Should I Ever Pursue My Dreams?
00:00:00.000 | Well, should I pursue my dream or should I pursue obedience?
00:00:08.240 | It's a question a lot of Christians face when thinking about career options or career
00:00:12.920 | changes.
00:00:13.920 | And today it comes to us from a listener to the podcast named Josh.
00:00:17.200 | "Hi Pastor John and thank you for Ask Pastor John.
00:00:20.440 | The podcast recently I've been thinking of a career change.
00:00:24.680 | I've been listening to a lot of podcasts that simply talk about creating your dream job
00:00:29.120 | or simply call us to follow our heart.
00:00:32.480 | Some of these podcasts are even hosted by Christians.
00:00:35.040 | I don't want to get caught up in pursuing the American dream of being successful, making
00:00:40.000 | more, working less, and achieving my full potential, especially if this is all from
00:00:45.360 | just a heart of earthly gain.
00:00:47.720 | But I also don't want to ignore what I believe are God-given passions and talents in my life,
00:00:53.800 | or are they?
00:00:55.240 | That would simultaneously give me a significant pay raise and a lifestyle improvement.
00:01:01.320 | Is there a difference between pursuing our dreams and being obedient with the gifts and
00:01:05.880 | passions God has given us, or are those the same thing?"
00:01:10.120 | Pastor John, what would you say to Josh?
00:01:12.360 | Well, let's start like this.
00:01:15.040 | The Bible never says that the way you decide what you ought to do is by following what
00:01:23.860 | you want to do.
00:01:25.960 | And the Bible never says that the way you decide what you ought to do is by following
00:01:33.240 | what you don't want to do.
00:01:35.400 | Or to say it another way, the Bible never teaches that if you want to do something,
00:01:43.000 | it's wrong to do it.
00:01:45.320 | And the Bible never teaches that if you don't want to do something, therefore it's right
00:01:51.640 | to do it.
00:01:53.480 | Or let's put it positively.
00:01:55.360 | The Bible teaches that you ought to love doing what you ought to do.
00:02:02.200 | It is right and good to love doing what is right and good.
00:02:11.360 | Moral action and satisfying action can be the same.
00:02:18.720 | For example, Romans 12.8, "Let the one who leads lead with zeal, and let the one
00:02:27.880 | who does acts of mercy do them with cheerfulness."
00:02:33.760 | In other words, it's right to lead and it's right to do acts of mercy and it's right
00:02:40.080 | to love to do these things.
00:02:42.920 | Or 1 Peter 5.2, he speaks to pastors like this, "Shepherd the flock of God that is
00:02:48.920 | among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, not for shameful
00:02:58.360 | gain, but eagerly."
00:03:01.360 | In other words, it's right to shepherd the flock and it's right to exercise oversight
00:03:08.680 | and it's right to do these willingly and eagerly.
00:03:15.040 | It's right to love doing them, to enjoy doing them, which is precisely what it says
00:03:22.300 | in Hebrews 13.17, "Let your leaders lead with joy and not with groaning, for that would
00:03:30.320 | be of no advantage to you."
00:03:32.040 | In other words, it's right for church leaders to lead and it's right for this leading
00:03:37.800 | to be joyful.
00:03:39.480 | They should love to lead God's flock.
00:03:44.520 | Or as the psalmist says in Psalm 40, verse 8, "I delight to do your will, O my God.
00:03:52.520 | Your law is within my heart."
00:03:55.000 | So it's right to do God's will and it's right to delight to do God's will.
00:04:03.360 | But the Bible never makes our delight in doing something the sole criterion for deciding
00:04:12.040 | whether that something is right to do.
00:04:15.200 | That's why Jesus said, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up
00:04:22.560 | his cross and follow me."
00:04:24.440 | Matthew 16.24.
00:04:26.440 | Until the day that we are perfected in the presence of Christ, there will be aspects
00:04:33.940 | of our desires that have to be denied in order to be faithful followers of Jesus.
00:04:42.800 | The life of obedience to Jesus will never be a life only doing what we love to do.
00:04:52.960 | There will always be some measure of denying ourselves.
00:04:58.800 | The world is too harsh, pain is too real, and we are too sinful to think otherwise.
00:05:07.680 | But it is just as wrong to think that all our natural gifting and all our natural passions
00:05:16.660 | should be stifled or will be stifled in the path of obedience.
00:05:22.620 | To use the words of Josh's question that he asked, it is possible to be "obedient
00:05:31.600 | with the gifts and passions God has given us."
00:05:35.240 | That's Josh's words, and that's right.
00:05:38.000 | It is possible.
00:05:39.520 | Some dimensions of those gifts and passions may need to be denied.
00:05:45.780 | Some dimensions of those gifts and passions may need to be reoriented and transformed
00:05:51.960 | from man-centered pursuits to radically God-centered pursuits.
00:05:56.840 | There's the heart of the matter, isn't it?
00:05:59.240 | There's the key.
00:06:00.280 | Are my dreams and my passions and my gifting, are they all being transformed by a radically
00:06:11.080 | God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated vision of reality?
00:06:17.440 | In other words, the key to living a life that is pleasing to God and fruitful for man is
00:06:23.800 | not to think you can calculate from your dreams or calculate from your gifting or calculate
00:06:29.560 | from your passions what precise path will be most fruitful for people and most faithful
00:06:37.160 | to God.
00:06:38.160 | I don't think such calculation is possible for finite human beings.
00:06:43.520 | Only God can calculate things like that because God can work miracles through us in paths
00:06:50.240 | and in places we thought would be utterly pointless and fruitless.
00:06:54.760 | And bam, God works a miracle and they become tremendously fruitful.
00:07:01.040 | Instead of that kind of calculation, I think we should pour our energy into becoming radically
00:07:08.820 | God-centered people, radically Christ-exalting people, radically Bible-saturated people,
00:07:16.880 | radically loving people, radically risk-taking, servant-like people.
00:07:22.880 | In other words, the lion's share of our efforts in life should be to become a kind
00:07:32.000 | of person.
00:07:34.200 | Even in ways that to me appear increasingly mysterious, God guides his people, his radically
00:07:44.600 | crazy God-entranced, Christ-treasuring, Bible-permeated people.
00:07:51.440 | He guides us into some of the most surprising vocational pathways that we can imagine.
00:08:00.200 | It's a great mystery to me how he does that so differently for so many different faithful
00:08:07.040 | Christians.
00:08:09.240 | Sometimes just hearing the passions and the ambitions of God-centered people stir us up
00:08:16.280 | to make changes in our lives that are mind-boggling.
00:08:19.920 | So let me close by having Paul tell us about his dreams and ambitions from the Bible.
00:08:30.120 | Listen to Paul.
00:08:31.340 | This is Acts 20.24.
00:08:33.680 | I do not count my life of any value or as precious to myself, if only I may finish my
00:08:41.580 | course and the ministry I receive from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the
00:08:48.120 | grace of God.
00:08:49.560 | Romans 15.19.
00:08:51.480 | I make it my ambition to preach the gospel not where Christ has already been named.
00:08:59.280 | Philippians 1.20.
00:09:01.080 | It is my eager expectation and hope that Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life
00:09:09.120 | or by death, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.
00:09:15.160 | Philippians 3.13.
00:09:17.080 | One thing I do, forgetting what lies behind, straining forward to what lies ahead, I press
00:09:22.680 | on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
00:09:28.760 | So my answer to Josh is, if your dreams become as drenched with gospel zeal and your gifts
00:09:42.680 | become as fervently bent toward magnifying Christ and your passions become as thrilled
00:09:51.560 | with the glory of God as Paul's, yes, you can follow your dream.
00:09:58.560 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:10:00.640 | And thanks for the question, Josh.
00:10:01.800 | If you have a vocation question for Pastor John, send it our way.
00:10:05.660 | You can do that or research or browse all 1,600 of our past episodes or subscribe to
00:10:09.760 | the podcast.
00:10:10.760 | Do all that online at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:10:15.920 | Well in a very different life scenario, on Monday we hear from a woman, a believer, who
00:10:21.440 | was arrested for a crime she committed.
00:10:24.080 | She doesn't deny it.
00:10:25.600 | She's guilty.
00:10:26.760 | She's going to court and likely going to prison.
00:10:30.120 | So what is a believer to do in such a situation when everything in life is crashing down through
00:10:35.120 | the fault of one's own sin?
00:10:37.960 | Is there any hope?
00:10:40.320 | Pastor John will weigh in on Monday, a really important episode.
00:10:43.280 | I'm your host Tony Reinhke and we'll see you then on the other side of the weekend.
00:10:46.200 | Thanks for listening.
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