Do you ever feel a tension between your faith and your ambition?

Entrepreneurs are naturally driven. We want to innovate, change, and improve.

But as Christians, it can be tricky to balance those desires and gifts with our call to be faithful to God’s will. 

So how do we navigate that tension?

Chip Ingram tackles this question on our latest podcast episode. There, he explains the concepts behind his book “Holy Ambition” and helps us understand how we can faithfully pursue our callings in a way that honors God.

Episode Transcript

Rusty Rueff: Hey there and welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Today, we're going to tackle a pressing question for any founder or any leader. How do we handle ambition? You know, as entrepreneurs, we're naturally driven. We want to do big things and seek excellence in all of our work. But sometimes those desires can cause us to enter into a place of willfulness instead of faithfulness. We start striving for greatness instead of operating from a place of peace or knowing that God's in control. So how do we balance our God given desire and drive without grasping for that control? Well, today's guest, Chip Ingram, helps us wrestle through these questions by talking about the principles of his book, Holy Ambition Turning God Shaped Dreams Into Reality. Chip is a very experienced pastor and a longtime friend of the show who always provides us with great insights. So let's dive in.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. We are back in our virtual studios together. I've got Rusty. I've got William. Gentlemen, good morning.

Rusty Rueff: Good morning.

William Norvell: Good morning, indeed.

Henry Kaestner: I met a guy Rusty, on Friday night who had a Purdue sweatshirt on at the New Canaan Society annual retreat. And I said, I want you to know that everybody everybody I've met from Purdue is an awesome person. And maybe I feel that way about Baylor, too. There are probably some other institutions, but I thought of you. Just want you to know that I wanted to say that maybe I should have said that before we went on air. I'm not so sure that our audience cares, but here's what the audience is going to care about. We got Chip Ingram back.

William Norvell: So it's always fun.

Henry Kaestner: And which is always fun. And if you've been listening to the program before, you'll be familiar with Chip. Chip has been very, very generous with his time and has spent a lot of time with us. He has spoken at our events. He's been on the podcast several times. He is a great mentor and friend to me. I remember meeting him about 12 years ago or talking about reference and things with regards to generosity, and then his work came out in Romans 12. And just what does it really look like to be a Romans 12 type of disciple? That was formative in my life. He has heard about the different ministries we've been involved with over the years, and he says, please, please, please tell me that it's hard. It's going to be about discipleship. And that rings in my mind and has for the last decade. And so I'm grateful for that. But he's back today to talk about something were probably overdue. I mean, if we had 250 episodes and this is the first time we've really kind of like dived into ambition. Shame on us, right? because

Rusty Rueff: Shame on us for not having enough ambition to do the right thing.

Henry Kaestner: Yes.

Henry Kaestner: Yes, yes. What were we thinking? So. And Chip wrote the book on Holy Ambition. It's been formative in my life, has been formative in the lives of several of the companies we've invested in, has given me a language to ask the companies that we had invested in at Sovereign's Capital about how would you talk about your holy ambition? It gets at our why there's so much there. Chip Welcome back to the program.

Chip Ingram: Henry and my fellow brothers here, it's good to see you guys.

Henry Kaestner: It's awesome to have you. And we're going to talk about ambition. Ambition is something I think that we all struggle with. And if I'm and I've said this before publicly and it's clearly not scientific, I say that the majority of Christian businesses that I come across are not as good as their secular counterpart. And people look at me like, What do you mean? Which of course also means that 20% of businesses, I think, have a distinct advantage over their secular counterparts. And we'll get into that and hopefully you'll find yourself after listening to this in that latter camp. But I say that in my experience, some number of Christ following businesses cannot reconcile their ambition and find their desire to grow their business, potentially at odds with their Christian faith, because they see these competing things coming in about money and the trappings of success and metrics. And they say, Oh my gosh, no, no, no, no. My real business, my life really should be about just leaving work at 5:00 and volunteering at Young Life. But that kind of cognitive, spiritual dissonance reverberates throughout their business because they're not really comfortable talking about ambition that God has given to all of us. And since they're not comfortable talking about it, people pick up on that and it becomes kind of a disadvantage. But an Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg have no problem talking about their ambition and their singularity of mission. But Christ follower struggle with that is that your experience Chip?

Chip Ingram: Yeah, I often say I don't think many Christians have enough ambition, you know, but there's a good kind of ambition and there's a not so good by way of definition. You know, this is a profound book that I use occasionally called a dictionary. And ambition is a strong desire to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work. And then, you know, the second definition is the desire and determination to achieve success, fame, power and wealth. And so you can see why Christians, when they see that definition and I would say a holy ambition is a passionate pursuit of fulfilling a clearly God directed agenda that he's uniquely prepared you for. And so when the disciples on the very last night with Jesus were arguing, Are you ready for this? Yeah, For three years they've heard all the sermons, seen a few people raised from the dead. I mean, they've seen it all and they're arguing about what? Who's the greatest? And Jesus does not say, Oh, my gosh, what a failure, you bums. What's with you guys? You want to be great? He said that desire. I think what he says sort of implicitly is God given. Now, let me tell you, there's a whole different way to get there. You want to be great, be a servant. You want to be number one, be the last. In other words, align your ambition around taking how I made you the season that you're in, the gifts that you have, the wounds that you possess, and align that around a God directed agenda. That brings honor to me in many times that's running a absolutely great business where employees flourish, where products are great, where God gets glory, because what you do and why you do it is so well done and helped so many people. I think that secular sort of spiritual dichotomy is where we really lose sight of things. Does that make sense?

Henry Kaestner: It does make sense. And I find myself in my life that I've struggled with this and I'd like to just kind of level set it a little bit as I get ready, because Rusty, William and I, we had talked about this a bit. I know that they've got some thoughts about it, too. I have struggled with at various times ambition, because for me, wrapped up in my own personal story is this desire to find peace, joy and happiness and success. And they're all conflated in my mind and Chip, during when I was a secular person working on Wall Street, I was looking for success in the trappings of what I thought that would deliver me in terms of the sense of peace and joy. And I was looking for those in all the wrong places. Proverbial God shaped hole came to faith at 28. But when I came to faith at 28, I shifted my ambition and the way I thought about pursuing things a bit to another extreme maybe, and you can maybe you can help me to reconcile these things, but it was more along the lines of, okay, so I'm a Christian now. I'm living for a different purpose and a different reason, but I need to take up my cross and I need to follow God. I need to kind of deny myself and deny and kind of repress this kind of earthly ambition to just be what I thought was successful. And we could talk maybe about the definition of success, maybe in here somewhere, too. But what end up happened is for a long time, I kind of tried to repress and kind of dying itself, but it's only recently that I've kind of embraced this vision or embraced this thing about, Actually, no, I do what I do and I have this unapologetic ambition. I want to know God. I know that may sound overly Calvinist by sentence, but I want to know God and enjoy him forever. And this whole thing that God and plan to me at the very beginning. That type of ambition of knowing God and then as a result of that, enjoying him forever. That's not necessarily just a dying to self, which doesn't mean that the Scripture is wrong or anything like that. It's just in the entire narrative actually lean into that there is an ambition and a delivery and a promise that that ambition will be fulfilled. And now I'm on a different type of pursuit. Does any of that make sense?

William Norvell: Henry, I want to jump in for one second, because I want you to answer this and I want to Chip and answer both. You said earlier a phrase that we kind of ran over. Sometimes you find that secular counterparts are better, right? I want to define that a little bit. And then I want Chip to define it like, well, what does that mean? Is that profit, is it culture and how they treat their customers? Is is it everything or is it just profits? Right.

Henry Kaestner: So that's a great question. And then part of that comes down to, well, what's the definition of success? And so in this, I'd say on one hand, it's twofold. One hand is success in the world's eyes, which has some conformed to the patterns of the world mashed up in that. So we've got to be really careful, but it's in the achievement of the mission. So if a secular entrepreneur says we're going to go ahead and we're going to seize the opportunity in this market, we're going to deliver a product and service to this group of people. And this is why. But it's not a godly ambition. It's their ability to achieve that. But the singularity of mission and purpose without any type of the dissonance that might otherwise come from a Christians who's trying to reconcile with, is my ambition good or is it bad that person can achieve that unless they then bridge the gap and come to understand a holy ambition that delivers this kind of a power that Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg can't touch right now? So that's kind of one of the thing. But Chip, just riff on that a little bit.

Chip Ingram: Yeah a couple things I think that bring clarity and where, you know, we're talking about fruit, but we're also we kind of have apples and oranges being entertained. Ambition has at least two big issues from God's perspective. The Apostle Paul would say, you know, I make it my ambition to be pleasing to him. So there's a vertical God's work in us and there's a horizontal God work through us. And so I think for every believer, our personal ambition is to know him, to enjoy him. You know, it's Philippians three. I consider all things lost compared to the surpassing value. And the word for knowing is experientially, intimately knowing the power of his resurrection in my everyday life and even in my suffering and in my struggle. But then in Ephesians 2:10, you know, we all have a general purpose for our life. You know, the great Commission love our neighbor as ourself. But in Ephesians 2:10, after it talks about our salvation by grace through faith, it says for you are his workmanship. It's we get our word poem from it or masterpiece, or You are my precious possession that I've created, created unto a good work that God prepared for you from the foundations of the earth. And so I think ambition is about, yes, vertically. I want to know God. I want to love my neighbor as myself. And then my horizontal ambition is, what do you want to do through my life and not split it? My life, Not just my work, you know, my family. What do you want to do through my life? What are the passions and the pursuits? My wife's holy ambition, out of a painful path, was to raise kids that would really love God and propel them, help them discover their gifts and make a huge difference. And she's fulfilled it. And it's been very private. My holy ambition has been a calling from God that the short version is to actually help Christians live like Christians. So lost people. What have a credible thing to say? There is a difference and that those of us that are Christians wouldn't go through just religious motions. And I think that, you know, this whole book is geared around a business person. You know, the subtitle of the book is How Do You Turn God Shaped Dreams into Reality? I think God birthed dreams or passions, and it can be Faith Driven Entrepreneur It can be a way to raise kids. It can be, you know, launching orphanages because you were an orphan like some of that I work with. There's certain passions. It can be developing a company that produces this because I know another fellow whose child died of, oh, what's it called when they die in the crib and they can't figure out why? He ended up creating the monitor that everyone uses because if he could have heard his baby grasping, that baby would not have died. And so God takes our wounds, our backgrounds, our gifts, our talents. Our relationships. And as we're walking in the vertical and in what you are doing with community is so important. You never discover your calling alone. And it's in those relationships God starts to birth sort of this agenda. This ambition, I think, is a part of the big picture. And a lot of that has to do, especially with entrepreneurs. He's going to do it. Yes. In your family, in your life, this can be through your work.

William Norvell: And this is making me think. I want to throw in one of my favorite commentaries, Clay Christensen, which probably a lot of people know. Here are this amazing article. And I sent all kinds of people taught how to measure life. He ended up writing a book about it, too, but I think the six page article gets the gist of it. And I'm wondering if this applies to entrepreneurship or if it's a little different because this nuance, some of the biggest points he makes are he joined. I forgot it was Bain or BCG, one of the big consulting firms, And he said, I sat down with Mr. Bain. When I joined, I said, Hey, I want to be super clear. I love Jesus and Sundays for the Lord, so don't expect me here. And second. I love my family. I've got four kids. I'm not going to be here on Saturday. That's when I spend time with my family. And then he has this great line, he says, however. I was under no illusion that I was going to be the CEO of Bain. I thought I could have a productive career there, but there was someone who was going to outwork me, but I was totally comfortable with that sacrifice. And I feel like that's a little of bit nuance sometimes. And I'm I love a story, right? Because it's like, yeah, he was ambitious, but he put limits on it because of his faith, but God still rewarded it. Pastor us.

Chip Ingram: You know, the thing you're touching on is one is there is certainly a high correlation between our effort, our work and outcomes, but it's not a 1 to 1. And God has a different economy. And there's a thing that he values more than all of our hard work or religious activity or even honoring. You know, it's like without faith, it's impossible to please him. What God longs for us to do is to trust him. And what's that look like in different seasons of your life? For an entrepreneur, often trusting him is. I know some of my competitors are going at it seven days, 16 hours a day, and there may be what I kind of look at the big charts. They may be up into the right a little faster than I am, but I'm going to trust that as my priorities are what God wants them to be, because life is more than just about your company. It's holistic. We all know lots of people that have gotten to the top of whatever mountain whose marriages, children. It's a crash. It's a burn. So, you know, I think it's working hard, trusting God, but also with open hands, realizing outcomes belong to him. At the end of the day, there's not always a 1 to 1 correlation that you do X, Y, and Z, and it equals, you know, X to the third tower. You know, I think for most entrepreneurs, if you're really an entrepreneur, the hardest thing is, you know, this phrase that you all use in your book, willfulness versus faithfulness, I think it's they look a lot alike of getting up in the morning.

Henry Kaestner: You said your book, did you say your book?

Chip Ingram: It's your book.

Henry Kaestner: Rusty. What do you think?

Rusty Rueff: So I'm fascinated with this a little bit, what William is talking about with Clayton and then Chip, what you just said. But, you know, you say in your book you don't get to holy ambition just by showing up. There are conditions like there are six conditions that are really important. And they they hit me, you know, dislocated heart, broken spirit, radical faith, strategic plan, personal commitment, courageous soul. Right. That these are conditions. The one that really strikes me is the one that's in the middle. This strategic plan like that, you have to have a strategic plan to get from here to a holy ambition, which actually should resonate with all of our listeners to certain resonates with me. If you have an entrepreneurial spirit because you know that you can't just wake up one day and say, Oh, there's a problem to be solved now I'm just going to go do it. I have to have a plan. So can you unpack the strategic plan part of that a little bit?

Chip Ingram: Before I go to strategic plan, let me pause and go back one, because I think behind this is it willfulness? What part is faith? What part is work? This is the story of a businessman who changed the course of history. And I think we start with what dislocates your heart. I mean, what do you feel so passionate you have to do? But you gave those conditions. The second one is a broken spirit. And the reason I want to touch on that is because before you come up with the strategic plan, we've all developed great strategic plans with a real group of smart people and we're going to make this happen. And a broken spirit is a season of prayer where you humble yourself before God and you realize, I can't do this. It's this amazing, it's one of the most amazing prayers in all of scripture. And it's out of that brokenness, out of that. This is so big, I can't do it. And then he takes this radical step of faith to get in the game. Then it's okay. Then he gets out of white board and gets in a private room and he evaluates what's the depth of the problem. And then he develops that strategic plan that makes all the difference in the world.

Rusty Rueff: Just for those who haven't read the book you're talking about. Nehemiah Yes, that's right. Yes. Nehemiah, the great builder, the great entrepreneur in some ways, right. You know, he's a cup bearer that goes, hey, there's a problem to be solved, and I think I should go do it.

Chip Ingram: Exactly.

Henry Kaestner: And so my favorite part about Nehemiah, sorry to interject. Now, part of that, Nehemiah, is the thing that I overlook so much as an entrepreneur myself is that when Artaxerxes is there, he sees Nehemiah all kind of stressed out about the fact his hometowns in shambles and he says, What do you want me to do about it? It says, Nehemiah prayed, which probably wasn't, Hey, Artaxerxes, hang on, I'm going to go over to my prayer room or I'll do that my devotions tomorrow morning. I'll pray like, you know, like right then, like it probably a quick prayer. Like Heavenly Father, speak through me because he king just asked me a really big question. Maybe you're. Words. Right. And I think that there's so much of an opportunity for me to incorporate that more in my life. That kind of like constant real time prayer.

Chip Ingram: And I would add if I can, when the book opens, when he hears about the devastating situation, it says, I sat down. He actually stopped, hard for entrepreneurs. He emote. He actually weeps. And if you check it, you find out there's about a four month period that he gets some other people and he repents and he weeps. Talk about, you know, revivals and how they actually occur. It wasn't a smart guy who had a big thunder called a king who came up with a great plan, who said, I'm really going to make something happen. It was a guy in the right place who had a great thunder who realized this is so over my head. Only God can do this, so I'm going to deal with my junk. And He repents of his sin and the past sins and other people's sins. And then by the time he gets to the end of the prayer, he goes, You know what? And this is a key. This is your people and your plan and your agenda and your city. In other words, what you realize is, is this isn't about me, so I'm going to risk my life. And then that's why little short prayers make a difference. When you spend four months fasting, praying, emoting in community to say, I will do whatever you want me to do, then you bring the brains in and develop a strategic plan. Because now God can show you what he wants you to do.

Rusty Rueff: All right. So I'm I want to ask one more question. We'll turn it over to Henry William. So let's say we're on the path to holy ambition, right? And we are working in ourselves and through the conditions and making sure that we've surrendered it all and we're trying to get there. How do we evaluate? And it's a little bit what Henry said at the beginning of the conversation, How do we evaluate the difference between what is my ambition and what is holy ambition? Because. That's not always easy to discern, right? You know, that's the voice inside of us, the voice around us, all those things. How do I [...] that out?

Chip Ingram: One is, I think there's a personal aspect where I'm commanded for me. Watch over your heart with all diligence for from it flow the issues of life. It's me meeting with God and asking that question. I think second, it's why you guys do groups. We all lie to ourselves and we lie to other people. And if you have close knit people who will really tell you the truth, this is what I want to do. This is why I do it. And someone who really cares looks in you goes. This doesn't sound like it's really all about God to me. And then I think the third thing is then how do you respond? Because this always happens when you have a holy ambition. As far as you know, this is really for God. It's his agenda. You're making great sacrifice and then all hell breaks loose or it looks like failure. If it's all about you, it crushes you. If it's really his. I actually had an interesting conversation with Henry at a moment when one of the stock markets just imploded here in the last several months and we were having coffee and I asked him, well, how are you doing? And if you don't mind me sharing this.

Henry Kaestner: Bring it.

Chip Ingram: Yeah. He said, Well, I don't remember the exact numbers, but, you know, well, if the stock's at 140 and it's down to 25. If that doesn't, you know Bobbie too much, I'm doing great. And then his next comment and his countenance didn't change. And it was one of those where, you know something, over time it was like, well, that certainly might limit what I thought I could do and some things I could find and some of my ideas. And very calmly, if God wants me to do some of those things, I'm figuring the stock will go up or he's going to bring it from someplace else. But it wasn't like, Oh, my, you know, after all I've done for God and now he drops my stock, How could God do that? You know, I think how we respond to the disappointments, opposition barriers and struggles. And by the way, I think, you know, it's very interesting. And Psalm I think it's Psalm 105: 19 it says until the time that God fulfilled his dreams to Joseph, the word of the Lord tested him. And part of this journey that we have to remember is the big agenda is not that you fulfill your holy ambition. That's the second big agenda. The big agenda, God's big agenda is to make you like his son. And he, in his kindness and love and mercy, often brings about challenges, difficulties, pain, suffering, injustice, Betrayal allows those things not causes in a way to just keep sharpening you to trust him. And if you look at anything that's been very significant, whether that's in the secular world or we might call it ministry or I think even better, those of us that feel like there's not a big difference, it is in the perseverance and the trusting of God over time and things happen where you see the outcome and you recognize I couldn't have worked any harder, but in my wildest dreams, I could have never made this happen. And part of this, you know, Rusty, you know, I'm hearing myself talk, thinking there's some mystery to how God's doing this. And there's some, you know, I don't know really, you know, my heart is deceitful. I still lie to myself. So I think it's a bit of.

Rusty Rueff: You mean there's no there's no algorithm.

Henry Kaestner: Chip, one thing on that just struck a chord is it's Proverbs 16:2 all of a man's ways impaired him, but his motives are weighted by the Lord. And just like am I lying to myself, ostensibly, we're running faith driven entrepreneur to honor God and maybe a selfish part because I want to know God more fully. And I get a chance to do that through this program. And what we do at faith drivn and enjoy it forever. And yet Proverbs 16 two continues to come back to convict, not haunt me, but maybe convict me. I think that part of your answer is what you said before is getting together in community people and you just don't stand a chance to be able to figure this out on your own. It has to be in community.

Chip Ingram: Well, ten years ago and this is not a pitch or a commercial, but just real quickly, a little over ten years ago, I found myself in an environment with a bunch of high capacity leaders. And over time, we developed a thing called prime movers to help high capacity leaders discover their holy ambition. We did it in a facilitated manner. We never had more than five or six people, and they all had affinity, you know, they all were very successful or wealthy or whatever. So it was a time where they could be honest with one another because, you know, they didn't you know, you didn't work for them or they couldn't disinherit you. And everyone had a lot around the table. And we we what we found was it was in that environment. Now, we've had well over 500 people go through that in a decade and here in places around the world. And it's in the interaction of that where people speaking the truth in love in a safe environment that I think has at times challenged them to, you know, wait a second. You know, when we were talking about business, you wanted franchises all over America and we're talking about God. You want to these three little things or the flip side, it's been, you know, people being able to be honest where it's safe. I think that answers your question maybe as much or more than anything. Rusty, how do you really know? As I was in a meeting last weekend and we're in the midst of making some really, really big decisions. And, you know, when you're the point person of an organization, and especially most entrepreneurs are founders, which I am as well. And I remember going into that and it was like I had prayed we'd done all this stuff, and I went into it realizing. I think this group is going to tell me what the will of God is. And that's a bit scary. You know, here's option A, here's option B, here's my personal processing. What do you all think? And I had a, you know, left to me, I think I would do this. And then the very next comment was by someone I really love who's really smart, who really cares about me. I understand. And it was I totally disagree with that which started, I think at our board level was the most and we're very open. One of the most truth and love grace oriented conversations all around. And I think eight people walked out of a room all looking over their shoulder going. I don't know that we would have thought. That is what we would do. And eight people were completely aligned, absolutely clear. This is what God wants us to do. But they came with this palms up, openness and the freedom. I mean, that guy I actually when I got done, I said, Guys, can I pause? Because you just as a board, this is one of the healthiest board meetings I've ever been to my life. And I turned to the guy who took me on because, you know, you have to remember, if you're the entrepreneur and the founder, people are always a little fearful of, you know, can I really? We all tell them I'm open. You can say this. You can say that. How we respond when they say things like that is what either creates a culture or kills it. So anyway, I think there's something to this as entrepreneurs are listening to us right now, you know, since you guys might not say this, let me say it. If you've never done the eight week foundation or get with a group of other guys and all you want to do is listen to podcasts to get you revved up and get you inspired and and oh, this really neat speaker, you know, like someone like really famous or really great business person. I got two good ideas from him and I'm going to do my thing. I'm just telling you, you are missing it, missing it, missing it, and after that you're missing it. If you don't get with other people, you may be successful and deluded and even say with all your heart and believe it that you're doing what you're doing for God and you will wake up in ten years and you will just wish you could turn back the clock and say, Why didn't I really do life with people that I would be really honest with that would really speak into my life that I would listen to because. No one outgrows that.

William Norvell: Amen so good. And so we're going to move towards our last question here. But when we have a pastor on, you know, we want to give you a full 5 to 7 minute pastoral minutes here. Usually we give people like 30 seconds, but we feel like there might be something that comes up here that lasts for a little longer. So, as you know, we always love to ask at the end, you know, what is God teaching us? What is God teaching you specifically from his word and from the Scripture? And we like to bring it back to his word. But you've done numerous times through this, but anything specific that you think he's bringing to light in your world today?

Chip Ingram: Very specific, I think. You know, I've had my holy ambition since it happened in a very unique way in 1999 at a retreat. And it was very clear the most mystical experience I've ever had with the Lord. And although I had lots of great Pentecostal and charismatic brothers that I work with here and around the world, that's not my tradition. So it was so bizarre and it was that Chip. I want you to be a catalyst to transform how America thinks about God. Pastors think about preaching, churches think about the community. And every day believers live out their faith at home and at work. What saved me as Catholics, you don't have to be big, you do not have to be famous. High view of God. Pastors teaching through God's Word in relevant ways. Churches not building their kingdom. And partnering with churches to transform communities and everyday believers living out their faith. Well, after that shocking, I realized there's always drift. And I started to look at that and I realized, you know, I've done some things to give people a high view of God and teaching. And, you know, after reading Tozer and J I Packer, you know, wrote a book on the real God. So but then it was like Chip, you know, it's not about just doing a thing. What are you doing constantly to give people an accurate, clear picture? It's the greatest need in the world. And, you know, I was studying the life of Jesus the last two years in a bit of a fresh way. And I wanted to go from the moment he was baptized into the moment he ascended. I wanted to mentally walk through. Where is he? How long was he there? What did he say? So that I could follow his path. And what did he ask the disciples to do? And then what I realized, what I started studying was there's a Jesus of the Gospels and obviously the same Jesus, but there's a Jesus of the Epistles and Jesus of the Gospels is the arc, the narrative, His teaching and what he did, the Jesus and the Epistles are describing. This is who He was. This is what He accomplished. And so in Colossians one, he is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation. Everything was made through him, you know, heaven and earth, visible, invisible Thrones, dominions, powers. He sustains all things. He's the head of the church, Philippians two. He's the Jesus who descended into greatness, became a bond servant, made himself nothing, and God exalted Him, king of kings. And then in Hebrews one, he's the final prophet. God has spoken in many ways, in the verse ways through prophets. But in this last day he has spoken through his son. And then in Revelation one you have he is the returning judge. You know, his eyes are a flame, his feet of bronze. There's a robe that goes to his feet. He's the high priest is the king. He's coming back, is going to make all things right. And I began to think that faith is not do I need more faith? According to Jesus, I'll have the faith of a mustard seed, I can say to that mountain. And I think what he was saying is it's the object of your faith. When you clearly see Jesus and Jesus as you've seen me, you've seen the Father. John one says, He Jesus explained to him, We get a word exegete. He exegeted God. And so the Jesus of the Epistles gives us this picture of this sovereign almighty creator. King, this priest who comes in humility and says, Follow me and descend into greatness, that God will exalt you. And he is the final message. He is the actual revelation of God. And here he is now appearing to John at a time of the greatest persecution in the history of the church and saying, I will make all things right. Justice will come. You have hope. And by the way, all the injustice, all the things you see, the corruption, the things that burn your heart, I will bring about what is fair and right once and for all. And here's the future. And so, yes, I've been studying the Jesus of the Epistles to get a clear picture of what God is really like. And what I realize is it's a lot easier to trust someone who spoke in the world came into existence. It's easier to trust the one that looks at all the nations like a small drop of on the side of a bucket. It's with all the devastation and earthquakes and sexual slavery and corruption. Yes, we all make a difference where we are each and every day. But it's never going to be right until he. Makes it right. And I can trust a sovereign, all knowing, all powerful, compassionate God in the midst of time where a lot of it doesn't make sense. And I can anchor my hope in who he is. And I don't have to be fearful about my grandkids and the world they're growing up in. I can help them be salt and light and help them know it's a challenging world and a falling world. And we're here to make a difference. So that's what I've been studying, and it's been helping me a lot because I think there's a lot right now that challenges our faith and really, I think, causes those who don't know the scriptures and don't know who God is. I think a lot of the consumer and I'm not talking about even prosperity gospel, I think the level of consumer orientation, especially among Western or American Christians, is so in the air. And so in the culture, we have people deeply disillusioned because I did X, Y, and Z for you, God. And a drunk driver hit my daughter. Or my wife got cancer. Or I gave away this money and my company went belly up five years later. And it's this anger at God as though somehow, some way, the American dream of you making my life work out the way I think is really your agenda. And I think a lot of people between that and a very faulty epistemology, that how I view and feel things is how I evaluate. Truth has a lot of Christians deconstructing their faith and their lives. And that's a whole nother topic we might talk about sometime. Anyway, that's more than 7 minutes. Probably. So I'm sorry.

Henry Kaestner: No, it wasn't. It was actually it was not 7 minutes. It was a great blessing to us. And Chip, I'm grateful for your friendship, your partnership with the movement, the book, Holy Ambition. Check out any Chip's books, a common thread. We're talking about this a little bit before we went on the air. A common thread. The Chip's work that I've picked out is his quest to help people to have a right understanding of God. And at a time when there are revivals that a lot of people are talking about, how do I have an encounter with God? It seems to me that there are two things that I hope you picked up in today's episode. One is just knowing God in His Holiness and how much He loves us from one hand and on the other hand is understood how far we have fallen from his glory and how sinful we are. But when we confess our sin to one another, hopefully you heard the theme about community groups in here, but when we do confess our sin to one another, we endevour, we much closer to being holy and being able to touch the mountain with clear hands and a pure heart that we never get to [....] where we want, that he might use us magnificently. And I'm grateful for Chip and his work. Check out any book from Chip Ingram and you'll see elements of that. He's got great work of generosity, great work on now, as you know, ambition and a whole bunch other things. Chip, we're looking forward to having you back. Thank you for being with us.

Chip Ingram: Thanks, Henry. William Rusty. Enjoy.