Our Ambition
A Sermon on John 1:16
Originally preached June 21, 1964
Scripture
16And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.
Sermon Description
What does it mean to receive Christ’s fullness? What sort of ambition is proper? In this sermon on John 1:16 titled “Our Ambition,” Dr. Lloyd-Jones exhorts his listeners that it is proper for a Christian to have ambition for knowing and loving the Lord. Nothing is greater than knowing the surpassing glory of Jesus Christ and sharing in His suffering. The difference between one who has not received God’s fullness versus one who has received God’s fullness should be night and day. He preaches that one who has indeed received God’s fullness will pursue knowledge of Christ each and every day. Dr. Lloyd-Jones also speaks of the emptiness of mere intellectual assent. One cannot only know the truths of God; one must worship and love the Lord to truly know Him. This, Dr. Lloyd-Jones argues, is the difference between “head knowledge” and “heart knowledge.” He also addresses a misinterpretation of the passage in which Jesus says “take up your cross and follow me.” This, Dr. Lloyd-Jones preaches, is not merely in the small hardships in life. To follow Christ, the Christian must accept mockery, revilement, physical suffering, and intense persecution. They must die daily for the sake of Christ in order to be raised with Him.
Sermon Breakdown
- The apostle Paul's supreme desire was to know Christ more intimately. He already knew Christ, but longed to know him better through deeper fellowship and communion.
- The word "know" refers to heart knowledge and experience, not just intellectual knowledge. It is the knowledge of relationship and fellowship.
- Paul's desire to know Christ better arose from already knowing him. The more you know someone, the more you want to know them.
- Paul's desire was for the normal Christian experience of fellowship with Christ described in John 14, not visions or trances. He wanted Christ to be a living reality to him.
- Many hymns express this desire to know Christ in a deeper, experiential way, not just know about him. For example, "Jesus, these eyes have never seen" and "More and more I lift my heart to thee."
- Paul also desired to know "the power of his resurrection" - the power of Christ's resurrected life working in him to overcome sin. Christ lives in believers by the Spirit.
- Paul desired "the fellowship of his sufferings" - to share in Christ's sufferings by identifying with Christ's hatred of sin and willingness to endure hardship to defeat it. This is not a desire for suffering itself.
- Being "made conformable unto his death" means being so submitted to God's will that we are willing even to face death, as Christ did. It means "dying daily" to self and sin.
- Paul strove to "attain unto the resurrection from the dead" - complete freedom from sin and glorification. Though certain of the resurrection, Paul had not yet attained sinless perfection and glorification. He pressed on toward this goal.
- Paul did not count himself to have "apprehended" the ultimate prize, but still pursued it wholeheartedly, "forgetting what lies behind." His chief ambition was complete Christlikeness.
Sermon Q&A
What Was the Apostle Paul's Supreme Ambition According to Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones?
What does Dr. Lloyd-Jones identify as the greatest desire of the Apostle Paul according to Philippians 3:10-14?
According to Dr. Lloyd-Jones, the Apostle Paul's supreme ambition was "to know Christ" more deeply. Lloyd-Jones emphasizes that Paul wasn't saying he didn't know Christ at all, but rather that because he already knew Him so well, he desired to know Him even more intimately. This knowing isn't merely intellectual knowledge about Christ, but intimate, personal, experiential fellowship with Him as a living person. As Lloyd-Jones states, "It is because he knows him so well that he desires to know him still better. It is only the men who knows the Lord Jesus Christ who wants to know him."
How does Dr. Lloyd-Jones distinguish between knowing about Christ and knowing Christ?
Dr. Lloyd-Jones makes a clear distinction between intellectual knowledge about Christ and experiential knowledge of Christ. He explains: "The word he uses...tells us that he is not referring only to head knowledge, but is also including heart knowledge, not mere intellectual acquaintanceship or intellectual familiarity with, but something deeper, something experimental, something vital, something living." Lloyd-Jones emphasizes that many Christians stop at orthodoxy or theology, but true Christianity involves personal fellowship with Christ. He quotes Jesus' words in John 17:3 that "this is life eternal, that they might know thee," not merely know about God.
What are the four aspects of Paul's spiritual ambition outlined in the sermon?
Dr. Lloyd-Jones identifies four aspects of Paul's spiritual ambition:
- To know Christ personally - an intimate fellowship and communion with Him
- To know "the power of His resurrection" - experiencing Christ's resurrection life working in him for sanctification
- To know "the fellowship of His sufferings" - being so like Christ that the world treats him as they treated Christ
- To attain "the out resurrection from the dead" - complete glorification and final deliverance from sin
Lloyd-Jones explains these are progressive aspects of Christian growth, starting with knowing Christ and ultimately culminating in complete glorification.
How does Lloyd-Jones explain what Paul meant by "the fellowship of his sufferings"?
Dr. Lloyd-Jones explains that "the fellowship of his sufferings" does not refer to a masochistic desire for pain or some psychological twist. Rather, it means becoming so like Christ in character that one begins to react to evil and sin in the world as Christ did. Christ was "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" who hated sin and what it had done to the world. Lloyd-Jones explains: "What the apostle is saying is this, that he wants to be the sort of men in Christ who will feel something of what our blessed Lord felt in this world of sin." The apostle wants to be so identified with Christ that he experiences the same opposition and persecution Christ faced - "you're going to be hated, perhaps by your nearest and dearest... you're going to be persecuted, you're going to be made the off scourings of society."
According to the sermon, what is the connection between John 1:16 and Philippians 3:10-14?
Dr. Lloyd-Jones connects John 1:16 ("of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace") with Philippians 3:10-14 as a test of genuine Christianity. He argues that if we have truly received of Christ's fullness, we will inevitably develop the same ambitions Paul describes in Philippians. Lloyd-Jones states: "Now my argument is that this, as I say, needs no demonstration, really, because of who he is and what his fullness means and represents. It is impossible for one to have received of it without desiring more of it, and indeed desiring it above everything else." Thus, Paul's supreme ambition becomes a test for believers to examine whether they have truly received Christ's fullness. If we have, we too will count everything else as loss compared to knowing Christ.
The Book of John
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) was a Welsh evangelical minister who preached and taught in the Reformed tradition. His principal ministry was at Westminster Chapel, in central London, from 1939-1968, where he delivered multi-year expositions on books of the bible such as Romans, Ephesians and the Gospel of John. In addition to the MLJ Trust’s collection of 1,600 of these sermons in audio format, most of these great sermon series are available in book form (including a 14 volume collection of the Romans sermons), as are other series such as "Spiritual Depression", "Studies in the Sermon on the Mount" and "Great Biblical Doctrines". He is considered by many evangelical leaders today to be an authority on biblical truth and the sufficiency of Scripture.