The sermon you are about to hear was recorded at Grace Baptist Church, Cape Coral, Florida. For additional sermons and more information, visit our website at truegraceofgod.org. are generally regarded to be vices that we should always avoid. I mean, after all, Proverbs 16, 18 says that pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. And if you recall the story of Jeremiah and his scribe Baruch, the Lord rebuked Baruch by saying, do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not. Shakespeare's Macbeth depicts the dangers of pride and ambition as well. Because we see how those two characteristics deaden him to things that are right to common decency and they awaken in him murderous passions as he goes about trying to attain the kingship of Scotland. Even though he has to murder friends in the process. So. It's understandable that the first thoughts that come to mind when you hear of pride and ambition are negative, things that we ought to just avoid, or at least that we ought to be very suspicious about. But pride and ambition are not always vices. There are proper ways to be proud and proper ways to be ambitious as well. There's such a thing as Christian pride, godly pride, and godly or Christian ambition. The Apostle Paul speaks of possessing both of these characteristics as he explains to the church at Rome in the conclusion of his letter that he writes to them. He's explaining in the conclusion why he's not yet been able to come and visit them. And we find this in that letter that he wrote to the church at Rome beginning in chapter 15 as we continue in our study this morning of that conclusion. We began looking at the conclusion a couple of weeks ago with verse 14, and we've looked at verses 14 through 16. And that brings us to our continued study through this section of the letter Verse 17 of chapter 15. And that's going to be our passage for our study this morning. Verses 17 through 22 of Romans chapter 15. Paul has already spoken in verses 14 through 16 how a life that is governed by the gospel enables Christians to be competent to counsel one another. And today he's going to go on and talk about how such a life with himself being an example also enables us to have a godly kind of pride and a godly kind of ambition. So follow along as I begin reading in Romans chapter 15, verses 17 through 22. Romans 15, 17 through 22. If you use one of the Bibles that's provided, you'll find this on page 950. of that Bible, and please get a copy of God's Word in front of you because I want you to see the actual words that the Spirit of God inspired the Apostle Paul to write on this subject. In verse 17 of Romans 15, we read, In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God. For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to a Lyricum, I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ. And thus, I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation. But as it is written, those who have never been told of him will see and those who have never heard will understand. This is the reason why I have so often been hindered from coming to you. A gospel-governed life affords proper pride as well as an appropriate ambition. If your life is governed by what God has done for you in Jesus Christ, then you have opportunity to display godly pride and godly ambition. That's what Paul is saying in these verses. He does it by describing his own work and his own aspirations. And in doing so, he shows how every Christian, including us today, can properly be proud of our work and can appropriately be ambitious to do even more than we have done thus far. So consider with me, first of all, Paul's proper pride in his work. We see it in verses 17, 18 and 19. Do you see how he begins it? He says, in Christ Jesus, then that word, then it's like a bridge back to what he's just written. It causes us to look and see what he has just said. He's tying in what he's about to say with what he's just written in verses 14 through 16. In other words, he's putting it like this. as a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, which is how he describes himself in verse 16. He says, I'm proud of what I have done. I have pride. That's what that language actually says. I have a reason to be proud. I have a reason to boast about the things that I have accomplished. How can Paul say that? What's going on? We just don't typically talk like that as Christians, right? I'm proud of what I've done. Well, there are four things that Paul says that underscore how he can make that declaration in a godly way. First, he's proud of his work because he did it in Christ Jesus. Do you see how he defines himself? He identifies himself in verse 17. He prefaces everything else he's about to say with that phrase in Christ Jesus. This is his identity. This is the most important thing about Paul. This is how he understood himself and what was most important to him about himself. He uses this phrase in Christ repeatedly in his sermons as well as in his letters. If you read through the book of Acts and you read the letters of the Apostle Paul and count, in some form he uses this idea of being in Christ over 200 times. It's a shorthand way of talking about being unified to Christ, being in union, communion, connected to him. This explains why Paul could say what he does in Philippians chapter 1, verse 21. For to me, to live is Christ. It's Christ. My life is all about Christ. Why? Because I'm in Christ. And with that mentality, with that self-understanding, with that awareness that this is the most important thing about him, he can say, I'm proud of my work. Brothers and sisters, just think about the many ways that you and each one of us can be rightly, properly identified. Think of the various ways that you could legitimately answer the question, well, who are you? You could answer it in relation to your marital status. I'm a husband. I'm a wife. I'm a single adult. I am a widow. You could answer it in relationship to your family status. I'm a father. I'm a daughter. I'm a son. I'm a wife, a mother. I'm a grandson, a grandfather, or I'm an Askel, or a Pharaoh, or a Gillespie, or a Gonzales. Those things could legitimately be part of your identity. You could answer it in relationship to your vocation. I'm a contractor. I'm a plumber. I'm an electrician, a teacher, a salesman, a supervisor, a student, a nurse, therapist, a carpenter. an entrepreneur, a business owner, an EMT, firefighter, law enforcement officer, technician, realtor. The list just goes on and on of what you could say that would be legitimate. You could answer it in relationship to your ethnicity or your nationality. I'm a Syrian. Cuban, Peruvian, Mexican, German, Australian, Irish, Haitian, Jamaican, Chinese, Canadian, Dominican, Texan. There are dozens of ways that each of us could identify ourselves legitimately. And that was true for Paul as well. But if you were to ask Paul, who are you? The first thing that would come to his mind as he indicates in how he describes what he has accomplished and what his aspirations are, the very first thing is, I'm a man in Christ. I'm a Christian, brothers and sisters. That's true for me and you, too. If you are trusting Jesus Christ, the most significant thing about you. Is that you're in him. You're rightly related to your Creator because of Him. So, before anything else that might be true of you, after everything can be said about you, underneath anything that you have in your understanding of your own identity, above anything that you might have in such understanding, first and foremost, you are in Christ. And that trumps every other identity you might have. A real Christian is not his own. He's not his own person. A real Christian is a slave. A slave to the master, Jesus Christ. Possessed by Christ. We have been purchased by Jesus. Do you understand that? If you call yourself a Christian, do you understand that? Do you believe that about yourself? Do you think of yourself this way? The Bible teaches this repeatedly in a variety of ways. Let me just point out a couple of passages to you. In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul writes this, beginning in verse 19. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own. You have been bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. Paul's arguing here for holy living. For living the way that would honor God, for doing what God's called you to do. He says. He bought you. Jesus bought you. With his own blood. So glorify him as one who is his possession. Peter does the same thing in 1 Peter 1, verses 18 and 19. He says, you were ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers. Ransomed. We were enslaved and we were ransomed. Somebody paid a ransom for us. Well, what was the price? He says, you were ransomed not with perishable things, such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. Brothers and sisters, we are a purchased, ransomed people. Paul understood that about himself. He believed that. He viewed himself that way so he could honestly assess his life and work and even take pride in his accomplishments without being sinful about it. Why? Because he knew everything he accomplished, he accomplished in Christ. There's a second reason that he gives us that allows him to talk this way. He can be properly proud of his work because, as he says, going on in verse 17, it is work for God, work for God. Do you see that? He was an apostle called by Jesus Christ to go and make disciples and to plant churches throughout the Roman Empire. He knew that every Christian is to do all the work that God has given to us to do, knowing that ultimately we work for God. This is why he says what he does in that summary statement, first Corinthians 1031. He says, for whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, Do all to the glory of God. Things as mundane as eating, drinking are to be done to the glory of God. Yeah, Paul says so. The Word of God says so. What does that mean then about your vocation? What does that mean about your sense and understanding of what you do day in and day out with your time? Well, that's to be done to the glory of God. Whatever you do. I don't know of anything that will motivate a Christian. To pursue excellence and to work harder to find meaning and fulfillment in what God is placed in your life to do than this. To understand that what you're doing where God is placed, you what he's called you to fulfill tomorrow morning. Is to be done. For his glory. If you embrace that, you see that it will immediately answer a lot of questions. It will immediately put you on a pathway where certain things will just be ruled out of bounds, not allowable for you. You cannot view and embrace and own the responsibility of working for the glory of God and continuously show up late. You can't cheat your employer. You won't lie or steal on the job. You won't deceive people. Rather, if you understand that before you work for a paycheck, before you work for a company, before you are building a business for a community, that what you are doing, you're doing for the glory of God, then you will fulfill your responsibilities to the best of your ability, even when your boss isn't around. Even when your clients may not understand if you cut corners because you know that in the final analysis. You are really working for an audience of one. You're working before the face of God. And you're wanting to do what you do in a way that will please him. Brothers and sisters, we must believe this. If we believe this, it will improve the way that we keep our homes, the way that we keep our schedules, the way that you treat your customers, your boss, your employees. It will improve the way that you do your work day in and day out. You want to do it with excellence. Why? Because you know that you are working for God ultimately. As you do this, like Paul, you'll be able with him to take proper pride in what you accomplish. Well, Paul is proud of his work because he did it in Christ. He did it for God. Thirdly, he's proud of his work because he knows Christ accomplished it through him. You see this in verse 18, first part of verse 19, he goes into this. He says, for I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me. See, Paul knows the real reason. that he was able to accomplish anything. The real reason is Christ. I mean, when he thinks about the churches planted, when he thinks about the people one to faith in the Lord Jesus, he knows the real worker is Christ. Christ has accomplished. He says it that way. He rightly sees himself as a mere instrument. It was through me, but it was Christ in me. Now, this is just simply a necessary implication of his self-awareness, his self-understanding of being in Christ and unity with Christ. He expresses this elsewhere, like in Galatians 2, verse 20, when he says, I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Paul was a real man, a real person, just like we are. But he was so aware of his unity with Christ. Yeah, I still live, but it's Christ. It's Christ who lives in me. And he goes on, the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. This is behind that statement that we're very familiar with in Philippians 4, 13, where Paul says, I can do all things through him who strengthens me. He says it differently, but it's the same idea that when something gets accomplished that's good in my life, I know it's because of Christ. And with that, I can look at the good that's been accomplished and I can have a right kind of pride in that work, knowing this isn't about me. This is about the Lord Jesus Christ. So Paul's not boasting in himself or in his accomplishments as if he had done these things by his own strength or his own power. He's boasting in Christ. Everything I'm talking about here is because of Jesus. Christ is the one who did it. He did it through me. It's actually his work. All the glory goes to him. I'm just the instrument. He chose me. He could have chosen somebody else. He did it this way. Could have done it another way. But he is the one who did it. Paul cites methods that Christ used to accomplish his work. We see this in the last part of verse 18 and into verse 19. He mentions three, three methods. All of them are preceded by that little phrase by, that little word by. Verse 18, he said he did it by word and deed. In other words, what did Paul do to accomplish the work that he looks back on now? Well, he preached, he talked, and he acted, he served. Word and deed. He proclaimed the gospel and then he lived in a way that commended that gospel. He served others practically. He met needs where he could. And then the second way, he says, by powers, the power of signs and wonders, miracles. The Apostle Paul was able to perform miracles, and those miracles, signs and wonders, they testified to the truthfulness of his message. Now, in 2 Corinthians 12, verse 12, Paul reminds us, he teaches us that these signs and wonders, these are the signs of the apostles. This is what Jesus Christ enabled his apostles to do in order to testify that they really were carrying on the ministry of Jesus Christ. The third thing that he mentions is by the power of the Spirit of God. You see that in verse 19? This is a reference to the supernatural activity of the third person of the Trinity. to open up spiritually blinded eyes, to unstop spiritually deaf ears, to exchange hearts of stone for living hearts that are able then to see, believe, understand, and receive the gospel and trust Jesus Christ. See, Paul knows that he didn't have power in and of himself. It was the spirit. It was God at work, enabling people to come to faith in Christ. Paul also here mentions the nature of his accomplishments when he refers to the Gentiles being brought to obedience. What's he referring to there? He's referring to sound conversions. Gentiles, those who had no connection with the Old Testament promises to God's Old Testament people, they came to the obedience of faith. It's just a reference to being converted. This is a reference that he's already made. In the very first chapter, if you recall, in verse 5 of Romans 1, he said that it was through Christ that he received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among the nations, the Gentiles. He'll use this phrase again at the very end of this letter in verse 26 of chapter 16. When a person believes the gospel, when somebody says, yes, I believe God sent his son into the world, that Jesus Christ lived a life of obedience to the commandments of God. I believe that he died on the cross to make atonement and payment for sins. I believe God raised him from the dead. He lives today seated at the right hand of God, the father almighty. He's going to come again one day. I believe that. And I receive Christ. That person is complying. That person is submitting to the call of the gospel. He's submitting, complying to the call that Jesus made when he walked the earth and physically called people, come follow me, come follow me. And in so doing, he is entering into a life of obedience to the faith. He's not saved by his obedience. He's saved by what Christ has done as he receives that as a gift freely. But in the reception of that, his life enters into being yoked to Christ, joined to Christ in union with Christ and put on a pathway of living under the lordship of Christ. It's a life of obedience to the one that we trust. I wonder, Have you received the obedience of faith? Could you say that about yourself? I'm not asking, do you name Jesus? Do you say, oh yeah, I love Jesus. Jesus is my Lord. I'm saying, are you living a life that could be characterized by this phrase, a life of obedience to the faith? Or do you have Jesus as some kind of sideline over here? that you periodically will dip into and dip out of when you're not too busy doing the other things that are important to you? Or do you treat Jesus like a lot of people treat a cafeteria line? I'll take the grace. I'll take the forgiveness. I'm going to pass on the obedience. You see, you can't have Jesus Christ unless you have him as he is. And he is Lord. And when you trust Christ, you trust him with all that you are for all that he is. And you enter into a life following him. You're not going to do it perfectly, but you'll do it intentionally. And you'll be willing to repent when you see yourself drifting away from that, because, you know, you know, he really is, Lord, I am united to him. He has called me to follow him. And that's my heart's desire. That's part of the beauty and the wonder of God's grace in the church, putting us together as a family so that we can help each other. So that one stumbles, we can help lift him or her up and get back on the right path. And when you're feeling weary and about to flag and give up, other brothers and sisters can come and throw their arms around you and pray for you and encourage you to keep going. Do you know this or is this true of you? Are you trusting Christ in the way that the Apostle Paul displays he trusted Christ? That the Gentiles that he went and evangelized came to trust Christ? Is your life a life that expresses the obedience of faith? If not, then friend, praise God that he brought you here today. What a tragedy it would be for you to live thinking you're OK with God because you got a little Jesus in your life. And yet really be a stranger from God because you have not received Christ Jesus, the Lord. It would be a horrific thing for you to wake up on that day of judgment. And realize that though you knew about Jesus and you had multiple opportunities to receive him. You just kept putting him off and you figured out a way to kind of. Fit your ideas of what it means to be a Christian into a life that you have already determined you're going to live regardless. The call of the gospel today is the same that it was in the first century. It's the same thing Paul said when he traveled as he did throughout the Roman Empire. It is turned from your sin. Trust Jesus Christ as Lord. Receive him as Lord. Children, young people right now where you are, receive Jesus Christ as Lord. Trust him, he will save you. We heard earlier, he delights in showing mercy. And he will show mercy to you. Paul said. That's what I was doing as an apostle to the Gentiles, I was going about the travels that God put in front of me to bring them to the obedience of faith. Well, Paul's proud of his work because he did it in Christ, he did it for God. because he knew that Christ was actually accomplishing the work through him. The fourth reason he's proud of his work is because in doing it, he fulfilled the ministry. That's the last part of verse 19. He fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ. As an apostle to the Gentiles, he continued the ministry of Christ to spread the gospel throughout the world. That was his assignment. That was his vocation. And he carried it out and he carried it out extensively. Do you see that next phrase? He did this from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum. That's modern Yugoslavia and Albania. What Paul is saying is, look, I started in Judah near Jerusalem and I traveled throughout Syria. I went across Asia. through Greece, Macedonia. I went right up along the Adriatic Sea. In other words, what he's saying is, look, I traveled thousands of miles to get to Gentiles who needed to hear the gospel. They had no access, no opportunity. I wanted them to know Christ. Now, when he says that he did this, he's not suggesting, in fulfilling his ministry this way, that there's no more gospel work to go on in those regions where he had already been. Rather, Paul understood himself, as God called him to be, to do pioneer work, the work of initially getting the gospel into places where it had not previously been known. And this is not the only place that he boasts about the work of the gospel that he was engaged in. We see him boasting other places, being proud of people that came to Christ or to things that took place because of Christ. Like 1 Thessalonians 2, he says, his hope and joy, a crown of boasting before the Lord Jesus is that church. Paul went there. He was mistreated there and a church was born there. And he says, I'm proud of that. I boast in that. We see it in 2 Corinthians 7, 4. He says he has great pride in the Corinthians. In verse 14, in chapter 8, verse 24, he says he's been boasting to other people about the Corinthians. See, Paul had done plenty of good work. in taking the gospel into virgin territories where Christ had never been preached. And he's rightly proud of it. He could be proud of it without being sinful in his attitude because he had a clear understanding of who he is in Christ. He was a man in Christ working for the Lord. He was aware that all of his accomplishments were really Christ's accomplishments working through him and that what he was carrying out was simply a matter of stewardship. God had put it in him. God had placed him where he was. God had gifted him the way that he was gifted. And he was being a steward of all that God had done. He explains his understanding very clearly in a summary way in first Corinthians 15, verse 10, where he writes. By the grace of God, I am what I am. And His grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is in me. Paul, you're a great apostle by the grace of God. Paul, you've done great work. Yeah, it's the grace of God working in me. Do you see this? Brothers and sisters, we need to lay hold of this. We need to get this so clearly in our minds that we believe that all we are, all we have, everything we accomplish is solely by God's grace in us. If we get that, if we believe that any good we've accomplished is because he's been working through us, it'll set us free. It'll set us free to look and to rightly appreciate and to even rightly be proud of accomplishments because we're not patting ourselves on the back. We're saying, look at what God has done. Can you believe this? If we believe it, we should work hard to accomplish as much as we possibly can accomplish, given what God has placed in front of us with all of our limitations. and with all of our opportunities, and feel free to take proper pride in those accomplishments, because we know anything that's accomplished is really His work. And if accolades come, if rewards come, we won't absorb them for ourselves, but we'll rightly, honestly, immediately, understandingly confess that all the praise belongs to Jesus. This is Jesus' work. He has done these things. Well, that's what a gospel governed life. enables you to do. It sets you free to properly be proud of your works. But such a life won't let you rest on your laurels either. It won't let you simply take a perspective of what has already happened in your life. A gospel governed life will also cause you to face toward the future and to dream and to aspire. It will motivate you to be appropriately ambitious about what you might yet be able to do. And we see Paul speaking like this in verses 20 through 22. We see his appropriate ambition about the future. Look at verse 20. He says, And thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named. To have ambition. That word means to have a fervent desire. To want something very badly. And what Paul wants very badly, what his fervent desire is, is to make Christ known. To make Christ known. This is what it means to preach the gospel. To proclaim the truth of God in Jesus Christ. And to do that where Christ is not known already. So that He doesn't build on another person's foundation. This was Paul's particular ministry. This is what God particularly called him to do, to go to new regions and establish outposts for the gospel. He writes about it this way in 1 Corinthians 3, verse 10. He says, according to the grace of God given to me like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation and someone else is building on it. When you trace the travels of Paul in the book of Acts, you'll see that as he entered into new regions, he very frequently would go to the key cities of those regions. And he would establish a beachhead for the gospel there. He'd preach the gospel sometimes in the synagogues and then out in the marketplace. He would do what he could to make disciples. And when disciples were made in those key cities, churches were established in those key cities. And from those key cities, then they became a hub for the gospel and the gospel would go throughout the rest of the region. We see that in Corinth and we see it in Ephesus. We see it in Thessalonica. These and other cities became like springboards for the gospel. Paul went there, commissioned by Christ, preached, made disciples, established churches. And from those places, the gospel ran throughout various regions of the Roman Empire. That was a unique aspect of his ministries. Others who worked with Paul weren't called to that unique aspect of his ministry. Others were called and serving with him to continue the work of the gospel in places where the beachhead had already been established. And so you see him telling Timothy, stay in Ephesus. You see him telling Titus, stay in Crete, put things in order in the churches on that island. Paul had ambition to go even further. Where did that ambition come from? What shaped it? I mean, what put it in Paul's mind that he wanted to just keep going throughout the Gentile world to make Jesus Christ known? The answer is given to us in verse 21. He says, but as it is written. And he quotes Isaiah 52. Those who have never been told of him will see and those who have never heard will understand. Paul's ambition was shaped by scripture. I can just imagine him as an Old Testament expert, a scholar, before Christ saved him, after Christ saved him, rereading the Old Testament. What did I miss? I missed that. I didn't understand that. Oh, Isaiah, this servant song, it's about Jesus. And it promises that the nations will be sprinkled by the grace of God in the Messiah, in Jesus Christ. We could say Isaiah gave Paul his ambition. It was through the study of God's word, this fourth servant song in Isaiah and chapters 52 and 53 in our Bibles are songs about the coming Messiah, the blessings that will flow to the world because of God's Messiah, whom we now know as Jesus Christ. Paul quotes a prophecy about the message of Jesus, the gospel of Jesus spreading throughout the Gentile world. The nations, the nations will be blessed. And he saw his life with all of his gifts, with all of his opportunities and his commissioning by Christ as a fulfillment of this prophecy. It made him ambitious. It made him energetic. It gave him zeal to do as he could possibly do, making God's word and will fulfilled. Brothers and sisters, I want to ask you, are you ambitious about your life, about your future? Do you have ambitions that are governed by the word of God? Do you have ambitions as a follower of Jesus? You should be. And you can be. You can have ideas and dreams for the future that you can be excited about and not be fearful that you're falling into temptations of being arrogant or being self-centered because those ambitions are bridled by your devotion to Jesus Christ and seeing him glorified. That's what Paul had. You and I are not apostles, but you and I as Christians are specifically called by God to follow Christ. What that means is we should not expect the signs of the apostles to be given to us. We shouldn't expect to be able to perform signs and wonders the way Paul did, Peter did, John did. That's not given to us today. We have the word of God fully revealed to us, but we have the spirit We have the provisions of all that Christ has accomplished and we have responsibility and callings that God has placed upon our lives. Think about the assignment God's given to you. Do you see your vocation as an assignment? Do you see this stage of your life, how you spend your hours each day as an assignment from God, an opportunity given to you? Think of it that way. And then read the Bible. Read the Bible asking, Lord, what is it that you've called me to be and do? Because the Bible is filled with instructions about what every one of God's people is called to be and do. We could spend hours just simply reading through passages that address that very question. Let me just give you a couple of them to think about. If you're in Christ, these verses are God's call on your life. The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says in Matthew, Matthew 516, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven. What does that mean? It means the way that you conduct yourself in the grocery store. It means how you conduct yourself around your house, what you do when you show up for work, what you do when you leave for work. It means how you relate to your neighbors on your street. You have light and you are to steward that light. How? By letting it shine. Why? So that people can see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. I am what I am by the grace of God. Any good thing I've accomplished is Christ accomplishing it through me. That mentality, that understanding, It will motivate you to aspire to do things that you can do so that it reflects well upon your God. Peter says the same thing in first Peter Chapter 2. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evil doers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. That's a wonderful text for us today. Live honorably. When people are ridiculing you and despising you so that they're not successful in provoking you to respond in kind. Why? So that when they speak of you as evildoers, it'll just be like trying to make something stick to Teflon. There's nothing there for it to lay hold of. And they'll have to admit they'll have to admit by your good conduct that there's a God in heaven that, you know, and that you're serving. First Corinthians 15, verse 58, Paul says, Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain. Don't waver. Don't give up. Don't compromise the truth of God's word that he's taught you be immovable in your devotion to Christ, be steadfast in that, knowing that as you abound in the work of the Lord, you're not doing what you're doing for no purpose. Think of all the things that God's word calls us to be and do. And pray, pray that the Lord will give you a holy ambition. to do whatever you can do in the situation he's placed you in with the role he's given to you at this stage of your life with a vision of working for him. Verse 22 shows us that having a holy ambition will cause you to forgo other things. He says, this is a reason why I have so often been hindered from coming to you. In chapter one, he expressed a desire to get to see them, to visit them. In verse 24 of this chapter, he reiterates that desire. And that was a good and right desire that Paul had. Nothing wrong with that. But his holy ambition to fulfill his responsibility to preach Christ among the Gentiles caused him not to act on that desire. to give it up, to postpone it. You know, we see this kind of sacrifice frequently in our day, especially among elite athletes who deny themselves certain privileges and opportunities because they have an ambition of winning the championship, of getting the gold. And when we see that, we typically applaud it. There's something very commendable, praiseworthy about that. Paul shows us that having a holy ambition to fulfill God's call in our lives is worth giving up even good things in order to attain it. Might be worth passing up a promotion at work. It might be worth not making that purchase that you can afford. Forgoing a perfectly legitimate leisure activity or recreation. Why? because you have an ambition to use what God's given you, where he's placed you to honor and glorify him to the best of your ability. Selfish pride, unbridled ambition are deadly vices, and we should resist them because they'll destroy us if they're left unchecked in our lives. But when your life is governed by the gospel, when Christ is supreme in your life, you can have proper pride. you can have an appropriate ambition for your future, just like Paul did. And brothers and sisters, I just have to admit it, when I stop and think about this church, when I think about the members of this church and the way God has assembled us together and think about some of you individually, the gifts God's given you, the experience that he's given you, the attitudes and dispositions and skills and opportunities that he's given you, I mean, it is almost mind boggling to think what could happen here? What could happen if God were to kindle afresh in all of us collectively and each of us individually renewed ambition, ambition to live wholeheartedly for Christ in this world, seizing whatever opportunities he's entrusted to us. Because the truth is, every one of us is gifted in some capacity. Every one of us is called to live for Christ in ways that will show his greatness. Mothers, you are called to carry out your responsibilities with children in your home in ways that glorify Christ. Nobody else may see it outside the four walls of where you live, but your children will benefit from your holy ambition to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Students can do this and how they are committed to developing their minds, not just passing tests and fulfilling assignments, but really wanting to think and learn and understand more of God's world for the glory of God. Think of the ambition that would be right and proper for students whose lives are governed by the gospel, employees and employers. could do this. Entrepreneurs could do this and wanting to build businesses and do work in a way that will display the power of the gospel that is animating the lives of those who are doing it. The number of ways our Lord can be honored and good can come to others by just the people in this room. It's almost endless. So pray, pray that God will cultivate in each one of us a proper Christian pride and that even more than that, he will work in us to give us appropriate Christian ambition and work that could still be accomplished in the future. And then encourage each other in that pathway, resolve. to spend your life and to be spent with a holy joy in all that God's accomplishing through you and that which you desire for him to yet accomplish in the future, knowing that all the praise, all the glory, it goes to him. Let's pray together. Our father, we thank you for your word, we thank you for Paul's Proper pride is appropriate ambition is his holy ambition to spend his life for Christ. We ask you to give us that. I pray for the men and women, the young people, the children in this room who know you, that you would so work that you would grant holy aspirations. To accomplish whatever it is we're capable of accomplishing for the glory of your son, the Lord Jesus. Save us from sinful pride, sinful ambition. But, oh, God, give us holy pride and holy ambition. Do it for the sake of Jesus. We pray in his name. Amen.