Is Ambition Sin? | Theocast

Theocast’s Setup for a Conversation on Ambition

Hi, this is John, and today on Theocast, we're gonna tell you to stop being ambitious. We're gonna actually prove to you from Scripture that ambition is a sin, and it's infiltrated not only the Christian life through the American dream, but also the church and even pastors.

We hope you enjoy the conversation, and in the Unfiltered, we're gonna explain how church planning and ambition actually are counterintuitive, and it actually destroys churches and church planners.

We hope you enjoy.

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Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ. Our hosts today are John Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reform Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina, and myself, Jimmy Buehler, pastor of Christ Community Church here in beautiful Wilmer, Minnesota.

Gentlemen, it's good to be back on the mic. It's been too long. How are you guys doing?

Too long.

Good. You ain't lying.

You ain't lying.

I'm not lying. If I'm lying, I'm crying.

No, it's good. Hey, so I've got an important story. You know, Theocast, we try and be as helpful as possible, and not only do we want to bring you important theology and cultural thoughts of the day, but we're also going to give you just life hacks, life tips.

And here's my life hack, my life tip for you. Don't let rodents live in your car, not in it or underneath it. Because I just learned today that rodents had some squirrels crawl up into my van and start eating on the, apparently they're soy-covered wires, I'm not sure why, soy-based wires, and they ate them, which then messed up the connection between the computer and my transmission, which my van wouldn't drive.

Anyways, $2 ,600 later, that is the most expensive squirrel that's going to be killed here very.

Soon.

Very soon.

Yeah.

I mean.

So anyways, here's the life hack, by the way.

John, I feel your pain.

Here's the life hack. Here's the life hack. Apparently, mice and squirrels do not like the smell of peppermint. Like multiple people have told me this and websites, so I'm about to spray my car down with peppermint oil.

I don't know if it'll work. I'll let you know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Probably.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, praise God it's peppermint oil and not like rotting garbage.

Yeah.

Because that would be.

Something else.

No, John, I feel your pain.

Rotting garbage would deter rats.

Yeah. That's right.

Yeah.

Last, last summer, we had a similar phenomena in our van where our, our air conditioner was not, it was, it was not blowing out cold air and it was not pushing out air at the, at the rate or speed that we needed it to come to find out.

After $3 ,000 of dinking around with the van, a mouse had built a nest in our engine and it was blocking airflow. Oh, I know. See, rodents.

Not lying. I ain't even lying.

He ain't even lying, folks.

That's right. He ain't even lying. Hey, why is James crying?

It's the curse.

Cause he just got locked down.

Got a rat's nest.

Wow.

So anyway.

Hey, JP.

So why are you upset, JP?

I want to talk about something serious.

No good segues. Yeah, do it.

I want to talk about something serious. Like for real. It's a heavy week.

Do it.

It's a heavy week.

Heavy week because last Sunday was the last like live legitimate football game that will be played until like late August. It's real in my world, man.

Now, you know, my wife is, man, it's golf season.

My wife is actually quite happy about that reality, but I, right, I'm always a little bit sad. I'm like, man. Oh, and I mean, there are others, there are other sports, you know, that that can fill the time, but, and it's nothing quite like football.

So at least to me, so it's a, it's, you know, one of those times where there's a season for everything and now it's not the season for football apparently.

So I can't just go back and play the 1998 Sony college football game.

Isn't that just as, I mean, one could, one could do that, John, but it's, it's not quite.

The same.

Well, just think, think how average, think how average your Sunday afternoons are going to be on, be from now on.

That's right.

Just how average they are.

Yeah.

Hey, did you think there's certainly, no, I thought it would be a good game. I'm sort of glad Kansas city one, but no, I, I agree. My, my, uh, my Sunday afternoons are going to be relatively ordinary.

I probably shouldn't be too ambitious with plans for Sunday afternoons moving forward. I don't know.

Doom. Doom.

Doom.

Should you be ambitious at all?

Yeah, that's right.

Well, speaking of John, I'm sure you're going to tell everybody.

Yeah.

Why don't you, uh, why don't you fill in the, uh, the airwaves? What are we talking about today?

Why Ambition Is Contrary to Scripture and the Gospel

Well, as Theocast always likes to do, we like to take things that we hold dear, that motivate us, that we feel that make us important, that make us acceptable in the eyes of God or in the eyes of the culture or other Christians.

And we like to gently pull them out of your hands and then drop them in the middle of the road and let people drive all over them.

I mean, well, maybe not like that, maybe not quite that.

Certainly a way to say that.

We are talking about ambition today, and this is definitely something that has been turning over in my mind. I know all three of us, this is a conversation we've had in the past and just interacting with the culture and understanding how it is that Christians should view their life.

And we felt like this is a little bit more of a pointed conversation to what the three of us have been hinting at over the last few episodes as it relates to the Christian and their relationship to the church and then their relationship to their family and then their relationship to the community that is around them.

So we're going to talk about the Christian and ambition. And I'm not going to bury the lead. I'm going to go ahead and just say it up front, and then the three of us will help explain what do we mean by this.

We three hold that the concept that America presents to humanity, this idea of the ambitious person, is actually contrary not only to Scripture, but very contrary to the gospel. And we would say that actually we're going to argue that Scripture would call someone who is ambitious sinful.

Now, I already know, and you guys have already heard this when you present this to people, all of these things are going off in people's brains, right? And are you saying the opposite?

I can hear the Twitterverse imploding right now. Yeah, people on various social media platforms are jumping off the figurative.

Rooftops, right? That's right, you just said.

Right, because they assume the opposite of ambition is laziness, which is not what we mean. So, gentlemen, that's the setup. Why is it that we would say, first of all, when we say ambition is sinful and the opposite of that is not laziness, explain what I mean by that?

And then number two, we will then get into what is it about the concept of ambition? We probably need to clarify what we mean by that, the concept of ambition, and why do we think it's sinful?

I can take a swing at that, JP, if you don't mind.

Yeah, go for it, brother.

No, when I hear you use that phraseology, John, something that comes to mind, at least the first phrase that comes to my mind, is this whole idea that the waters that we swim in here in the United States is this idea of self-sufficiency, pull oneself up by your bootstraps, get your act together, you have a dream, go chase it, go accomplish, go complete it.

Don't hear what we're not saying, that we're not saying that having goals or having dreams or having ambitions, those things are necessarily wrong in and of themselves, but I think rather, perhaps the eye we're trying to poke, the thing that we're trying to kind of deconstruct here a little bit this afternoon, is this whole idea that we need to make something of ourselves, that the goal of our life, the goal of the Christian is to make yourself special, to be a head above the rest, to have all of these ambitions, and so often the pitfalls that come with that, and I don't want to begin to address all of those because I want to share the love.

JP, do you want to jump on that and add a little bit?

Yeah, I'll jump on that, Jimmy. It's important for us to know historically even, so even outside of the scriptural witness, that it's only been in very recent history that the notion of somebody being ambitious would have been viewed as a good thing.

I mean, even historically speaking, ambition has been viewed as a negative thing, and that's not unique to Christianity though, I think as we're going to unpack today, the Christian perspective, the biblical perspective, is that ambition is sin, because wrapped up in what we mean by ambition is certainly, as Jimmy articulated, a very innate, intense desire to make something of yourself, to become great, to become known, and honestly, it's often for selfish gain, it is because I'm trying to become something great for my own sake.

And yeah, indirectly other people might benefit, but really what this is about is making a name for myself and accomplishing great things that I will be remembered for, et cetera. And that's really what we want to, I think, drive this down on a wedge on, is that perspective that is inherently self-absorbed when we talk about ambition.

And that's obviously a problem when it comes to what scripture teaches us about how we are, not only to live before God, but to live with one another in the church and in the community.

Yeah, I think some helpful examples here of what we're trying to get at, and just to add onto what Justin just said, is the person who, and we've all said it, we see someone who works hard, who is dedicated, who puts in more effort, who puts in more time, and what they are trying to show is that if I'm going to get ahead in life, get ahead of everyone else, when we say get ahead in life, I'm going to have to do more than anyone else is willing to do.

And I'm going to have to, if I'm going to reach my goals of whatever it is, and some people, it is fame, it's money, it is a position, an area, and what we're getting at, what you normally label that person as is what?

Oh boy, man, they're ambitious. You're connecting it with their sacrifice is connected to their goal, right? And so, I know JP, you wanted to add something.

Yeah, well, just one other thing. Ambition, as it's historically been defined, and as we are going to define it today, is grounded in love of self, and as opposed to love of neighbor and love of others, which is what we are called to.

So that's a really important distinction for the listener to understand. We're not saying that to work hard is bad. We're not saying that to be driven is bad. We're not saying that to have a good work ethic, and be responsible, and all those things, and to be a quote-unquote go-getter are bad.

Of course, we're not saying that, but the issue is one of the heart and where this is coming from. So that's really at the heart of the matter to use that language figuratively.

Right.

It's about self-success for the sake of self. A great example of this is the American workforce. You have, depending on, I've worked in some large areas. I've worked in a large hospital. I worked for Stanford Hospital for several years.

I worked for Apple for several years. So I had these areas where you have these multiple hierarchies, and I worked myself up in the hospital. I worked myself up in seminary, in Apple, working in a retail store as a manager.

And ambition looks like this. I will step on, backbite, and basically turn on anybody I need to, to get to the next level, to get to where I want to be, to get where I need to be. And unfortunately, the people who are the most successful, the hierarchies look down and say, we want ambitious people because ambitious people get stuff done.

They work harder, they work longer, and often they're mean and nasty. And what's hard about this is that when you look at the heart of a Christian and what's been called of a Christian, we aren't told not to succeed.

We aren't told to work for the promotion. We aren't told to not expand, but we don't ever do it at the exception of someone else. And as a matter of fact, to show you what the opposite is, the opposite of ambition is a servant attitude.

It's one who's willing to do what's best and right and loving for those who are around them. And they put themselves second before they put themselves first. And this is what's so counterintuitive, because the American dream is all about your dream, what you want to accomplish with your ambition, with your goals in mind and whatever it is is going to.

And I'm going to look, I'm going to step on some toes here, but I see this. You can see this in marriage. You can see this in child rearing to where your family, your children, even your spouse, your marriage becomes second and will suffer because it's getting in the way of your ambition or your dream or your goal.

I'll just throw that. I'll throw that out there and let you guys comment on that.

Jimmy, go ahead.

I think that's important to note, John, and we talked about this a little bit at our men's group, at our church, this idea of we can take these words like ambition or drive or whatever it may be, and you begin to whitewash them where you make them look good and you justify them to the world outside of you of my drive and my ambition.

And the things that I want to accomplish, it doesn't matter who I step on. It doesn't matter who I sin against. It doesn't matter what compromises I have to make personally against my own integrity as long as I can get that end goal accomplished, which here's the thing.

When is it ever going to be enough? When are you going to—I was just speaking about this last week to our church, preaching through 1 Corinthians, where in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul begins to even lay out this idea of contentment.

If I could just have this relationship figured out in this way, if I could just have this figured out in this way, or if I could just be this and not this, then I would be content. Well, in reality, there's always this perpetual, the grass is always greener just beyond my own horizon that I have to go and reach.

And so I think one of you wanted to jump in there, and so I'll pass the ball.

I have a number of thoughts. I'm not going to give them all to everybody at once, so don't worry about that. Just a couple of things that I want to jump on here for a minute. It's interesting to me in the church how we will often try to baptize ambition.

We'll talk about all these things like, for the sake of Christ, I'm doing this almost in Jesus' name, where for the sake of Jesus, I'm going to do X, Y, and Z, and anybody that is a hindrance there is more or less almost in the way of what God plans to do with me and through me for other people and all this.

And so just a brief word about the marriage piece. John, you mentioned this. For all the dudes out there listening to this who are married, and if any of you guys especially are aspiring to ministry, you need to own and embrace the fact that God has given you your wife, not to hinder you, but to guide you.

And I can't tell you how many times you hear dudes talk about ministry and goals and things they want to accomplish for the sake of Jesus, and they'll talk about their wives as though they are the great millstone around their necks that's hindering them from being able to accomplish all these things for the kingdom of God, and it's absolutely ridiculous.

And it's like, brother, you need to pump the brakes and calm down for a moment and realize that you have been called to love your wife and love your family, and those things in no way are a hindrance to what you would do for the Lord.

But this just is a demonstration. That's more of an anecdotal example of how absurd we can be in the church, and that whole zealous, I have to do these things for God, is really what we're driving at here, and it's from hell.

It's not from Christ.

Go ahead, John.

No, and it's definitely a pressure within our culture. I mean, there's a push for the type A, ambitious, go get it done, be that person, be the entrepreneur. I have an entrepreneurial spirit at heart, and I know I can get around people who don't, and I can feel this intimidation of like, well, the real American is the one who starts his own company.

The real American is the one who won't work for the man, who goes out and makes himself a millionaire, and what's your goal? Why don't you want to work for yourself? What do you mean you want to be a factory worker?

What do you mean you're okay with your job making $50 ,000 a year? Why don't you want to make $500 ,000? I mean, it's like, what's wrong with you if you're not trying to expand yourself? My wife and I were talking about this.

The pressure on women is unbelievable. It is unbelievable. My wife's a stay-at-home mom. She has a master's in nursing, and she is a brilliant nurse. She's taken a break for the last seven years to help raise our children, and she said that in this conversation, when she was talking with some of the women about this in a recent women's bio study, that there was this massive sigh of relief because every woman there said, yes, we feel it.

Like, we're supposed to have some side hustle. What's our next dream? Are we going to try and write a book? Are we going to try and write a blog? Are we going to start a bar? There's this pressure to make something out of yourself more than wife, mom, neighbor, and church member.

You have to make yourself more than what that is. We're excited to announce that we have a new free ebook available at our website called Faith vs. Faithfulness, a Primer on Rest. And we, the hosts, put this together to explain the difference between emphasizing one's faith in Christ versus emphasizing one's faithfulness to Christ, and how one leads to rest, and how the other often to a lack of assurance.

And you can get this at theocast .org slash Primer. And if you've been encouraged by what you've been hearing at Theocast, we'd ask you to help partner with us. You can do that by joining our Total Access membership.

That's our monthly membership that gives you access to all of our material that we've produced over the last four years, or simply by donating to our ministry. And you can do that by going to our website, theocast .org.

We hope that you enjoy the rest of the conversation.

Ambition in Church Planting, Ministry, and Ordinary Faithfulness

Yeah.

Yeah. I'm glad that, Justin, you brought up this idea of ambition in the church world. And, you know, since serving in churches since 2011, and just being around a lot of different church ministry contexts, ambition and drive and just high success, goal-oriented, you know, all these sorts of random metrics that we use to what marks a successful church, just being inundated with those for so much of my ministry career, and we almost have this averse attitude that we must resist anything that appears boring or ordinary or not flashy.

And frankly, I mean, you could just get on any church website, probably in your area, and they probably have some sort of video where it's high energy music and it's pump up, and there's always like a bouncy house or something, because that just screams relevancy for church, where it's like they show, and we show these big, grand worship settings and lights and things like that, because if we're not—and how many times have you guys heard this, even in the church planting world—if you're not growing, you're dying.

And I just, I mean, being on the front end of church planting things, how many times people have asked me, oh, you're church planting, you must be really ambitious or you must have a lot of drive. And frankly, this is a conversation that my wife and I have.

I'm actually just a lot more laid back as a person, and I certainly pray to the Lord that I am not planting a church, and we are not planting a church with these core families, because I have a lot of drive and ambition, because that is actually one of the fastest ways to destroy people, is planting a church.

God help all of you if that's the drive.

Right. Yeah. I mean, God help Christ Community Church if we're planting this church, because Jimmy Buehler is full of ambition, because often ambition—and we're using that again in a negative sense—what that means is you're just going to burn through volunteers, you're going to burn through people, you're going to burn through relationships, because the goal is always this nebulous, bigger, better, flashier, rather than ordinary, pointing people to Jesus, relational, probably slow, not flashy, oriented ministry.

Yeah.

So truth in advertising for all of us as fallen human beings in Adam, there's always going to be mixed motivations in everything that we do. Everything's tainted with sin. We're not saying that anybody's ever going to be able to do anything from a perfect heart posture where you're not motivated in any way for your own renown or your own gain or anything like that.

It's not what we're saying. But I just wanted to turn us to Scripture and think about how Jesus interacts with His disciples. So if we're going to talk about being great and making something of ourselves and being a big deal and all this kind of stuff in Jesus' name, friend, I think Jesus would take issue with you, because I can think of two scenarios off the top of my head in the gospel accounts where Jesus is interacting with His disciples over things like this.

One is when He has sent the disciples out to preach and they come back to Him and they're all excited about all of these things that they did in His name. Like, Lord, you won't believe it. All this stuff was happening when we were preaching and doing what you sent us out to do.

He tells them, do not rejoice in those things, but rejoice in the fact that your names are written in heaven. He immediately cuts their legs out from under them and is like, you have missed the point.

You need not get geeked up over all these great things that you have supposedly done in my name. You should be ecstatic about the fact that you have been adopted as a child of God and that your name is written in heaven.

That's an incredibly instructive piece for all of us. The second one is at multiple points in the gospels, the disciples argue amongst themselves about who's the greatest and who's going to have the primary places in terms of seating next to Jesus in His kingdom and all this stuff.

Every time that that happens, Jesus immediately pivots it on them. He usually brings a child into their midst and starts to talk to them about what the kingdom of God is really like, how the last shall be first and the first shall be last.

Those who will be great in my kingdom are servants of other people, just like I came not to be served, but to serve and give my life as a ransom for many. Jesus is against ambition as we are describing it today.

John, please jump in.

Jimmy, I just want to jump on that and jump over to Paul. Paul says that as pointed as you possibly can make it in Philippians chapter two, verse three, he says, and I'm glad he clarifies ambition. He says, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit.

And then it's not just, don't do this. It's not, hey, don't do this. Paul says the opposite of this, but in humility, count others more significant than yourself. Well, Paul, how do you count someone more significant than you?

Well, he explains, let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. So when you think about your energy and what is it you're putting your time and effort into, it goes back to the two commands, right?

Love God, love your neighbor. Your energy is spent in making sure that you're caring for, and that doesn't mean church only, because when you're at your work, you need to be caring for and loving and sharing the gospel truth.

You may not be able to share it in word yet, but you can share it in deed because Jesus says you are the salt and light of the world. So the way that you, with your words and with your kindness towards the interest of others, not stepping on them for your own advantage, not using them for your own advantage.

That doesn't mean you can't start your own company. You can't increase your job, become the CEO. None of that. It doesn't mean that. It just says, don't do it at the expense of others, but do it while loving others.

Yeah.

There's something that we've been walking through just in the New Testament class that I teach with sophomore high school students, where we talk about the hiddenness of Jesus. And so often in the gospel accounts, what you see is Jesus does this miraculous work and then what does he do?

He gets up on out of there. You know, he doesn't, he doesn't want to, he just kind of escapes and he goes to a desolate place.

Or he tells them, don't tell anybody what I've done.

Don't tell people. Yeah, exactly right.

Because he has a mission to accomplish.

Yeah, very true. And one of the things we've been talking about as a class is just the hiddenness of the Christian life. Where over and over again, one of the things you see in Paul's letters is he instructs them.

He says, hey, pray for those around you. Pray for your government leaders, that you may just live a quiet and gentle and peaceful life.

Yes.

And what an incredible backwards and upside down thing then that we have been taught where it's, we want to be bigger and better and more successful and more driven, where one of the things that you see, and even what you were talking about, Justin, where Jesus turns to those disciples and says, can you, are you ready to be baptized like I've been baptized and how many of them thought, yeah, how many of them have thought, well, I saw him go in the water.

I think I can do that. Where, what is, what is Christ talking about? Are you ready to be crucified and tortured and beaten like I am going to be? And the answer is a resounding no. And so, I mean, it is so, I just see this so much as a plague on Christians and just a culture of churches where this drive and ambition and this desire just to grow and be big for growth and bigness sake, it's so often at the expense of relationships and unity and joy and a Christ centeredness within the body.

Because again, the end goal is just this nebulous growth, worldly metric that we just have to be big and we have to, we have to get our name out there and our, and our fame out there. People need to know us for this and that and whatever else.

And what does Paul say? I've decided to know nothing among you except Christ and him crucified. That's a hidden, it's a hidden life right there.

That's right.

In this whole conversation, I think we might be remiss if we don't bring up the theological concepts of theology of the cross versus theology of glory, because inevitably the ambitious perspective is one that is a theology of glory.

It's one of advancement. It's one of betterment. It's one of, I'm going to be something. I'm going to be strong, not weak. I'm going to be great, not small. And in reality, what the Bible teaches all of us is that before God, we in fact are very weak and we are quite small and we are not going to be great and we are not going to be strong until the resurrection ultimately.

And the whole deal here is that the Christian life we talk about all the time is it's identity forward. Well, our identity is that we are in Christ Jesus. Our names have been written in the Lamb's book of life.

That's the starting place. And then the goal of the believer, as we relate to God, is to walk before God in humility and gratitude. And so the idea, even I'm thinking of Micah 6, where we have the great commandment in the second that's like it.

Well, in Micah 6, 8, there's some pretty cool words there about from the prophet to the people of Israel, the Lord has told you what he requires. It's that you love justice, you do justice, you love kindness, and you walk humbly before your God.

And the whole walk humbly before your God with a heart full of gratitude flies in the face of this whole ambition thing where I'm going to become big and great and do something, I am going to do something and I'm going to be something before God.

We all have this sort of innate desire to prove our worth and our merit even before the Lord as though these things that we're going to do, he's going to look down and he's really going to be pleased with me if I do A, B, or C.

And we at Theocast just want to come in from the top turnbuckle and blow that nonsense up and we want to wrestle that stupidity from people's hands. Like seriously, like you will not be great. You will not be strong this side of heaven.

And we can boast all the more in our weaknesses because we are in Christ Jesus and he is sufficient.

Well, just to even quote Paul, Paul admits he's one of the weakest men that he knows, not only sinfully, but just in general, and he talks about even asking God to help him with his weakness. And Jesus says no, and then Paul quotes Jesus saying, my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect, not in your ambition.

Oh man, look how wonderful. I mean, sometimes we have these famous people who are really strong personalities and they come to Christ and we're all excited about them coming to Christ and, oh, they're going to be such a great witness for Christ.

And I look at that and I go, no, God can use a pauper and God can use a president, but it's always God. This is why we're told that it's impossible to please him. Without faith. And so if your faith is in your ambition, like if I work really hard and I accomplish all of this, then God, I will do much for God.

And I hear people say this, well, if I have this business, then I can make a lot of money for God. And well, you could. And I know of guys that I pray that they go out and make a lot of money because I know that they will absolutely do that.

Oh man, they already are generous. They don't make a lot of money now. That's how I know they'll be generous because they're generous now. I always tell someone, if you're not generous now, what makes you think you're going to be generous when you have more money?

Be generous now. But one of the things I wanted to say is, listen, I want to be very clear here. If somebody can increase their impact or somehow increase their reach, we are trying to do this in our churches.

We are trying to increase our reach, not so we can make a name for ourselves. We want more people to find rest in Christ, to enjoy the glories of Christ. And I would say this is true of Theocast. We would love if the Lord wills and this is what he wants.

Our ambition is that more people are able to hear and read what we have to say so that more people find rest in Christ. And so we actually do what we can. And I would not say that you can't be behind the mic on Theocast and be ambitious because you're going to be disappointed very quickly.