FBC Daily Devotional – November 10, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good Wednesday morning to you. How ambitious are you? You know, ambition can be a good thing.

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Ambition is what gets us up in the morning. Ambition is what gets us out the door and off to our job and gets us, you know, motivates us to do well in the various jobs that we have to do.

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Ambition can be a good thing. It can be a good thing if it is aimed in a direction that the

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Lord wants you to go and that the Lord approves of and is in the field that God has given you to pursue.

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Ambition can be a good thing. But the ambitious pursuit of something that isn't mine, something that I should not go after, is not a good thing.

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And it can actually become an expression of pride, of arrogance, or just of extreme hubris.

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So you see an example of the latter here in the life of Adonijah. And his ambition to be the king that succeeds

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David. Now, I'm sure in Adonijah's mind, he thought he was justified in his in his ambition.

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I mean, after all, Adonijah is the fourth oldest son of King David.

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There was the presumption that the oldest surviving heir of a king would become the next king.

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That was sort of the presumption. That's, you know, the way the cultures work. And Adonijah's older brothers, apparently, have all died.

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Well, we know Amnon died and we know Absalom died.

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Remember, Amnon died at the hand of Absalom. And Absalom died. And then there was an older brother,

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Killiam, and we don't hear anything about him. So the presumption is that he died also because of Adonijah's behavior here.

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So Adonijah just assumes, you know, David, my dad, is is old. He's gonna die and somebody needs to somebody needs to take that throne.

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And it should be me. I'm, after all, the oldest son. And so he takes steps to make himself the king.

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Well, the problem with that hubris, that selfish ambition, that pursuit of that which is not really mine to have, that kind of selfish ambition will lead either to a great deal of hurt, personally, the ruining of other people.

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And you see this all here in the story of Adonijah. The the ruining of other people along the way.

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Because Adonijah gets people to back him and support him as the heir apparent to the throne.

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But if this isn't the will of the king for Adonijah to be the king, then those people who are brought along in this ambitious pursuit of Adonijah, they end up actually being being a threat to the king that will be installed.

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And that will be, of course, Solomon down the way here. So that that selfish ambition can either lead to a great deal of hurt for myself or the harm and maybe the ruin of other people along the way.

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Or it it'll lead to total humiliation, complete failure when the right and proper result comes to pass.

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So again in in this case, Adonijah, he had no real claim to the throne.

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David had already promised it to Solomon and did so by the directive of the Lord. And so he didn't have a claim to the throne, but he assumes it anyway.

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So then when the whole thing is brought before David, and you get this in the next at the end of the chapter here of First Kings, David will proclaim

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Solomon to be the king and that leaves Adonijah threatened, fearing for his life and you know in that in the culture and in that whole concept of the monarchy, it leaves his very life threatened.

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And you know Solomon graciously spares him, but gives him a warning that basically, you better remember your place.

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And you'll see later in First Kings what ends up happening with Adonijah. But so again, don't let ambition scare you as if it's wrong to be ambitious for a good thing.

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No, it is good to be zealously affected for something that is good, something that is right for you to pursue, something that is within the framework of God's design for your life, how he has wired you, how he's equipped you, and how he's directed you in terms of career and home and all the rest of that kind of thing.

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Ambition can be a good thing. But don't let selfish ambition, like Adonijah's, destroy you.

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Beware of that kind of pride and hubris. So may the Lord give us the humility to be ambitious for that which we ought to be ambitious and to leave alone that which is not ours to pursue.

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Father, we realize this takes a great deal of wisdom sometimes. We are sinful people and sometimes our sinful hearts become proud and we we think we should have some position or some place that really isn't ours to have.

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Deliver us from that kind of pride, we pray. Help us to be humbly ambitious after that which you've given us to pursue.

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We pray it in Jesus name. Amen. All right. Well, have a good rest of your