The Fire of Ambition
August 11, 2024
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
Scripture Reading
Jeremiah 45:1-5
1 The word that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch the son of Neriah, when he wrote these words in a book at the dictation of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: 2 “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to you, O Baruch: 3 You said, ‘Woe is me! For the Lord has added sorrow to my pain. I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.’ 4 Thus shall you say to him, Thus says the Lord: Behold, what I have built I am breaking down, and what I have planted I am plucking up—that is, the whole land. 5 And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not, for behold, I am bringing disaster upon all flesh, declares the Lord. But I will give you your life as a prize of war in all places to which you may go.”
Every Monday at noon we have a sermon planning meeting, a meeting I missed last week on vacation. I’m told the guys made a bit of fun of me for the distribution of passages. Apparently, last week Noah Gwinn had to preach more chapters than this week I have verses. That’s true. This morning we have one chapter with just five verses.
Before I pray, I’d like to amend something I previously said. Back in June, in my first sentence in this sermon series I said, “Most of us have never heard a sermon series through the book of Jeremiah.” To say that prior to this summer most of us have never heard a series through Jeremiah is not strong enough. I would say now that almost none of us have ever heard a series through Jeremiah. In fact, this week, after doing my own study of a passage, I looked for a few sermons to see what other pastors had done with the passage. After looking at around twenty websites of pastors we appreciate, most with long pastorates, I only found one sermon on this passage. So, even if you are one of the rare people who has heard a sermon series through some of the book of Jeremiah, likely even you have not ever heard this passage preached. And yet I would say the struggles with ambition of this guy named Baruch are incredibly relevant and relatable. Pray with me as we begin. “Dear Heavenly Father . . .”
Several summers ago I worked at a church as an intern while the associate pastor was on sabbatical. On my first Sunday night, I was all set to lead youth group. After eating pizza for dinner with the students, I made my way to the restroom to wash my greasy hands. But as soon as I entered, I noticed a problem: toilet water covered the floor. I thought to myself, Hmmm . . . I wonder whose job it is to clean that?Because I was new to the job of summer intern, I couldn’t resolve this perplexing question. But I had an idea. I’d put a sign on the door that says, “Do not use. Out of order.” I made the sign, put it on the door, and proceeded to go on with youth group, quite pleased I had solved my first problem as summer pastoral intern.
As the night went on, I started thinking that perhaps—just perhaps—I should make it my job to clean up the mess. I was the summer intern after all. So when the kids left, I found the mop and started to clean. It was a hot and humid Missouri night, and I was in a small, dimly lit room now full of bleach and toilet smells. As I wrung out the mop, I caught a picture of myself in the mirror. And here’s the thought that popped into my head: Is this what I went to graduate school for?
A toilet had overflowed, and so had my prideful, ambitious heart.
You could laugh at me or think less of me, but you’ve done something similar, I’m sure. You’ve volunteered for something, maybe at work or maybe in the church, and it turned out super lame. Perhaps you’ve tried so hard to do the right of befriending a kid at school who, to be candid, is just awkward and strange. Or you’ve tried to care for aging parents who no longer know your name. Or you lead a Bible study and the attendance at the end was half of what started. And you don’t like to admit it, but you’ve wondered, Why is so hard and why do I go do all the trouble and why isn’t there something better, something great, for me to be doing with my time?
We all have a part of us that has ambition for great things, and by “great things” we often mean great things from a worldly point of view. A lowly scribe named Baruch had these same ambitions for great things. And God knew that if it was not addressed, the fires of ambition would destroy him and destroy all the good God planned to do through him.
1. The danger of ambition
This brings me to the first point of the sermon: the danger of ambition. Last summer, you might remember that Canada experienced a record-breaking forest fire season. Here in Harrisburg, there were a few weeks of the summer when the sky was hazy and gray, even orange-ish. For most of us here, the fires amounted to nothing more than an inconvenience. On a few nights local sporting events got canceled for my kids. But for those closer to the fire, many lost homes, and thousands and thousands of acres of forest were burned. Trees older than America got scorched to ash. When your ambition is directed wrongly, it can be like those forest fires.
Look with me again at Jeremiah 45. I’ll start with the context in v. 1.
45 The word that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch the son of Neriah, when he wrote these words in a book at the dictation of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah:
One of the reasons the book of Jeremiah is lesser known is because it’s in the Old Testament, which Christians tend to be less familiar with. Also, the book is huge. Another reason is the difficulty of the book because the chronology of the events in the book is jumbled. In other words, the order of the book is not the order the events happened, which makes it hard to read. There are two reasons for the lack of order. First, the book was composed in a chaotic time, so the chaotic form of the book reflects the experience of living in chaotic times. Second, the book is often grouped thematically, so events that relate to each other often appear together.
I bring this up to make sense of the context of v. 1. Last week, Noah preached about, chronologically speaking, the final event in the book. Jeremiah was called to be a prophet as a young man during the reign of a king named Josiah. And he prophesied faithfully for over forty years. After the fall of Jerusalem, rebels against God drag Jeremiah and Baruch to Egypt against their will—and against God’s will. That was the sermon last week. This passage here is from twenty years before all that.
In v. 1 we see the phrase of “the fourth year of Jehoiakim.” The phrase should be familiar from our sermon on chapter 36, which Pastor Ron preached. It was winter and God wrote a personal sermon to that wicked king. Jeremiah was not allowed to go to the king because the king hated him. So Baruch the scribe made a copy of everything God had said, and Baruch took it to the king’s officials. Those officials took it to the king. The king had God’s Word read a few paragraphs at a time. In an outward show of his inward defiance to God, Jehoiakim cut off each chunk of God’s Word and threw it in a fire. Then Baruch had to rewrite the entire document. And it’s in this ministry context that Baruch speaks up, a ministry context where serving the Lord seemed to only bring trouble and extra work and persecution. Look what he says in v. 3.
3 You said, ‘Woe is me! For the LORD has added sorrow to my pain. I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.’
You can hear in his words how dejected and disillusioned he is. He’s thinking to himself, Are you kidding me? Lord, is this what I went to graduate scribe school for—for some unregenerate, godless leader to just cut up my work and burn it to ash?
Later God is going to speak to Baruch and tell him not to seek great things for himself. We’ll get to that in a minute, but I’ll tell you now that in my previous study of the book and this passage, I had wondered if Baruch had too much of what I’ll call “ministry ambition for ministry greatness.” I had wondered if he was pretty pleased with himself that he was The Scribe to the great Jeremiah. Certainly, this passage speaks to the sinful fires of ministry ambition. But that’s not what’s going on here. Notice the wording. It’s ministry and the Lord that he’s so fed up with. “Woe is me!” he says. “For the LORD has added sorrow to my pain. I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.” Whose fault is this? It’s the Lord’s, and it’s serving the Lord that took away my rest, he says.
I know I felt like this during the first summer of Covid. Between March and June of 2020, at church we attempted twenty new or re-tooled ministry initiatives to serve this church during the crisis and prepare us for return. We rebuilt our website, recorded video sermons and worship songs, put painter’s tape on pews, made phone calls to members and attendees, and posted daily Facebook videos throughout May. Yet for every three phone calls I made to church members, I felt guilty for not making ten. To make the Covid season even harder, I came into March of that year already tired. In the summer of 2019, Jason Abbott, one of our pastors, moved away. And in the two months after he left, I officiated five weddings, I went through the ordination process, I had massive shoulder surgery, and our church started the hiring process for another pastor, so not only were we short-staffed, but we doing more work to try to find another staff member. And after all those nine months, then Covid came. And I felt, as Baruch apparently felt: the LORD had added sorrow to my pain and I could find no rest.
Your circumstances might be different, but if you’ve lived any length of time, I bet you’ve had a season, perhaps several seasons, where you’ve wondered Why, God, why?
What does God say to him? God sends Jeremiah to speak to Baruch on behalf of the Lord. Look at vv. 4–5.
4 Thus shall you say to him, Thus says the LORD: Behold, what I have built I am breaking down, and what I have planted I am plucking up—that is, the whole land. 5 And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not, for behold, I am bringing disaster upon all flesh, declares the LORD. But I will give you your life as a prize of war in all places to which you may go.”
Baruch may be sad about his loss of a great future, but God says God himself is more sad at all the destruction, all the plucking up and breaking down, necessary though it is. Baruch had said, “Woe is me!” and spoken of “my pain” and how “I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.” “Woe is me; my pain, I am weary, my groaning, and I.” Pattern? So God lifts his eyes to the bigger picture, giving him a rebuke and promise.
The promise is that he’ll have his life as a prize in war. The idea behind that phrase is something like this: after a battle and the fighting has moved on elsewhere, a soldier looks around, seeing the carnage and gore and death all around him, and he stands up and dusts a tiny bit of sand off of his uniform and wonders, How am I even alive? I’m not even hurt. That’s having your life as a prize in war. That is God’s promise to him.
And as the Lord’s promise always go, he’s able to keep it. Remember, this passage is from almost twenty years before the fall of Jerusalem. And as Jerusalem does fall, Baruch and Jeremiah live. That’s the promise, which God keeps.
There was also a rebuke. Look again at the start of v. 5 again. “And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not.” Baruch felt what most Christians have felt at some point. In low moments you can feel that obedience is a waste, nothing good happens, and no one cares. It might even cause a pastor to wonder in low moments, What if I just take my education and my leadership and my skillset to the open market and see what I could great things I could become if I wasn’t a stupid pastor. (Or in Baruch’s case, a stupid scribe. Or a stupid stay-at-home mom or a teacher or whatever else society doesn’t care about.)
There are a few little details that make this even more real for Baruch. In v. 1 he’s introduced as “Baruch the son of Neriah.” The first time we met Baruch, though, back in chapter 32, the intro is a little longer. In Jeremiah 32:12 we read, “Baruch the son of Neriah son of Mahseiah.” That same father (Neriah) and that same grandfather (Mahseiah) are listed at the end of the book of Jeremiah. But there is a different son, a son named Seraiah (Jer. 51:59). Which means Baruch has at least one brother. Why does that matter? Well, that brother is listed as a key official close to the king.
Interesting, right? Here’s Jeremiah and Baruch, serving the Lord in relative obscurity—working in the nursery or counting the offerings or cleaning the building—while his brother is in the favored political party, a brother who is on CNN and Fox News and everyone tweets about how great the brother is and Baruch ain’t got nothing great.
Have you felt like that? You’ve been, I bet, jealous of a brother or a sister or a coworker or a student who seems to have great things and you ain’t got nothing great. Hear God’s rebuke: Do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not.
I said ambition is like fire. Maybe we could say it stronger. It’s more like uranium isotope 235. Properly handled, through the process of fission, the atoms can be pulled apart and the heat released can provide the power to light up a city. Handled improperly, as in a meltdown, uranium 235 could destroy that same city. Church, the world has discipled us to view our ambition for greatness as uniformly positive. Before we see ambition as positive, as something to light up a city, you need to remember that ambition can melt it down.
2. The redemption of ambition
This brings me to the second point in the sermon. The fiery danger of ambition is not all that the Bible has to say about ambition. There is the redemption of ambition. The desire for greatness—the right kind of greatness, the true kind of greatness—is for the good of the world and the glory of God. I hope we leave today with people ambitious to light up the city for the good of others and the glory of God.
We often try to stay in the passage we’re preaching, but for our purposes this morning, I think it would be helpful to see what Jesus says about ambition for greatness. Flip with me to the book of Mark. If you’re using one of the pew Bibles, we’re going to page 794. In Mark 9 tells us the disciples are engaged in quite possibly the dumbest argument in the history of the world: they argued about which disciple was the greatest.
33 And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” 34 But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. 35 And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” (Mark 9:33–35)
It’s the broader context of the conversation that makes the argument so ridiculous. When the disciples begin to argue about which one of them is the greatest, Jesus has just revealed his glory to the disciples on a mountain, showing them that he’s not weak and feeble but strong and glorious. Jesus then received the stamp of approval from God his Father and was highlighted as far more important than Moses and Elijah, two significant Old Testament prophets. Then Jesus victoriously battled a demon that had previously defeated the disciples. Then Jesus promised to rise from the dead, invoking imagery to himself of the exalted “Son of Man” language from a famous Old Testament prophecy (Daniel 7:9–14). In other words, the grossly understated takeaway from Mark 9 is that Jesus is pretty great.
When Jesus sees the disciples arguing, he asks what they are arguing about. Mark notes they kept silent because “on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest” (9:34). They won’t answer Jesus’s question because of shame. We might expect Jesus to issue a harsh rebuke to his disciples. “Guys, I have lots to say to you right now, but one of them is this: I’m the greatest—not you.”
That isn’t what Jesus does. Instead, what they got—and what we get—is extreme patience. He teaches, instructs, redefines, and redirects. Jesus loves them. In v. 35, we read that he sat down and called the twelve to himself. Then he told them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”
Think about that. Knowing that inside you a fire burns for greatness, Jesus doesn’t tell you to stop wanting to be great. “Get rid of ambition.” No, instead he points you in the right direction. Rather than rebuking ambition outright; he leads us to the definition of true greatness, which Jesus defines as becoming last and a servant. A lot like Baruch.
In other words, Jesus doesn’t just want to put out your fire for greatness. He wants to douse it in gasoline. . . if you have that fire pointed in the right direction.
The beautiful thing about Baruch is that he surrendered to God. He had his vision of greatness redirected. After Jeremiah 45, Baruch went on to have twenty years of faithful ministry that he never would have had if God had not rebuked him. And I just wonder what ministry might happen over the next twenty years among us if we could have our view of greatness rebuked and redefined.
As we close, I want to think about that phrase again, “as a prize in war.” God wanted Baruch to be in awe at the favor and salvation he received. He wanted him to look around and wonder how God had been so kind to him. And this is the same for us in Christ. In light of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus and the promise of his second coming and the final judgment, and he wants you to be able to stand up, look around, and say, “How did I receive such unearned favor God?! My sins for worldly greatness should have destroyed me along with the rest, but God saved me.” If we feel that kind of awe, we might become the kind of people who are truly great.
I’m going to pray and I want to show a short clip before we sing the final song. Some of you know of the pastor Timothy Keller. He passed away a little over a year ago. I mentioned that I was only able to find one sermon on this passage. But there is a short video from Keller. As he was dying from pancreatic cancer, he would make video updates for his church. And in his final video, a video he had planned to send his former church on the day he ended up dying, he spoke about Jeremiah 45. I’ll pray, we’ll watch the short video, and then we’ll sing our closing song. Let’s pray…
Sermon Discussion Questions
What have been moments where you thought, “Woe is me!”? Perhaps you didn’t blame the Lord out loud, as Baruch did (v.1). But did you wonder it?
Where do you see that society is discipling us to believe that ambition is uniformly positive? What about graduation speeches?
Look at Mark 9 again. This is one place where the disciples struggled with ambition for world greatness. Were there others? (See Mark 10 and Luke 22.) If the disciples were able to write these stories (which make them look bad), how does that imply their view of greatness has been redeemed?
What aspects of the gospel help fill you with the “awe” that Baruch was supposed to have about having his life as a prize of war?
Where are you tempted to forsake obedience and pursue worldly greatness?
Who do you know who serves in “great” but unappreciated ways in the eyes of the world? Can you tell them why you appreciate them?
