okay in case you didn't realize i'm greek so i am very drawn to anything that happens in greece
the whole deal and i love the fact that today we're going to be talking about godly ambition
and i love the fact that it better together and in the 21st century we're living in a time where
we don't have to spend the whole program trying to tell girls it's okay you can have ambition
you know you can desire something more for your life i think we've been telling women that for
um a really long time that we're actually starting to believe it and that the higher conversation is
going to need to be had okay what's godly ambition and what's selfish ambition whether it's for men
or for women because the fact is that uh you know all of us no matter what our gender is is we ought
to be pursuing godly ambition and so let's just start at the beginning we go okay are there chicks
in the bible that actually did well of course the first european convert was a woman and it happened
she was baptized in philippi you're saying why are you excited christine because our a21 headquarters
is in thessaloniki greece 45 minutes drive up the road is philippi and this is where lydia was
water baptized and you can tell i'm pentecostal or my baptist friends watching this you go what
other kind of baptism is that but anyway so us pentecostals like to confirm water baptized
and so it was like the first conversion the first water baptism that happened and it was a chick and
not just any kind of chick okay let me just say this is going to blow your mind the bible says
right in the book of acts chapter 16 luke writes so setting sail from troas we made direct voyage
to somathrace and the following day to neoplus and from there to philippi which is the leading city
of the district of macedonia and a roman colony we remained in this city some days and on the sabbath
day we went outside the gate to the riverside where we where we suppose there was a place
of prayer and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together so again i want to show you
um it's not only jesus in the gospels that spoke to women here we are now we're in philippi they're
sitting down talking to the chicks and it says um one who heard us was a woman named
lydia from the city of theater a seller of purple goods man we got a businesswoman for shout out
to all the business chicks out here so she was a seller of purple goods who was a worshiper of god
oh christine you mean you could be in business and worship god oh yeah this is going to blow your
mind right now right here so it says and she was also a worshiper of god the lord opened her heart
to pay attention to what was said by paul so girls just another shout out don't throw away everything
paul said because even the lord opened up her heart to hear everything that was said by paul and
after she was baptized and her household as well this is what i love about chicks because once we
get saved everyone's getting saved with us that's just the way that it is whether you want or not
she urged us saying if you have judged me to be faithful to the lord come to my house and stay
and she prevailed upon us okay so here is a woman obviously she's a woman that knows
what she's about she's got a business um she's selling her goods purple goods so fine linen
uh you could go to proverbs 31 as well and see in the old testament there's a precedent for this
kind of chick um a woman that is fantastic that is obviously got it together she's a businesswoman
and she runs a family and she manages a household and she's got a whole lot of stuff going on and so
some of you are wondering you know is god okay with that kind of woman and and i'm saying yes
i'm now 55 this year can i say when i started in ministry in my early 20s um my particular sector
of the church was very open to women maximizing their gifts but as i started to travel i realized
that this is not everyone's story a lot of people like oh my gosh if you're a follower of jesus
jesus must want to quench your gifts he must want to quench your talents and he wants to minimize
you and um you know i come from a greek orthodox home so in my greek culture a woman was only only
encouraged to wash iron cook clean become a good wife look after a husband that was a cultural
thing that's not a jesus thing that was a cultural thing and i had adapted a lot of that so i had to
renew my mind uh when i got saved and i felt the call of god and i didn't know what that meant you
go what's the call of god i felt called to jesus to do whatever jesus wanted me to do that's what
i still feel at 55 i'm called to jesus to keep saying yes to jesus i didn't know i would be doing
a21 at 21 when i was saved at 21 years old because i did not even know human trafficking existed
some of you who are posting at 22 years old the thing god's called you to do and what it is and
how it's i'm like how do you even know what it's going to be i didn't even know trafficking existed
when i was 21 i didn't even know that i would be doing what i'm doing with women but i my godly
ambition was oh i want the gospel to go to the outermost parts of the earth i don't care what
part i play i mean anyone that knew me back then they would tell you this to be true i will do
whatever i have to do to play a part in god's grand story of making the name of jesus christ
famous on the earth of going into all the world and making disciples i just took very seriously
right uh the fact that i believed we were called for the evangelization of planet earth before the
second coming of jesus christ that's what i think everyone's job is if you're a christian but you
could be a christian businesswoman that's your job a christian a female and you're a teacher
you're a doctor you're a lawyer you're a stay-at-home mother homeschooling 10 kids
all the other stuff when i say secondary it's important because it's how god made you but
it's for the higher purpose of going into all the world and making disciples of all nations
and so that is godly ambition but you know um the word ambition i know is in scripture
uh it's seven times and mostly it's in the context of do nothing out of selfish ambition uh paul
writes um you know jesus did not consider uh he didn't do anything out of selfish ambition he
made himself he lowered himself and made himself humble to fulfill um the father's purpose but paul
three times he uses the word ambition um and he says i have made it my ambition and that was to
take like take the gospel out further i've made it my ambition not to preach in another man's field
but to preach in my i have made it my ambition so ambition's not a bad thing three times he talks
about what godly ambition is and of course godly ambition is to fulfill the purpose of god in our
generation in our sphere of influence that's godly ambition now we don't live in a world that's full
of godly ambition we are living in a world that is going to press every button for every one of us me
and you included to pursue selfish ambition i mean everything in our world is self we need you to be
self actualized we need you to be self realized we need you to be self determined we need you to
live your best life you do you boo it's all about becoming the best version of you whatever the heck
the best version of me needed to be killed and i needed to be saved in here that's all i'm trying
to say i need it i need to be dead to self and alive to christ in that sense um so i think in a
culture that celebrates selfish ambition we've got to be really be careful as christian women lydia
and the whole point coming full circle back to lydia is she was a business woman she heard the
gospel got saved got baptized and the first thing she did was begin to give up her resources to say
okay come to my house let's work this thing out what am i going to do what's my part in advancing
the cause of the gospel through the gifts that god's given me through the talents god's given
me through the resources god's given me whatever sphere of life that is lydia had godly ambition
so she she it didn't diminish what she was doing before it gave that greater purpose and in fact
she probably uh excelled even more because now there was a greater purpose for her resource and a
greater purpose for a gift and a talent and that's what i want to encourage women to do never for me
am i ever going to try to put guilt shame or condemnation say you know oh you've you've got
to just like minimize yourself shrink yourself i actually want you to fully flourish in life we all
do it better together but to know what that is for and it's for the purpose of the cause of the king
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