0:04 All right. Can we can we pray again? Heavenly Father, we come through the blood of Jesus. Lord, by the power of your spirit, we ask you to reveal your heart and your mind to us this morning in Jesus name. Amen. 0:23 All right. I'd like to start with a quote. I think I heard it years ago. I like it. I like it each time I hear it. It inspires me. It's by a man named John Wesley. And um yeah, I just it stirs something in me every time I hear it. 0:40 John Wesley said, "If I had 100 men who feared nothing but God, hated nothing but sin, and were determined to know nothing among men but Jesus Christ and him crucified, I would set the world on fire." And there's something that just stirs in me. 0:58 Like I think for me like I want to be one of those men like it's such an ambitious statement by him that he you know that I say I want to I'm in like I I agree to those things those conditions. I want to hate sin. I want 1:13 to love God. I want to uh know Christ. Um all of it. You know I'm not there. I don't know. John Wesley would probably kick me out if I showed up. I I aspire to that and I'm and I'm stirred by that. And so just thinking this morning kind 1:30 of what's been been on my heart and on my mind is is ambition like that word ambition. And John Wesley statement was very ambitious and I was just I see ambition a lot in my 1:47 office and in the world I encounter. Um, but I want to have a right attitude about it. You know, I I heard that we're going back to the moon. Anybody hear that? We're that the United States is planning to go back to the the moon. We landed in 2:02 the last went to the moon like in 1972. And it was a very ambitious project. It's a very ambitious thing to try to put a man on the moon. And I heard that there's a uh the Artemis project right now is trying to do that again. And I 2:18 would think, wow, that's that's impressively ambitious to go put a person on the moon. And when I think of ambition, you know, I put a fighter jet up here, maybe because I kind of grew up and spent a large amount of my time in 2:30 the Air Force and uh among fighters, but just it gives me a picture of of this ambition and kind of what I aspire to as a Christian. You know, when I read that uh verse in Isaiah that said, you know, those who wait on the Lord will renew 2:48 their strength. They shall mount up on wings uh of eagles. They shall run and not go weary. They shall walk and not faint. You know, I think of my time when I actually got to fly in an F-15 Eagle. The plane that Mike and I used to work 3:04 on for many years was called the Eagle. And one time I got to fly to in the Sierra Neadas. I was in an a jet plane and I got to fly up there and I got to uh the I was nauseous and vomiting. I've told this story a few times, but the 3:19 pilot said, "You got to look at this. Look out the window. Lift up your head and look out the window." And I looked and I saw the peaks of mountains. For a split second or for a few seconds, I was able to see what eagles see when they 3:34 fly to the top tops of the mountains. I believe it was the uh Mount uh Mount uh Whitney, the highest mountain in the continental United States. And we got so close to it in that plane, but that was for a few seconds. But when I read the 3:48 scriptures and I I see verses like that in Isaiah, I see that God wants me to aspire to something higher, not just for a few seconds, but for eternity, like forever. And when Jesus comes and he says Josh, and put your name there. I'm 4:05 putting my name there. Put your name there. Josh, I want you to have life and I want you to have life in abundance. I see that there's a level of to achieve in that. And so the picture I want to use is a is a fighter plane. And one 4:21 thing about a fire plane, like I picture this as ambition because it can go very very very fast like like two or three times as fast as my voice is traveling to your ear right now. And it can fly very very high as I described and it is 4:36 extremely powerful. And so I think of this as ambition and every person I know is ambitious. Everybody's ambitious but it's it's what I want to look at is like what is the ambition? And more importantly and and and 4:54 alongside that I want to look at what is the fuel the fuel that drives the ambition and kind of think about that and you've seen it you see it in the world you you know you've all experienced it you all know what I'm talking about in terms of the 5:08 world you know su that the the people that we consider successful in this world we we we identify them as very ambitious right they're determined and I'll read definition I'll read definition in case you don't know what I mean by ambition. 5:23 I'll read the definition. It's a strong desire to do or achieve something typically requiring determination and hard work. So, it takes hard work and it takes determination. You can't just give up. If you're going to reach your ambition, 5:39 it's going to take some time and effort to get there. And so, I want to look at, well, does the Bible say anything about what our ambition should be? And does the Bible mention anything about maybe what the fuel should be? A 5:53 jet airplane. Uh when when I flew, we used 2500 gallons of jet fuel. You know, when you go fill up your car, those of you that don't have EVs, when you go to a gas station and put fuel in your car, you know, you put probably 10 20 6:07 gallons. You know, this is thousands of gallons of fuel. And so the fuel without the fuel, this plane does not fly. there's something that's got to power that plane to be able to get it to go to those heights and that those speeds. So, 6:22 thinking about that this morning, I want to look at some passages of scripture and thinking about what is it that should be that should be my ambition. And so, I want to look at that first. I want to look at three passages on 6:34 ambition and then I want to spend a little time thinking about the fuel together of what's going to power those ambitions. So the first ambition, you can turn to the book of Philippians chapter 2. I don't think you're unfamiliar with this verse, 6:50 but the first part of verse three of Philippians 2 says, "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition." Let nothing be done through selfish ambition. Okay, I think we're done. I think you guys have your marching 7:08 orders. We'll close the Bible, close the meeting, and you can go forth from here knowing exactly what you're supposed to do or not to do, right? Nothing from selfish ambition. I don't think I can do that. I think we need to talk a little 7:23 more about this, right? And I'll tell you why. Now, this verse is absolutely correct. I believe that this is the standard. I believe that Jesus executed this perfectly. By the way, I'll read a few verses about Jesus. John 6:38 7:42 Jesus said, "For I've come down from heaven, not to do my own will, not to accomplish my own selfish ambitions, but the will of him who sent me." John 5:30. I can do nothing with my own initiative. I can do nothing with my own selfish ambition 8:01 because I do not seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me. Luke 22:24 when he was at Gethsemane he saidfather if you are willing remove this cup from me yet when it comes to ambition when it comes 8:18 to myself not my will but yours be done and then Romans 153 this isn't Jesus' words but it was written about him it says for even Christ did not please himself Jesus executed this part of the 8:37 verse 100% fully. And I read this and if I just look at as as a command, impossible impossible for me. I might be able to accomplish like one thing today where I completely take my ambition out of the 8:55 equation. Maybe a few things, but to do it permanently all the time like Jesus did, I find it daunting. Honestly, this is a very very high standard. You know, never not even once do I consider my own ambitions. No, Josh. 9:14 Okay. So, I don't need I don't think we're meant to just stop at this part of the verse. And you say, "Well, why is that?" And I say, "Well, I think there's a principle that the Lord wants to teach us in Matthew 12." And we don't have to 9:26 turn there, but basically, it's the story of when a demon gets cast out of a person. It says that, you know, he goes off and then he comes back and he when he comes back, he sees an empty hole there. Like it's it's been swept clean 9:39 and it's unoccupied. That's how I know it's an empty hole. It doesn't there's nothing in there. And so when we see these commandments, it's not enough for us just to go, "Okay, no ambition. No, no, no, no ambition. No ambition. No 9:50 ambition." And focus on emptying it. There has to be something that fills it. And in fact, you know, I would say like the way this verse, I'm going to continue it in a little bit. The way it reads, it's like you almost need to be 10:02 filling immediately as you're emptying. Or rather, you need to fill and let the pressure push out the the the part you're not supposed to do, the thou shalt not. And I'll give you another reason I think that you can't stop here. When you think 10:19 of the ten commandments, remember the commandments are thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not have any selfish ambition. And then you think of 600 other commandments that are also in the Old Testament. You know, most of them are 10:34 negative. Don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do this. But when people came to when the disciples came to Jesus and they're like, man, I got I got 600 plus thou shalt not. Tell me what's the most important thou shalt not. 10:49 Like I get overwhelmed by 600 laws. Give me give me the most important Jesus. What should where should I focus now? I'm overwhelmed by all of them. Just give me the most important right now. And Jesus does not say thou shalt 11:05 not have any selfish ambition. He focuses on the positive aspect. Have you noticed this? You know the two commandments, right? He says the greatest commandment is this. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and 11:22 strength. And the second one is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. So there's something in the new covenant that the Lord is trying to show you. I didn't create you for thou shalt not. I created you for do love. Do 11:36 do this. And so now I'll put the with that being established, look at the rest of the verse. It's do nothing from selfish ambition rather here's your ambition and it's it's so simple right it says in loneliness of mind and 11:55 I want to talk about that a little bit what does loneliness of mind mean or I say you could say humility of mind what does it mean to have a humble mind a humble thought about yourself to think humble things I mean the answer is there but I want to 12:12 go I want to tell you what the answer is not. The answer is not for you to wallow in your self-pity and go, "Oh, I'm a wretched sinner. I'm so bad. I'm not like uh everybody else there that seems to be so spiritual. I'm just I'm just a rotten nobody. I'm 12:28 good for nothing. I'm worthless." Blah blah blah blah blah. I've done it, brothers and sisters. I'm I'm not calling you out specifically. I I've been there. I've done it. But I'm telling you, that is not humility of mind. That is not loneliness of mind. 12:43 It's a waste of time. Here's what humility of mind really is. It's where you're not even thinking of yourself. That your thoughts are are on others. That the the importance the time spent in your mind is better, more constructive if you're 13:01 thinking about somebody else. Another version says to consider others more important than yourself. And just in case you missed it, it gives you a second sentence. Well, how do I do that? Well, don't look only at your own 13:13 interests, but look at the interests of others. Like, what do other people need? What's important to others? Yeah, you know, we t we spend time praying for ourselves. That's good. But while you're doing that, is there anybody else around you 13:26 that maybe needs prayer? And I've discovered this is one of the keys of breaking out of that cycle of self-pity and discouragement and condemnation is to get your mind off of Josh. So that's very difficult. I'll tell I'm 13:43 going to be honest because I don't know your thought life. I don't know what goes on inside of you. I know what goes inside of me. And it is so natural to focus on Josh. It's just like it's like easy. It will naturally happen. And I 13:57 may even, you know, say, "Hey, I saw this verse, Lord." Maybe I'm sitting with my Bible open. I'm right there in Philippians 2. I'm seeing in Philippians 2 the attitude of Jesus. You know, when we talk about following in Jesus's 14:10 footsteps and we say we want to be conformed to the image of Christ, that our goal for every person in this church is to be like Jesus, we're saying in attitude especially. And so I can read this and I can start thinking about it 14:25 and I can start praying about it and I I say, "Lord, I want to do this." And maybe the Lord brings somebody to mind and it doesn't take very long until my thoughts come right back to me and the stress I have at work and the problems 14:37 I'm facing and the temptations I'm dealing with and blah blah blah blah blah. It's so natural. I'm telling you the truth. And so remember that ambition, the ambition is something that we set our goals to. To go to the moon does not 14:53 happen overnight, right? It takes determination. Remember those words. It takes hard work. And so I say, Lord, the truth is I'm 100% selfish. So if you are the most selfish person in the room right now, the most selfishly ambitious, then you can make 15:12 up your mind. Okay, it's the truth. Lord, you know, my mind revolves around me. But I want to set your word as my new ambition. Lord, I'm not there. It may take many years to get to the moon, but Lord, I'm determined to make that my 15:30 goal. And Lord, you help me get there. I believe you want it for me. I want I believe you want this ambition for me as bad as I want it. That is faith. And I believe that you'll give me your Holy Spirit to help me get there if I I fall 15:43 short. But Lord, as far as me, I'm gonna I'm not going to get discouraged every time that my thoughts start going back to myself. I'm just gonna set this as my ambition because I see it in your word. So this is ambition number one 15:56 is that others will become more important to me somehow someway, right? And I'm not going to get dis discouraged. I'm not going to quit the first time that I find how hard it is. I'm going to keep that ambition set before my face because the scripture 16:11 says it. My Lord wants it. My my Jesus had this attitude. I want to be like my Jesus. So, I'm not going to give up by his help. That's number one. Here's number two. This is the other place in scripture that I found ambition. 16:27 It says, "To make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands just as we commanded you." And now I read this, I laugh because this sounds like the opposite of ambition. Lord, 16:43 this doesn't sound ambitious at all. Right? Like this is not the this is not what you I think of when I think of executives at my company, when I think of uh successful people in the world, like this isn't what they do. 16:59 But this is what the Lord was telling telling me to do. You know, I I was in the military. It was a very stressful life. It was the highest paying job maybe I've ever had. At least at the time it was. You know, I was making a lot of money in the 17:13 military and I was doing a lot of things. And the Lord, I believe when I left the military, this was what he pressed in my heart. This was my ambition. And I think it was right. And I still to this day think I had the right ambition, 17:28 right? I wanted out of the rat race of the military life. I wanted my mind to quit being consumed with military and everything I needed to get done 247. The military is a very highpaced, high stressful field. And I I I I determined this would be my 17:47 my new ambition. I knew it would come at a cost. I knew that, you know, if we leave the military, we'd leave the paycheck. I knew we would have to lower our standard of living. We'd have to cut expenses if I were, you know, to to live 18:00 this quiet life. So Amber and I bought five acres in the very north part of Texas, left the military, trimmed our spending as much as we possibly could. You know, I knew I would have to work hard, maybe even harder as far as 18:15 physical work, you know, to to get enough to survive. But that was fine. This was my goal. Like we were a family of four. We had two boys at the time. This is what I want. Lord, I want to live a quiet life. I'll work with my 18:28 hands. I'll mind my own business. I I'll just focus on this small little square you've given me to focus on. That's what I did. And even as I stand here now, like that was, you know, two decades ago, I I feel this exact same 18:45 way. Lord, I only want to focus on this little area you give me. I don't have these grand plans of ministry. How I'll have a worldwide ministry or a United States ministry. I'll I'll go the take the gospel here. I'll do this. I 19:01 want to stay within the boundaries you put in. And that is my ambition. And if I'm tempted to go outside of those boundaries, I'll come back to my Lord and say I'll come back to you and I'll say, "Hey, unless you enlarge this 19:12 circle, I'm going to stay right here." Now, if you decide to make me an elder and you give me responsibility for brothers and sisters, wow, Lord, that's a huge, huge task. But if you decide to make my square a little bigger, then 19:26 you'll give me the grace to do that. But my ambition is to stay within whatever square you put around me to work hard at it. So the same attitude I had years ago that the Lord pressed upon my heart, I have to this day. I hope if not, then I 19:43 need to reasset my ambitions and make sure they're lined up with his. So this is ambition number two. Ambition number three says this says therefore we have it. This is in 2 Corinthians 5:9 says, "Therefore, we 20:01 have also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to him." Again, I love the simplicity of these. They're so simple. And what it's saying is, you know, to 20:17 put it in context, home, my home. If someone had asked me, "Hey, Josh, where's your home?" Once upon a time, I would have said Oklahoma. That would have been the most common answer, especially the military. Hey Josh, where's home? Oklahoma. That's where I 20:32 was born and raised until I joined the military. I was in Oklahoma. And then he asked me, you know, since I moved to Texas, maybe I'd say Texas. Where's your home, Josh? Texas. The great state of Texas, where everything's 20:47 bigger, including chicken fried steaks. They're very big in Texas. That's where my home is. But the real answer, if I embrace this verse and I embrace this ambition, my home is where Jesus is, right? Physically. 21:03 And I I look forward to that going home. And as this starts to become our our ambition, we more naturally our mind will start gravitating more towards home. We start looking forward to Jesus' return more because he's going to take 21:18 us home. And so when it says absent, well, absent is right here and now because I'm not home. Right now, right now I'm in Texas and right now I have work to do. When I go to the office tomorrow, I have work to do. But my ambition 21:37 starting now and forever is to please God. That's it. That is that's the ambition. That's what I've said. Lord, regardless of what happens today, whether I look like a success or look 21:54 like a failure in the eyes of anybody, are you pleased? That's a lofty lofty goal, isn't it? It's a very ambitious ambitious thing to have in your life that everything will revolve around 22:13 whether you're pleased or not. And again, brothers and sisters, none of these ambitions have I arrived yet. They're going to take determination and hard work, but I'm setting I'm seeing in scripture, I need to set this as my 22:27 goal. So, these are three ambitions. I want to spend some time talking about the fuel. Remember, I said that that jet cannot fly unless it's got a lot of fuel in it. And so, what fuels these ambitions? like what gives us the the power to get 22:45 to our goal, that determination or hard work. What what is it that will drive us to hold on to these ambitions until they become a reality? And I'm just thinking through some of the ambitions that we find in the world. And I I can every one of these I can 23:01 I've had in my personal life. I want to go through three ambitions. These are alternate fuels, if you will, to the the genuine fuel I'm going to give you at the end. All right. So the first thing that can fuel you is uh before I say it I'll start with a 23:17 story and I I there were many decades in my life where I couldn't have told this because it's so deep and personal. I'm revealing things in my heart but I'll tell you a story when I was 10 years old and I was in fifth grade and this drove 23:31 me this fueled me to be ambitious for a long long time. So, we're in fifth grade and it was towards the end of the year and they were getting ready to head out hand out some awards and my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Booth began. She said, "Hey, we're 23:46 going to be doing an award s ceremony and there's one student in the class and that student," she was very careful not to use a pronoun. I didn't catch it right away, but she said that student has excelled in every single subject, 24:01 English and social studies and math and blah blah blah. And she said that student, she kept saying that student, that student, that student, that student, that student, you know, I'm starting to wonder like who's this student? I thought, well, it could be me 24:17 maybe, right? It's possible that student is me. And she kept saying that student. and she went to great length to say how great this student was. And then she slipped up and she said the word he. And immediately a group of girls said, "It's 24:35 Josh." Right? Those girls were thinking it could have been them. Until the teacher slipped up and said, "He." And then she said, "It's Josh." And it ruined me immediately. Do you understand why a 10-year-old boy might be ruined by that? Because 24:53 suddenly I realized that my grades bring attention from girls, right? All the girls said, "It's Josh." I didn't even the girl know the girls recognized me, let alone knew how smart I was. Wow, this is intoxicating. Ruined. Brothers and sisters, I'm 25:10 telling you honestly, remember, I wouldn't have told this probably even in my 20s or 30s. Now I'm old. don't care because it's in in all of us. So that attention that attention is in a powerful fuel. If if a boy thinks he can get a girl's 25:26 attention, he will go to great lengths. He'll even try to get good grades. I did right. That's why I get great. If you want to know why sometimes Americans get good grades now, you know, in in India, maybe you have a different motives, 25:41 different fuel for getting good grades, I just gave you mine, right? And it lasted for a long time cuz it got me attention. So that's one fuel, one possible fuel. You like the praise of men. You like the attention it gets you. 25:52 Uh sometimes even from the opposite sex. So you you'll go to great lengths with your ambitions because you're fueled by the attention. Here's another one. This bird, I don't know if you can tell, but this bird is upset, right? This bird is 26:06 angry. Can you Can you see it? Can you see the anger in that bird? I don't know what is making him so upset, but I can tell that little birdie is not happy. And so anger is a very powerful fuel. Very powerful. I watched a movie a few months ago. It 26:25 was based on a true story, but it was basically a black man in 1950s. He aspired to be the a fighter pilot and he did. He became one of the best fighter pilots. And in the movie, you see what his fuel is, and it's anger. 26:42 Because in that time in the United States, and maybe it's still here, but there was a lot of racism. And so, he would get called these horrible names. And so, he took those horrible names and he would look at himself in the mirror 26:54 and he would talk to himself and call himself that those horrible names and that would fuel him, that would inspire him to study harder and to work harder and to be the very best he could. And it worked. And that's not a bad I mean if you're 27:10 going to have anger I guess that's a pretty productive outlet to make it make you the best you can. So that's one fuel. Your emotions and particularly anger can can inspire you to reach your ambitions. And so that was an example. 27:24 And then of course money. You know, when I was a young kid, we didn't have a lot as a kid. And it felt like there were things I missed out on because our family didn't have money. And that became a very powerful driver for me, 27:41 right? Like maybe kids would get to go to something like they're all going to Pizza Hut after after an event and I can't go because my parents can't afford that. They can't afford to give me $5 to go with my friends to pay for pizza. So, 27:54 they just know and I miss out. That was a very very very powerful feel to me to this day. I still kind of you know sometimes have that that motivation. It's still there that I want maybe I don't have the motivation but the habit 28:08 is still there. The habit to save and discipline like I need to have money just in case something comes up like you know David's going to go on a trip and he said I can come with him if I can pay my way. I better have that money or I'm 28:21 going to miss that opportunity. It's a fear. It's a fear of missing out that is kind of this makes you save money because you never want to miss out again. And I found that's a very very powerful fuel fear. And so each of these I've experienced 28:39 them to some degree all of these of letting these fuels drive my ambitions. And I'm going to put to I'm going to put to you suggest that there's a better fuel to get to our ambitions. You know what it is? I'm going to tell you anyway. It's the 28:58 cross. You say, "How does the cross fuel ambition?" Well, I'll try to help you as best I can. So, right now, I just want you to clear out all distractions from your mind. You're welcome to close your mind. In fact, I'm or close your eyes. I'm 29:13 going to close my eyes because this is this is difficult in a way, but I'm going to try to help you understand what I mean by letting the cross fuel your ambitions. So, I'm going to close my eyes. You're welcome to, but I want you to be 29:29 thinking about what I say. I'm going to share a few things from my life, a few times in my life where I experienced incredible fear, like overwhelming like terror, fear. And I'm going to tell you at different stages of my life. As I tell 29:46 you these things, I don't want you to judge anybody in my story. That's not the point of it. The point is only to communicate how scared I was at the time. And so, as I share mine, I want you to think of yours. Like, if you had something similar, 30:02 think of your own fear. I'm going to give you mine as an example. When I was six or seven years old, I remember we were on a car trip with my family and I remember my parents got in an argument, a very heated argument, yelling and screaming at each other. My 30:19 sister and I were in the backseat of this car. The tension boiled over to the point that one of my parents got out of the car and refused to be with us and started walking off. The other parent got so mad that I heard profanity come 30:33 out of them that I still is etched in my mind to this day and I don't know if I'll ever forget. And that parent pulled up to the other parent and my sister, my younger sister screamed, "Please get back in the car." And I sensed the 30:49 terror in my sister and it stirred it in myself. And I started pleading, please, please get back in the car. And I was so scared at 6 years old because my family was unraveling before my eyes and all my 31:09 security was going away. It was terrifying. It brought fear. I was scared. As a young man, I had a tendency on a few occasions to make people really, really angry 31:29 to the point that they wanted to kill me. And I literally and figuratively learned to run away from those situations. And so I ran scared, knowing that if that person catches me, I might die. It was scary. It was terrifying. 31:48 The last one, when I was a father, we were in Europe with the military and we went on a vacation. We went to a beach in Croatia and Solomon was five and Isaiah was two. And for some reason, I thought Solomon was with Amber and Amber thought Solomon 32:05 was with me, but he was gone. And I looked over at Amber and she said, "I have Isaiah. You're supposed to have Solomon." And I turned and I looked in the water. I looked all along the beach and all I could see was white people. 32:21 They all looked like us. I could not see Solomon anywhere. He was gone. The only logical conclusion, as I frantically searched for hours, it seemed like, was that he had drowned. And I couldn't even cry for help because they didn't speak my 32:40 language. It would have done no good to ask anybody that couldn't speak English. And so I was so terrified that my son had just drowned and I was in a foreign country and had no idea what to do. You believe me? I I prayed like anything. We 32:56 found Solomon. Now I want you to take those three fears or take your fears that came to mind as I was sharing these stories. Take all of them and put them together. Sum them with every fear, the intensity of every fear you've ever had. 33:12 Take it all. Put it in a package. Now multiply it by 1 billion and place that on Jesus on the cross. All the intensity of fear, put it on Jesus right now. And if you think I'm exaggerating, 33:32 then tell me, have you ever heard of anybody so scared they sweat blood? I have not. But I know something terrified my Lord so much that he did. And when I read my scriptures, I see 33:51 words of terror come out of my Lord on that cross. I debated on whether to yell this right now and I'm decided not to for your sake. My God, my God, why have you forsaken 34:09 me? Eli, Eli, Lama Sabakani is what it reads in our Bible. And if we were right there, brothers and sisters, I believe if we were right there standing at the foot of that cross at that moment, we would forever be changed when we heard 34:24 the fear coming out with those words. All that was placed on our beloved Jesus for our sins, that terror. And he cried out in fear. I believe it. We can't even see it in the text. 34:44 And you know how fear works. So many things, probably 99.9% of things that we fear never even come to fruition. And if they do, they're not quite as bad as we thought. The unknown is what causes a lot of anxiety and fear in us. 34:59 And then when it actually happens, we go, "Oh, that wasn't so bad. Not on the cross." What Jesus feared in Gethsemane was far worse than he ever imagined when all that wrath of God was poured out on the cross. 35:16 And he was so scared. And yet to me or for me instead of that I get to say, "My God, my God, why is it that you'll never leave nor 35:34 forsake me? I get to say something different. And all that fear placed on him should have been placed on me. All that wrath poured out on him should 35:53 have come upon me for my sins. One of them, maybe the littlest one that I think of deserve that. That brothers and sisters is the fuel. If I have a healthy picture of what 36:12 happened and again I don't even fully understand it. That's the best way I can put it all together that helps me understand a fraction of what Jesus endured in the cross. And I focused on fear. But I could have also focused on guilt 36:28 and shame and sin and different aspects of it. There's an unlimited supply there waiting for me as I I meditate on what happened on that cross. And he did that because he loves me. 36:47 I cannot think of a better fuel to fuel my ambitions in my life. All the other fuels that I mentioned earlier are corrosive, meaning that you put them in the container and they destroy the container. They eat away at the metal that they're 37:05 contained in. But this fuel doesn't. It purifies and cleanses the container it's held in. But if I look at the cross and I meditate on the cross and I see what he did for me, 37:22 then I have all the fuel I need to reach my ambitions. So I want to close with that. You you can open your eyes. Those of you like me that had your eyes closed, you can open them. And I want to summarize now. There's a lot of things I said, but the 37:38 three things, the three ambitions are what I want to finish with. And I gave you the best fuel that I can give you that I know is to meditate on the cross as you think about each of these things. But determine, make up your mind that 37:53 these are going to be your ambitions from this day forward. You're deciding, you have an ambition that your goal, your ambition is to put others ahead of yourself. Put them first. And again, don't don't worry that you're 100% selfish right now and that 38:11 everything you do is pretty much out of a selfish ambition. That's fine. Make up your mind that you're going to set this as your as your focus, as your ambition. He will help you. I promise. If you make this your ambition and you ask him for 38:25 help, he will get you there even though it seems like so far away. The second one, determine just like that scripture says that you will stay in the quietness of the scope that he's put around you and you will have to work hard, but 38:40 you'll do it within the boundaries that he's set. And as much as depends on you, you'll live a quiet and peaceful life in the realm that he's put you in. Make that your ambition. And again, in light of the fuel of the cross, you can do 38:55 this. And then finally, my favorite is that whether um you know, whether it's Sunday evening and I'm at home in my temporary home here in Texas or whether I'm in my forever home at the feet of my 39:11 Lord, I have one ambition, one thing that I want to do in light of that cross. And that's I want him to say, "Well done, good and faithful servant." This Josh Josh is my beloved son in whom 39:30 I am well pleased. That brothers and sisters is the ambition I have before me. I'm not there. But I believe with his fuel and his grace I'll get there one day. Thank you, brothers and sisters. Praise the Lord. 40:06 Thank you, brother Josh, for sharing your heart. Uh and the goal a few things to take home 40:22 based on what I heard this morning. Keeping the end goal in mind while we are doing the things what we do why we do them. 40:41 The end goal we heard that hearing from him our heavenly father who sacrificed his son for us hear from him that well done 40:59 and that is the reason we ambitiously do everything to please him. In Proverbs 29:18, 41:16 we read that where there is no vision, people perish. If this if I think about this weekend and Friday evening hearing the testimonies of the 41:34 sharing in front of about 100 people the vulnerability went through uh what happened. It's a very private things but when we share in our message and testimonies when we open our lives 41:52 it's not to seek glory for ourself. This is to encourage deliver people from self- condemnation or discouragement that the faithfulness of the Lord when 42:10 we are doing this little things faithfully how the Lord has been helping and where he brought so his name be glorified. ified and his 42:28 church be strengthened and those who are um going through in this narrow path by looking at these testimonies by looking at what the Lord has done in my brother in my sister's life I will be strengthened to do what pleases to him 42:47 that's the ambition even others think that Oh, Christian life is uh full of struggles. But we we have the Lord with us 43:10 in these difficult seasons. And when we try to seek to please him, the inward strength he will give us is um 43:28 we can't express in the words as gospels many place when we read it if I try to write all these things uh paper and ink is not enough. Whether we are in church, 43:53 at home, at work, on road, wherever we are, may our glor be may may our goal and ambition be pleasing our heavenly father. He who sees in secret will reward 44:10 us openly. Let nothing be done in selfish ambition. Not seek attention to ourself. The righteous anger. Some of the words what we share from this pulpit are 44:27 sometimes this is looking tough to take the the righteous anger or the encouragement exhaltation for our greater good. 44:46 May the Lord help us to please him throughout this week. Brothers and sisters, thank you everyone who joined on Zoom and we will uh here in person. Uh we'll close with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, 45:09 thank you so much for sending your son Jesus Christ to put us an example in front of us who walked and who has tempted in all the ways 45:27 like us but yet not yet he has not committed any sin. That's the hope we have Lord. Thank you for willingness to help. Thank you for every provision you have given to us. Father, help us to please you throughout 45:46 this week through the power of the Holy Spirit and the spoken word. Thank you, Lord. We praise you and we give you all the glory and honor. In Jesus precious name we pray. Amen. 46:04 You are welcome to join us for lunch. And thank you
