he said is the engineer of deceit, the mother of hypocrisy, the parent of envy, ambition he said is the original vice. It was ambition that got Satan and his agreeable angels thrown out of heaven was ambition, the got Adam and Eve thrown out of the garden was ambition the got Judas thrown into hell. Ambition is the destroyer of virtue. The blinder of hearts turning medicine into malady and remedy and the disease is Brooks. What about that word ambition. What really is that it's from a Latin word Ambi array. Interestingly enough, Amber a means both both seems like a rather innocuous word had it ever get to this point, but it referred to going both ways. At the same time being duplicitous, being double minded saying one thing and believing something else, pretending that one objective and actually having another one it said Mr. facing both ways of Pilgrim's progress and it was applying to the person who had absolutely no convictions would do anything say anything to gain a selfish goal never really revealing the truth, attempting or trying to convince you he was going one way, when in fact he was really going another is ambition really always sinful. Well, if it is then what in the world.

Is it doing in the Bible hear the apostle Paul back to verse nine we have as our ambition here. I want you to meet a man who is as ambitious as anybody.

I think you ever live. It was basically Paul's nature to be extreme. He was extreme before it was converted right that's why took an extreme act of God to redirect him and mean he didn't just do things half way he was going to persecute Christians. It was all the way to the extreme. So way he lived his life after Christ as well. There is no question that this is a driven man, what is it then that Jeremiah was forbidding that Paul is allowing and even honoring and even confessing to it is simply this, the issue of Jeremiah is if you're seeking great things for yourself. Don't seek and I think it's pretty obvious that Jeremiah was not condemning all ambition as sinful, but showing that selfishness is always sinful and corrupting.

The Greeks did what I think the sinful world always does even today.

They make noble things out of sin, and the Greeks actually sort of overcame the meaning of the word and turned ambition into something kind of noble. The Greek word here for low to middle my means to love, honor, and the Greeks really did and they elevated the idea of loving honor and seeking honor pursuing noble goals.

Paul spoke of a of honor. He talked about if anybody seeks the office of an over series 6 and noble work, one translation. First Timothy 31 says to aspire leadership is an honorable ambition, and here we find it.

Paul had a noble ambition but his ambition was uncorrupted and I'll show you why it was a kind of three-dimensional ambition and went high and went wide and went deep. Let's just look at those three things briefly. He had ambition. First of all that went high. Verse nine we have is our ambition, whether at home or absent to be pleasing to him that phrase to be pleasing to him that separates spiritual ambition from sinful ambition. Paul never sought great things for himself. He always thought great things for God. The apostle is like a violinist who cares not for the audience applause for for the smile of the master who taught him. He lived to please the Lord. Everything you did, he did to the glory of the Lord in first Corinthians chapter 4, he he really makes a very very powerful statements about this verse three he says to me it's a very small thing that I should be examined by you or by any human court is a minor detail in my life to be examined by people I really have little regard for what you think or what any human tribunal thinks any evaluation by people has very limited value to me.

He says in verse four, first Corinthians for the one who examines me is the Lord so don't go on passing judgment before the time wait till the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things hidden in the darkness disclose the motives of men's hearts and then each men praise will come to him from God.

This is what drove Paul.

He told the Galatians, he was no men pleaser. They had accused him of being that the he denies adding Galatians chapter 1. You see, he had the highest goal with regard to his ambition and that was to be pleasing to the Lord. This is this is the pervasive reality of Christian living. This is the basic principle of all that we are and all that we do and it is to please the Lord, not just on the outside but on the inside as well. The basic bottom line of Christian living is to be driven to do what pleases the Lord to offer your body as it were a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable in the God which is your reasonable kind of worship to have your mind renewed in Ephesians 5, Paul talks about trying to learn what it is to please the Lord speaks of that over and over and over in his letters, so his ambition. First of all went up in the sense that his highest goal was to please the Lord, whatever it is you do in life, whatever career you choose whatever ministry you choose whatever path you go what drives that ambition has to be the pleasure of God. But not only did his ambition have an upward since it had an outward sense look again at verse nine he says whether at home or absent that the apostles devotion to this noble ambition knew no limits as indicated in that phrase, whether at home or absent.

What is he mean by that backup into verses one through eight. Go back to verse eight. II prefer he says to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord is talk about whether he lives or dies.

This is really an important note here to remember.

He has been talking about the fact that life is tough on him back in verse one is earthly tent is weakening.

He says that elsewhere. Of course just backing up a couple of verses into verse 17 of chapter 4 he's experiencing light affliction. Verse 16. The outer man is decaying, so he understands as he gets older and as persecution continues, and as he battles with his unredeemed flesh and struggles with sin. His spouses breaking down, but he says we have a building from God house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. He looks forward to that eternal body that new body that resurrection body and meantime.

In verse four he says we grown being burdened in this body burdened with sin and weakness in all of that and then he comes out of her sensitive have my choice. I go to heaven. It's a very mature statement and I would assume that most of you sitting here today couldn't say that there's just too much of life out there this. There's too much of all the good things of God is put into life that you haven't yet experienced, but it is an indicator of how consumer we become with the world around us. When heaven doesn't seem as good as life here on this earth and we can talk about that, but that's not really the point I want to make a back down to verse nine he says, whether at home or absent. My ambition is to be pleasing to him and what he means by that is I have right now on this earth. The very same ambition that I will have when I'm in heaven and it is to please the Lord and that's the breath of it. It covers time and eternity. Paul understood that you live your life, you're the same way Glenlivet in heaven. No different. You're certainly not going to be pleasing men in heaven. You're certainly not can be pleasing yourself in heaven in perfect righteousness with perfect joy in perfect peace. You will live to the pleasure of God forever who himself will ever live for your pleasure use not necessarily wishing to go to heaven. Although he has set on other occasions I'd rather depart be with Christ but it's more needful to be here and he's also said if I live I live the Lord if I died I Lord's, whether live or die am the Lord's, it's just a sleeping continuity of his perception. I am here on earth. Committed to live my life the same way.

I will live in heaven so I'm not to go down those paths that certainly have no place in heaven there will be no liars. In heaven there will be no adulterers in heaven there will be no immorality.

In heaven there will be nothing unclean in heaven. It will be a pure environment of worship to Christ and abandonment the service to him for ever.

I live my life. Now the way I will live it in. There are no borders in my life. This is full continuity of life, the height of his ambition is to please God and the breath of his ambition is there is absolute continuity between time and eternity in the way he lives his life and there really is no other way to maintain sanctified ambition.

If you have one set of objectives here and you would have to abandon all of them when you go to heaven you've missed something while I'm here. I'm turning as much money as I can well while I'm here, I'm trying to get up the corporate ladder as fast as I can while I'm here I am trying to get as much power and influence. As I possibly can.

God may give you power give you influence give you money give you promotion but the goal is to please him what he chooses to do with the way you please him is up to him by the way, you will be inexplicably and comprehensively wealthy in heaven. So God is certainly not against that but his desire for you, now is the very same thing that is his desire for you and eternity is why Paul in Philippians 3 makes a really interesting statement. He says some I press toward the mark goal for the prize. Okay, you're going toward a mark for the prize of the high calling of Christ Jesus.

This is a very interesting statement. Paul is telling us that the goal of my life. I press toward the smart is the prize of the upward call.

What is it with you talking about last yourself this when were called up.

What's the price we going to get when you get him. What is the most glorious feature of heaven to you. Go streets no pearl dates no flashing jewels, no be able to play the harp and sing with the Angels no transmigration across the infinite new heaven and that no what is the glorious at reality that's going to take place. When you enter in heaven. First John three. We shall see, and we shall be like Christ likeness. So Paul says my goal in life is to reach the mark which will be my prize when I'm called up, so Paul doesn't have any different objective in life than is the reality of eternity.

The goal in eternity is to make them like Christ. Romans eight to conform into the image of God, son.

That's why he was chosen and saved and his subjective God's objective for him and eternity becomes his objective in time, so this continuity in his life is no discontinuity at all… Whole life that to become like Jesus Christ. That's the eternal prize that becomes his goal in life.

That's the breath of this ambition and then there's 1/3 element when you look at these three dimensions of a sanctified ambition. It's upward focus is to please the Lord. It's outward focus is to maintain continuity between that which is eternal and that was temporal and then I want to look at 1/3 dimension it's death, it's depth and when I talked about depth. I'm talking about what drives this ambition.

What motivates this ambition. Verse 10 for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body according to what is done, whether good or bad.

What motivates you.

No earthly reward no earthly honor, no earthly threat. No earthly possibility, no earthly circumstance, no earthly opportunity motivated Paul he could take it all over in chapter 6 he says far as living life here verse four I lived in much endurance afflictions, hardship, distress, beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labor, sleeplessness, hunger, not exactly your first choice for life and sometimes good things come. Verse seven the word of truth.

The power of God, the weapons of righteousness on the right hand on the left, but he said most of the time it just kind of flip flops back and forth sometimes glory sometimes dishonor sometimes evil report sometimes good report. Sometimes I'm regarded as a deceiver. Some people think I'm true I'm unknown to some well known to others, I'm dying, and yet I'm alive unpunished, and yet never put to death. I'm sorrowfully at rejoicing and poor, yet rich, that's how life goes right and the listings really move me not motivated by circumstances. I'm not motivated by earthly issues.

There's just one underlying deep-seated reality.

The drives Paul and it is the has to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. There will be an accounting someday to appear is fun around vote to be made manifest to be made clear. The judgment seat of Christ.

Interesting term. And of course the thing you understand that when you go before Christ to have him render the verdict on what in your life really mattered as a Christian, you understand that all the hypocrisies are over and all the concealments are over, and all the secrets are over all the fronts and the façades are over everything gets stripped away because God first Samuel 16 sentences always looks where on the hard and that's why back in first Corinthians 4. Five. Paul says God, who searches the hearts will know the secrets of men's hearts and then every man will have praise from God. There is, according to Hebrews 413, no creature hidden from his site.

All things are open and laid bare to his eyes, with whom we have to do stripped them of all pretense, stripped of all disguised stripped of all deception, stripped of all hypocrisy, stripped of all the external trappings you're there and your naked soul, as it were, is unveiled at the judgment seat. Boehm is the word familiar word by the way to the Corinthians, because there was one, and there still is one of the main screen. If you ever been to Corinth when you got a go around the circle of the old city of Corinth. They take you to a place known as the Bama came in itself doesn't convey a lot. It's used in the Septuagint back in Nehemiah chapter 8 to refer to a place with steps. Just an elevated place really isn't inherent in the word necessarily place of judgment in ancient Greek culture. It was a platform and it could be a platform where and was a platform where athletes were rewarded for their endeavors for their victory such as today in the Olympics when the winners are all brought together they get on platforms and in their elevated and given their rewards, but the word also is used in the New Testament a couple times for pilots judgment seat and that was more than a place of rewards was a place of criminal judgment, but for us as Christians, since Jesus already paid the price for all our sins. For us it's going to be a place of reward. So we come to the judgment seat of Christ. According first Corinthians chapter 3.

All the wood hay and stubble of our lives fades away. That's not sin, wood, hay and stubble are evil. You know the woods useful Hayes useful in an even stubble. You can feed to an animal it's not that it's evil is just all the junk all the stuff. The stuff that didn't matter. All the non-spiritual stuff burns in the gold silver and precious stones that which had eternal value and basis that we receive an eternal reward. So Paul knew that he lived in the light of the enemy that is really a mature Christian perspective didn't matter to him whether he received honors in this world at all honor or dishonor. Either way, admitted him.

He just wanted to please the Lord.

That was his ambition. He wanted to have the same objective thingy in time that he would have been eternity the glory of Christ and pursuing his likeness and he was motivated by nothing in this world, but only by the fact that one day he would stand before Christ and all the worthless stuff in his life would disappear in a moment, and he would then spend eternity enjoying the reward for what he did in the power of the spirit that mattered. That's how we have to live our life at that judgment look at the end of verse 10 it says we will be rewarded that's recompensed we will be rewarded. It's only a judgment of reward since not going to be a condemnation you're not going to be punished because Christ was punished for all your sins it's only a reward and a reward for what you've done, whether good or foul lasts foul lasts is not really bad, it's worthless. It's word that means worthless, not cut costs, which means bad is not Tana Ross, which means evil.

It's foul us all. That's worthless disappears. This is living in the light of heaven. This is a sanctified ambition many years ago and I was a kid I found a poem my grandfather used to quote and I got a hold of that I heard."

I guess I heard Cody when he was preaching or in one of the sermons that he wrote many years ago in the and it really struck me hard and so as it just a kid I I memorized the poem you now some of the things you memorize skid stick.

We have a lot of junk that sticks is your grown-up but every once in a while some good sticks and I've often gone back to this poem my grandfather had it written in the front of his Bible and I think it if I can remember it will see how good my memory is at this point it went like this when I stand at the judgment seat of Christ, and he sees how I blocked them here and checked them there and would not yield my will. Will there be grief in my Savior's eyes briefly loves me still. He would have me rich but I stand there poor stripped of all the disgrace while memory runs like a haunted thing down a path I can't retrace then my desolate heart may well-nigh break with tears I cannot shed. I will cover my face with my empty hands, and bow my uncrowned head. Oh Lord of the years that are left to me. I give them to your hand.

Take me, break me and hold me to the pattern I want to stand there empty-handed. I need to do.

Paul, the highest goal to please Christ the widest devotion in this world and the next deepest motive face, my Lord one day in his presence. This is grace to you with John MacArthur.

Thanks for being with us. John's current series is titled a course for life, not John. In that text today we see the apostle Paul talking about how he's motivated by what's awaiting him after death.

His heart is fixed on him in Scripture commands us to be like that to set our affections and our desires on things above, rather than things on the earth and that's a hard state of mind to sort of cultivate and I know that you have talked about heaven a lot. You've even written a book on heaven, but for a lot of Christians it's hard to cultivate that heavenly perspective so in this world, which is really nothing that appeals to us. Why is it so hard even for Christians to fix their minds on heaven. I hadn't seen Darrell Harrison, whose owner ministry staff here in a while and wanted to say hi. He asked me a question. He said do you think about death's personal question do you do as you get older you think about death and my answer was I don't ever think about death. Honestly, I don't think about death and I'm careful when I drive by. I think enough to know you're not. I've driven with sometimes I'm careful with, but I don't think about death. I don't I don't think about. I don't have the immuno sort of fantasy thoughts about getting ill were going to the hospital or fearing death or the thought never entered my mind. I just don't think about death. Life is so vibrant and there's so much right in the step in front of me right before my eyes that I can even imagine the reality of death. The but I don't have a morbid fear of death, because to depart and be with Christ is far better and I'm just but having said that to him. I said no I don't think about death and yes we do think about heaven is that I think about heaven right I think about heaven.

This way I don't think about streets of gold so much. I notice what the Bible says I don't think about whatever the supernatural physicality of heaven is I don't know that I actually think about the people. II do think about meeting some of the saints, and Paul and of course our Lord but more I think about what it would be like to be sinless people asked me years ago, will you be surprised to see some people in heaven and some people not in heaven, and my standard answer has been no, I don't know about that but I know when I get there, I'll be surprised I'm there. The shock of heaven will be how did I ever end up here what grace is this. So I do think about heaven in the glory of heaven, and that leads me to say I got a book called the glory of heaven never too soon in your life to think about heaven. If you're a believer.

This is your final destiny. Heaven is real and it is what the Bible says it is and that's something you need to fully anticipate and when you set your affections on things above and not on things on the earth that affects how you live.

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The sermon archive grace stream and much more is available@gty.org now for John MacArthur and the entire grace to you staff, I'm Phil Johnson with a question for you when you have to make a decision and Scripture doesn't say, one option is better than the other. What should you do. John gives you practical wisdom tomorrow as he continues unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on racing