I sometimes say that the Lord called me to a small church in the country to die.

I graduated from Bible College with a desire to lead God’s people in musical worship, but my experiences in college and in my church internship had aroused in me an unhealthy affection for the big, flashy, and new. When he called me to lead worship in a rural church plant, God gave me a $1000 budget to buy a 10-year-old garage-worthy sound system from a former bluegrass band. Slowly he was putting my selfish ambitions and misplaced definitions of success to death.

Six years later the Lord called me to be the lead pastor of the same church in the same small town, and my ambitions took the shape of wanting to be noticed in the eyes of those who I thought “mattered.” I had a certain vision of success and greatness, and my life wasn’t it. I began to grow indignant at those who I thought had achieved what I desired.

However, in his abundant grace, the Lord knew my heart and that I needed to die to myself so that I would set my heart on him alone. I needed a new ambition and a new definition of success if I were to truly serve Jesus where he called me.

Ambition, success, and greatness are not desires to avoid, but they will take a very different shape when we consider the ambition, success, and greatness of Jesus. Most of us need a new rubric for examining ambition so that our ambitions can be set on him alone.

Gratefully, the Lord gave us his perspective for ambition, success, and greatness as he walked to Jerusalem with his disciples in Mark 10, and it is much different than our own. In light of Jesus’ teaching to the disciples on that walk, I want to provide five evaluative questions for testing any ambition we might discover in our hearts.

1) How might I know Christ and become more like him as a result of chasing this ambition?

Ambition is often an acknowledgement that this world is fallen, and something is not quite right. We long for the New Creation, and we work to bring a taste of its blessings through the gospel. However, we run into trouble when we misdiagnose the problem or overestimate our role in its solution. We want the glories of heaven now, and we often want to find ourselves at the center instead of Christ.

In Mark 10:32-34, Jesus is walking out ahead of his disciples, resolutely moving toward Jerusalem, the place where he would accomplish the climactic work that he came to do. His ambition is set on dying in our place, for our sin, and rising again so that we could receive new life in him. This life is vastly different and infinitely more glorious than our fleshly solutions for the fallen world. Yet its joy is found not in self-glory, but in glorying in Christ our Savior.

As we come to see him as the final goal of all godly ambition, our lives take on a cruciform shape. We see the beauty of dying to ourselves in Christ so that the life of Christ might come to live in us. Our ultimate definition of success must be to know Christ himself and the power of his resurrection by becoming like him in his death (see Phil. 3:10), and every other ambition must be tested by its contribution to that ultimate ambition.

This Christ-centrality leads to a second test.

2) How does this ambition acknowledge that Jesus is in the position of Lord of my life?

Immediately after this prediction of his death and resurrection in Mark 10, James and John ask Jesus for the most prominent positions in his kingdom. I will get to the heart of their request in a moment, but I want to point out here that their request still acknowledges Jesus’ rightful place on the throne. They say, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and at your left, in your glory” (Mark 10:35 ESV). Most of us, if we’re honest, want the central place on the throne, so we must give James and John partial credit on their ambitions. They knew Jesus’ kingdom was the place where he was ultimately glorified, even if they desired a portion of that glory for themselves.

Yet this demonstrates an important characteristic of ambitions: they are often fickle. The ugly cake of our fleshly desires can be iced over with Jesus-colored frosting. Likewise, truly Kingdom-minded ambitions can be laced with selfish desire that must be eliminated.

We will often need other Spirit-filled counselors to speak into our fickle hearts to help us examine the motivations that exist there. Ultimately, the question here is, “If the Lord chooses to say yes or no to this ambition, will I still delight in him above all?”

It is easy to convince ourselves of the purity of our ambitions. It’s easy to think that because the work we are doing is still for Christ’s kingdom, then our ambitions must be pure. But motivations matter. We can test our ambitions before we get into them, but ongoing check-ups are still necessary. That’s why we must ask the next question.

3) Would I still pursue this ambition if no one else noticed me?

At the heart of James’ and John’s request was a desire for prominence, esteem, and notoriety. They wanted to wield power in the glorious kingdom of Christ. They wanted the esteem that would come from a close relationship to the most glorious king. However, the glory of Jesus was not what was seen on the surface, but in who he truly was and what he came to do.

This summer, our family vacationed in Portland, Maine where we visited the Portland Head Lighthouse, the most photographed lighthouse in the world. It is picturesque, quintessential Maine. It was built beginning in 1787 and construction was completed in 1790, and as you might expect, it functioned to keep sailors from running ashore along the coast of Portland.

However, what is left out of most of the pictures is a smaller, less attractive lighthouse that sits just a mile off the coast. The Ram Island Ledge Lighthouse was constructed in 1903 to mark out the reefs around Ram Island, which is one of the most feared spots by local sailors. Together, the two lighthouses have guided countless ships to safety.

It is ironic to me that you can capture the Ram Island Lighthouse in a photograph and not even notice it at first. Someone had to point it out to me after I took the picture. However, it serves the exact same purpose.

Which one is greater? Portland Head, that everyone comes to see, or Ram Island, which keeps sailors safe in the most treacherous waters in Portland?

We must be careful how we answer. The truth is, they are the same in value because they both fulfilled the same purpose. The greatness of either lighthouse is not marked by the number of times it is photographed, and its beauty is not found in its aesthetic appeal. Its value is found in the purpose for which it was created and the lives that it saves.

The question is, “Am I willing to be the obscure lighthouse? Am I willing to be the one that does not shine the way the world expects, but that still displays the light of Christ just the same?”

4) What does my ambition reveal about the object of my worship?

After James and John made their bold request, Jesus warned them that his good ambition would take him through some undesirable suffering, and he affirmed that they too would share in his suffering. But then Mark gives us an interesting insight into the hearts of their other companions. He says, “When the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John.” They were angry not only because James and John were seeking an elevated position, but because they got to Jesus first. Their indignance reveals something deeper going on – they wanted the same position!

Our indignation often reveals our idolatry. We may not promote ourselves as others do, but it is equally dangerous to scoff at their pursuit of “greatness” while still desiring the same greatness in our own hearts. It is perilous to think of ourselves as more Christlike because we go to the impoverished small place rather than the church planter who goes to the affluent part of the city. It is spiritually risky to think of ourselves as more faithful than the mega-church pastor simply because our calling has embraced the obscurity of Christ. Pay attention not just to your current aspirations, but also to your current indignation. Aspire, but aspire to the calling of Christ alone by asking this final question.

5) Does my ambition appropriately combine strength and weakness for the sake of flourishing through the gospel?

Jesus reveals that the rulers of this world are domineering and abusive. They pursue power without vulnerability or accountability. They use their power for self-serving ways.

But Jesus is not like that, and neither should his followers be. He came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. His followers must become a servant and slave of all, because that is Jesus’ definition of true greatness (see Mark 10:41-45).

The path of God’s redemption for fallen humanity is to find true life only through true death. We die with Christ so that we might live with him (see Romans 6:1-11). This is what Andy Crouch calls, “the paradox of human flourishing.” He writes, “Flourishing comes from being both strong and weak. Flourishing requires us to embrace both authority and vulnerability, both capacity and frailty, even (at least in this broken world), both life and death.”1

Jesus did not tell his disciples to stop exercising authority or pursuing greatness. He didn’t say that strength and skill and power were bad attributes of which to rid yourself. Instead, he radically redefined authority and greatness, calling us to use strength and power to embrace weakness by becoming a servant of all.

We cannot give our lives as a ransom for many, nor are we called to. Instead, we are to give our lives in serving others with the good news of his ransom. We serve their material and spiritual needs in such a way that helps them see their eternal need. We use our God-given abilities and spiritual gifts to take the gospel of Christ’s ransom to those who need it. We run toward what the world defines as weak because we know that it is in that place that the Lord proves his strength.

I don’t know about you, but I continually need these five tests of ambition, as my heart continually seeks greatness, but sometimes not the greatness of King Jesus. Sometimes my ambitions are an accurate reflection of Christ in my life, the clear work of his Spirit in my heart. Other times my ambitions are proven to be religiously disguised desires of my flesh.

I pray that the Lord places a big ambition in our hearts to carry out our work in small places in such a way that we are conformed to the image of our Savior.

1 Crouch, Andy. Strong and Weak. Audible. Chapter 1, time marker 05:22ff.

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