Make Every Moment Count

Christopher Winans, in his book, Malcolm Forbes: The Man Who Had Everything, tells of a motorcycle tour that Forbes took through Egypt in 1984 with his Capitalist Tool motorcycle team. After viewing the staggering burial tomb of King Tut, Forbes seemed to be in a reflective mood.

As they were returning to the hotel in a shuttle bus, Forbes turned to one of his associates and asked with all sincerity: “Do you think I’ll be remembered after I die?” Forbes is remembered. He is remembered as the man who coined the phrase, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” That was the wisdom of Malcolm Forbes. In fact, that was his ambition. That’s why he collected scores of motorcycles. That’s why he would pay over a million dollars for a Faberge egg. That’s why he owned castles, hot air balloons and countless other toys that he can no longer access.

There are three ways we can have ambition:

1) We can have no ambition.

You become so tired of trying to succeed at something that you stop trying at all. You have no ambition to have good relationships. You have no desire to do well in your job or career. You give up on School. Having no ambition is not God’s will for your life.

Then,

2) We can have the wrong ambition.

You desire to succeed in your job even if it costs you your family. You want to win the game at any costs even if that means cheating. You long for the respect of others because it gives you a sense of worth and value and purpose for living.

But as we will see in our passage today, wrong ambitions can lead you down the wrong path in life so that while you think you succeed, in reality you fail at what is really important.

Or,

3) We can have the right ambition.

You can desire to succeed the way God measures success. You long to live as a Godly man or woman so that you are feeling, thinking and doing exactly what God wants. Your ambition in life is to please your God.

But in order to do that you have to let go of your wrong ambitions and replace them with the right ones.

Mark chapter 10 teaches us how to do that.

Notice with me first,

► Your Wrong Ambitions Can Deceive You.

Mark 10:32-37

The question that James and John asked exemplifies a very common misunderstanding about Jesus. They asked the Lord, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”

Jesus was born at a time when the nation of Israel was under the military control of the Roman Empire. The people of Israel were looking for a powerful, messianic figure to come onto the scene to deliver them from Roman oppression. When Jesus arrived – He was not recognized as the Messiah because He came as a meek and humble servant. Nevertheless, the thought of the all-powerful deliverer was never far from the minds of the Jewish people – even from James and John as they asked Jesus for the privileged seats at this side.

What James and John didn’t understand when they asked to be at Jesus’ right and left when He came into his glory was how God understood glory. The concept that James and John attached to glory emanated from the notion of a powerful Messiah. Glory to them was about conquest and squashing the enemy. It was about Israel becoming the center of the world. Glory was about ruling and authority and power. So when the request to be at Jesus right and left was made – it was truly a request to be at the center of power.

Do people still desire to be at the center of power today?

Look at Washington D.C.

Look at Hollywood.

Look at Wall Street.

Look at Urban gangs.

Look in your neighborhood at the moms and dads who that’s all they think about, “How can I get a little bit more and little bit more.”

We can even look at ourselves.

► You Will Pay a Great Price for Your Ambitions.

Mark 10:38-39

Whether your ambitions are from God or not, you will pay a great price for them. I would rather pay a price for godly ambition with great reward than to pay the terrible price of ungodly ambition with temporal reward.

Jesus was straightforward, pulling no punches with these two ambitious men. “You do know what you ask. Can you drink of the cup that I drink of, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”

Jesus was asking the ambitious believers, “Can you go through the terrible experience I have to suffer? Can you drink the cup of my terrible agony, of my inward agony and pain? Can you bear the baptism of my terrible sufferings?”

The two men accepted the Lord’s challenge, and they responded immediately, very positively: “We can.” Of course, they did not know what they were saying, not fully. Nevertheless, at this particular moment they were willing to die for Christ in Jerusalem if necessary.

They sounded like Muhammed Ali before a big fight. They were self-assured to the point of being cocky.

Muhammed Ali was on a plane and the flight attendant asked him to buckle his seat-belt. He said to her, “Superman don’t need no seat-belt.” The flight attendant quickly answered, “Superman don’t need no airplane either.”

James and John were confident and cocky so much so that in verse 39 Jesus assured them that the price they would pay would be to share in His cup and baptism.
► God Prepares Rewards for Those Whose Ambitions are in Line With His Will.

Mark 10:40

They wanted rewards. Do you want rewards? If we are to be rewarded, what does it take to get the rewards? Notice that Jesus doesn’t really rebuke James and John for their requests; instead He reminds them of what would be required for them to be rewarded. Jesus doesn’t say you will not get any rewards in heaven, but He says if you want to get rewards then this is what you can expect. In their case it would require suffering. And in our case living the Christian life will often times mean suffering too.

Are you willing to suffer the way God would choose for you to suffer or only up to a point that you are comfortable with?

The experiences that God hands out to us are His will for us in this life. He determines that.

And the pathway to reward is serving God! What you will receive from God in heaven is determined by what you did for God on the way to heaven.

* Did you do His will or did you live for self?
* Did you submit to His directions or strive after your desires?
* Did you live for self until you died or did you die to self that you might live?

Shane Claiborne, who spent a summer in the slums of Calcutta with Mother Teresa, wrote about her experience there. She said, “People often ask me what Mother Teresa was like. Sometimes it’s like they wonder if she glowed in the dark or had a halo. She was short, wrinkled, and precious, maybe even a little ornery — like a beautiful, wise old granny. But there is one thing I will never forget — her feet. Her feet were deformed. Each morning in Mass, I would stare at them. I wondered if she had contracted leprosy. But I wasn’t going to ask, of course. ‘Hey Mother, what’s wrong with your feet?’ One day a sister said to us, ‘Have you noticed her feet?’ We nodded, curious. She said: ‘Her feet are deformed because we get just enough donated shoes for everyone, and Mother does not want anyone else to get stuck with the worst pair, so she digs through and finds them and wears them herself. And years of doing that have deformed her feet.’ Years of loving her neighbor as herself deformed her feet.”

Humility means that our focus is away from ourselves and not on ourselves.