The Ambition of the Call

Romans 15:20

Every disciple is a called disciple.  Every follower of Christ is called to live for Christ.  The Christian is not just saved from an eternity apart from God, but is saved to live a life like Christ’s while here on this earth.  God called each believer to follow Christ.  And God calls each believer to do something for him, to live a certain life for him, to become a certain kind of person for him.  And this calling is not just for the special disciples, the intellectual or the super-spiritual.  If you are a child of God, you are called by God.

As Paul wraps up his letter to the Romans, we get a glimpse into his calling.  And though many of the specifics of Paul’s calling are unique to him, we learn a lot about our calling as we learn how Paul approached his call.  The way he treats the life God gave him gives me insight into how God wants me to treat my life with him.

“And thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel” (vs 20).

Paul’s calling – to preach the gospel where it had never been preached before – was the driving ambition of his life.  In fact, it was the reason he had been delayed in visiting the Romans.  Apparently he had planned to go Rome several times, but was unable to because he was waylaid by open mission fields.  Paul wanted to preach the gospel; Paul loved to do what God put him on earth to do, and in this context of Romans it is easy to imagine an exciting and fulfilling life for Paul.  But when we peel back the call itself, we see something else.

Acts chapter 9 tells us the story of Paul’s call, how Paul was persecuting the church, how God knocked him off his donkey, and how God used Ananias to deliver His message to Paul.  Just days after Paul’s conversion, God explained the call in his life this way, “he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:15-16).

From one point of view, this call seems hard if not impossible.  And it does so happen that Paul endures severe hardship in the service of this call, and eventually suffers martyrdom for preaching the gospel.  But from another point of view – the one that dominates Paul – the calling is a pleasure, a joy, a glory, even his life’s ambition.  When Paul writes the Romans and calls his life’s work his “ambition,” he has already suffered greatly, but it is as if none of that matters.  The call to preach the gospel, to do the thing God put him on earth to do, far outweighs the trials that come with the work.

The word he uses for “ambition” is telling.  It is a kind of love.  In fact, it can be literally translated as a “love of honor.”  Paul loves to do what God called him to do.  Paul considers it his highest honor to be called by God to proclaim the gospel and he will do it until there is no breath left in his body.

We often shy away from our calling because we are afraid of what God will make of our lives.  “I’ll give you everything but…” or, “do with me what you will, just don’t make me a…”  These all too common reactions miss the logic and the power of God’s call.  God made you and formed every corner of your being.  In the end, only he can make of your life everything it was intended to be.  Your calling is nothing to be afraid of.  We cannot consider it drudgery.  We must make it our ambition – our honor and driving love – to do what God called us to do.

The Virtue of Giving Thanks: The Consequence of Humility

Colossians 1:12

Christ told us that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34).  In its full conversation, that verse is aimed at hypocritical Pharisees who were attacking Christ by attributing the work of God to Satan.  Their hearts were corrupt, so their mouths were necessarily corrupt.  Though they put on a show of purity and religiosity for all to see, they were rotten at their core and ended up blaspheming the God they said they so deeply loved.  The condition of their hearts literally came out of their mouths.

The mouths of the humble will naturally express thanksgiving to God.  Paul, a man full of thanksgiving, expressed himself this way to the Colossians: “May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light” (Colossians 1:11-12).

His expression of thanksgiving here is utterly dependent upon the work God has done for him.  Paul did not deserve the inheritance God gave him, and the most influential missionary in the world did not work his way into God’s favor.  Paul tells disciples to thank God in the same way.  We have been made children of God; He has done the work of qualifying us to live in His kingdom.  We are thankful for God’s work, not ours.

Humility is a way of looking at the world, God, and our place in it.  If we think we are the most significant thing in the world, or even one of the most significant things, humility is not a burden we bear.  If we believe God is the most important thing in all of time and space, then we are on our way to understanding our proper place in the world and the proper attitude we need to take toward others.  When God is primary, He is the source of my salvation and I am thankful.  When I am primary, God benefits from my presence on earth.  When God is primary, I am thankful for the gifts of creation, family, friends, work, and so much more.  When I am primary, all these people ought to be thankful for me.

Pride collapses our world.  We become self-consumed as our eyes are turned inward on our own perceived greatness, our own needs, and our own wants.  We become self-idols, looking like statues with heads bowed, not in worship but in self-adoration and self-absorption. 

Humility opens our world as wide as the greatness of God.  Our eyes can now gaze outward and upward as we can give thanks to God for all He has done and all He has given without the fear of losing the importance of ourselves.  In fact, the humble soul freely gives thanks in all things, finding in thanksgiving a divine valuation of all things.  People are no longer valuable to the degree they are useful to us, but in the degree to which they are valuable to God.  The objects of creation are no longer means to serve our selfish ends, but become beautiful objects displaying the handiwork of their Creator.  The humble disciple is able to see the world through the lens of thanksgiving.

The abundance of the prideful heart is a small, dark world.  The abundance of the humble heart is a joyous and expansive thanksgiving.  It is the humble disciple who sees God more clearly.  It is the humble disciple who gives thanks to God for all He has done.

The Virtue of Giving Thanks: An Antidote to Arrogance

Romans 1:21

We don’t give thanks for things we believe we have done on our own.  If we were not given any help, than what are we to give thanks for, and to whom should we give thanks?  A pattern of thanklessness like this is not a surface problem; it betrays a deeper issue – the problem of pride.  We are the source of our strength.  We are the beneficiaries of our own cleverness and intelligence.  We have taken care of ourselves just fine.

But is pride a problem?  Can we be legitimately proud of ourselves without negative consequences?  Arrogance, as it turns out, has deep and character-forming costs.  Arrogance is the stance that God is not necessary for the work of my daily life.  I may believe that God can save the day when things get really complicated, and I probably get angry with him when things don’t go my way, but outside of the extremes of life I have things under control and don’t need God’s intervention.  But a point of view like this one turns us into people without faith, heart, and the intellect God wants for us.

Paul describes the corruption of a thankless life: “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:21).  These same thankless people are later described as becoming, “foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless” (Romans 1:31).

There are severe consequences to a person’s soul and character if they are not able to genuinely thank God.

Thanking God for the simplest of things is a great place to start.  God, the Creator, put the sun, moon, and stars into the sky.  He created a cycle of light, water, plant and animal life that makes life itself possible for each of us.  The very air we breathe is a gift from the hand of a wondrous, powerful and loving God.  We thank God for fresh air, for the warmth of the sun, for a beating heart, and for an attentive mind.  And when we do, we begin to notice how dependent upon God we are for every moment of life.

Thanking God for the skills and talents he gave you is another good place to begin.  God warned his people that when they entered the Promised Land and became prosperous they would be tempted to think that they had “done all these things” (Deuteronomy 8).  They would get past the difficulties of creating arable farm land and the first years of vineyards and crops, and in the shadow of their labors in the sun they would think that their hands had given them everything they needed.  But who gave them hands?  Who gave them the knowledge they needed to tend to the land properly?  Who removed the giants in the land?  When we thank God for both our abilities and the fruits of our labors, our attention moves from our hands and minds to the God who formed them and filled them with His grace.

From thanking God for the things around and in us, we will want to move to thanking God for Himself.  We will want to begin naming the character traits of God and thanking Him for each and every one.  He is my Provider.  He is my Lord, Redeemer, Savior and Friend.  He is my Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  He is the Only Wise God.  At each thunderous attribute, pause in thanksgiving, allowing the Holy Spirit to fill you with Him, and to overflow in the thanksgiving of praise.

A heart and mind filled with this kind of thanksgiving simply does not have room for the squalor of arrogance.  It is too busy being overwhelmed with the greatness of their God.

For Christ Did Not Please Himself

Romans 15:1-3

Christians come in every possible variation, color, and background.  And when we come together as the church we are intended to leave all the non-essentials at the door and live in unity under Christ.  At least that is the ideal.  It is how God is constructing his church, but we, the bricks of that construction, often get in the way.  Our differences divide us too easily.  We may gather in a vague sense of the supremacy and Lordship of Christ, but we are often far more taken with our pew-mate’s difference of opinion on the color of the pews than with our mutual Savior.  Our pettiness ought not be.  It should not be the thing that defines the body of Christ.  Instead, Christ shows us a much more excellent way.

“We who are strong have an obligation.”

Among our differences, Christians come in all degrees of maturity of lifestyle and faith.  Some have found a deep sense of intimacy with Christ and a strong understanding of their life of liberty and God-honoring behavior.  Others are still young or relatively immature in the faith and stumble easily at the lives and opinions of others.  When Paul mentions the “strong” and the “weak” to the Romans he recognizes the reality of weakness among Christians but places an obligation on the strong.  They are obliged to bear with the failings of the weak and live so as to please them in God’s goodness instead of living to please themselves.

The mature believer views the body of Christ as an opportunity to tend to the good of their weaker brother or sister’s life in Christ, and to make an effort to build them up.  Paul’s vocabulary about building up the other believer is vivid – it means to erect an edifice, to build a house, to edify.  In this way of living with each other in Christ, the disciple continues to learn what it means to view the other as more important than themselves.  As Paul put it to the Philippians, Christ’s way of thinking was to view you as more important than himself, and we ought to think the same way.  And in a relationship where one believer learns to love the other in spite of differences over non-essentials, we learn to enter another’s life as a builder instead of a destroyer.  We can actually be a part of God’s work in their lives to raise them to maturity in Christ and intimacy with their Heavenly Father.  Isn’t that a better vision of the body of Christ than a group of grumps quibbling over meaningless legalistic jots and tittles?

“For Christ did not please himself.”

The reason for our behavior is always grounded in Christ.  In order to explain and justify this radically selfless view of harmony in the church, Paul makes the ultimate appeal for the Christ-follower – this is how Jesus actually lived.  His incarnation was for our good: he “made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7). His life was for our good: “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve” (Mark 10:45). His death was for our good: “he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5). His resurrection was for our good: “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).  The way Christ lived his life on earth 2000 years ago has profound consequences in our lives today.  It gives us our reasons for behavior and practical grounding for our relationships.

Christ lived his life among us so that we might have his life.  Do we live with each other in the same way?  Does the life of the church mean it is easier for God’s people to find God’s life?