I invite you to open your Bible to Revelation chapter 3, and if you would find verse 11. We're concluding our study of the church at Philadelphia this morning, and I want to set the scene for what they were dealing with by doing something I don't normally do. I want to tell you a parable. There's an old Persian legend that recounts a certain king who needed a faithful servant. And he had to choose between two candidates for this position. So he took these two men, both at fixed wages, and he told them to fill a basket with water from a nearby well. He told them that he would come back in the evening and he would then inspect their work. So after dumping one or two buckets of water into the basket, one of the men said, this is a waste of time. What's the good of filling a basket? As soon as we pour the water in, it runs out the sides. It's a basket. The other servant said, but we've already been paid. The purpose is the master's business, not ours. It's his money. You do it. I'm not going to finish this fool's work, replied the complainer. He threw down his bucket and he walked away. The other man continued to labor hour after hour until finally he drained the well. Now, there was a purpose behind the king's instructions, a purpose which didn't become clear until the very end of the labor. I'm going to tell you what happened that justified these orders in just a moment. But before that, I want you to keep that concept in mind. And I want you to remember what King Jesus has commanded the Christians to do in Philadelphia until he returns. And we're talking about Philadelphia of Asia Minor, first century. It's a command that applies to all believers, though. This is not something that was for then and no longer for today. Rather, this is always relevant, and it's for all believers who live before the return of Christ. The work would not be easy, and it would not always make sense what our King commands. Some of those who hear the exhortation of King Jesus will forget that he does have a purpose in every command to his people. However, unlike the Persian king in the parable, our King Jesus has surrounded his commands with radiant promises for his faithful people, to encourage us in the darkness, to encourage us before we're home with promises that are glorious. Our text is Revelation chapter 3 verses 11 through 13. This is the final charge to the Christians in Philadelphia. They had already suffered so much, yet they had been so faithful. And Jesus told them that their enemies would bow down at their feet. They were told that they'd be kept from the hour of trial. And yet, there's still one more charge. They still had to finish the course set before them to maximize their reward in Christ. Our text, Revelation 3, I'm going to read verses 11 through 13 now. In honor of God and His Word, I invite you to stand with me for the reading of these verses. Our Lord says, I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have so that no one may seize your crown. The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." Father, I pray that you would open our hearts and our minds and our eyes to understand what you have for us in these verses that would assure us again of the promise of your Word that we might live faithfully at this present moment. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Preaching is a tremendous task, and it's not something to ever be taken lightly. I certainly don't take it lightly. And in every sermon that is preached, whether the one who is standing in the pulpit realizes it or not, but in every sermon that is preached, something is always at stake. Always. Not just in the sermon, but more so in the lives of those who sit and listen. Eternity is at stake for those who listen in unbelief. But even for those of us who already know Christ as Savior and have perhaps been following our Lord for years, eternal rewards are at stake in the way that you and I live. That's what Jesus is warning the believers in Philadelphia about in verse 11. He's helping us guard those rewards lest we lose them. He says, I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have so that no one may seize your crown. Now here's the first principle I want to put into your head. To prevent disqualification and loss, Christians must persevere and overcome evil. Frankly, I think it's rather comforting that the Bible repeatedly tells us to persevere and overcome evil. And the reason I find comfort in this is that it acknowledges that we all struggle with perseverance and endurance. I mean, it's a fight. It is a struggle to persevere. Anyone who isn't fighting and struggling against sin right now is already losing the battle. Sin changes who we are. Not dramatically sometimes, but often, more dangerously, it's the subtle change of sin that we don't even notice, that isn't seen by our spouse if we're married, or by our friends or co-workers. It's that subtle change of the heart. Brothers and sisters, you know that your thoughts and your desires influence every action of your life. Therefore, if our heart is not right with God, our lives will invariably go astray. They cannot long be right. Oh, you can fake it for a little while. You can wear a veneer and a facade. But ultimately, everything that is inside your heart will come out. It will bear fruit. It will be exposed. And what our Lord is doing here is He's focusing on our heart so that we can not lose a reward that should be ours, that He wants us to have. Sin is deadly. It deadens our sensitivity to God. It hardens our heart. And it dulls our spiritual taste buds, if you will, for the things of God. It makes us not want to get into the Word, not want to go to fellowship with God's people, not want to be a part of the fellowship of God or pursue the things of God. It just makes us not want those things. I want something else in first place. And my taste will go where my heart leads me if I don't cultivate a taste for God and His things. Now many of us, in fact all of us, go through seasons of life where we seem to lose hope, or we may feel overcome by certain besetting sins which paint the future as dark and full of dread due to the inner witness inside of us that we know that judgment is coming, that the judgment of God comes upon sin whether we acknowledge that or not. And yet, here in our text is God incarnate, our Savior, telling us as His struggling people how to prevent disqualification and loss while living in a world of sin. He begins with the suddenness of His return. He says, I'm coming soon. Note that word. I am coming soon. And the word for soon in the English Standard Version, which we're using here, and it's also in other translations, this does not mean chronologically soon. That's a big mistake that a lot of people might make. It doesn't mean chronologically soon in time. Remember, this was spoken at the end of the first century. The idea here is rapidly. Rapidly. This is the word he uses for soon. The original recipients in Philadelphia died before the return of Christ, and that means the promise is still yet future. It's still ahead. The word behind soon or quickly is the Greek word taku. Taku. We get our word tachometer from this word. Many of you have a tachometer in your truck or in some vehicle that you have. It doesn't tell you how fast you're going. That's the speedometer. But the tachometer measures the speed of rotation of the crankshaft in the engine. And even in park or in neutral, if you throttle up the engine when it's in park or neutral, you'll watch the tachometer push that needle to the right. And you'll notice that that's measuring the speed within the process of the engine, even if the car is absolutely still. Now when you put it into gear, those two things happen simultaneously. That when there is that increased rotation of the crankshaft, the car goes forward at a faster speed. But the word tachou is where we get tachometer from. And it's about speed in the process of the engine and not merely how fast the thing is moving. And so with this word, taku, Jesus is telling Christians that his return is going to take place suddenly and with great speed, even if it doesn't happen for a long time. Christians speak of the imminence of Christ's return, meaning it could happen at any time. And when it does happen, it will be too late to change your life in order to get ready. You can't say, oh, there's Jesus. All right, now I'm ready to clean up my life. I'm ready to quit all of these sinful habits. I'm ready to get my life ready because I don't want to be judged. It's too late. Once he appears in the twinkling of an eye, the time for change is over. He's warning all people that the time to be ready is now. Not later today. Not even at the end of the service. Not tonight. Not sometime next week. We don't know when the Lord may return. You have to be ready. Because when He comes, there won't be any time to get ready when that moment occurs. He will come like a thief. He says it will be sudden and without warning. That's why we don't know when the Lord is going to return. Date-setters, as we've heard recently, have set dates. You can ignore all such date-setters. They are false prophets. None of those are ever true. The Lord has told us plainly that no man knows the day nor the hour. And so we shouldn't believe anyone even if they claim to have mathematical calculations that validate that they know exactly as an exception to what our Lord said. There are no exceptions to the word of our Lord Jesus. Christians speak of the imminence of Christ's return. And so, the next phrase carries this thought forward. If he is coming quickly, he says next, hold fast what you have. Now, this is the same phrase we considered back in Revelation 2.25, back when we were studying the church at Thyatira, where he says, only hold fast what you have until I come. Think with me. I know that it's easy to get lost when you're going through these technical things and you're trying to keep one thought together with the next. Try to track with me. Since Jesus has not yet returned a second time, the command for us to hold fast is still applicable, right? It's still for now. We are now, like Philadelphia, to hold fast until He returns. This is what staying ready at all times looks like for the church. The church in every era must fight the good fight, the church must hold fast, we must preach the word, we must evangelize the lost, and we must not grow complacent with the status quo of mediocrity. That means we should never think, now we finally got the church better than we had it before, so we should stop working on anything. We never reach that point where we can say, more can't be done. Until Christ returns, there is always more that can be done. We can continue growing. The Christian never grows so mature in their walk with the Lord that there isn't more growth to be attained. Until the moment you leave this earth and your spirit is with the presence of the Lord Jesus, you have growth that is going to occur in your life. I remember my grandfather, my father's father, lived with us during the last several years of his life. And even when he was bound to a chair and had nurses that were coming in to attend to him, he could no longer stand, he couldn't feed himself anymore, and that one of his remaining purposes for being here on earth was to continue to witness just to the workers who came to tend to him. You are here for a reason, and it's great when you know that, and when you realize that every moment you're here, you are here to spread the news of the cross, the news of the saving gospel of Jesus Christ. And what I've said many times before, I say again, that's the one thing that you and I can't do better in heaven. That's the one thing that we do here on earth that we cannot do better in heaven. And so we must continually be thinking of ways to build up our faith and to encourage one another in the Lord as a body. That's why we continue to gather as a church. We are not a perfect institution by any means, but we want to be a growing body. We want to be a healthy body that is pursuing faithfulness according to the Word of God. Now think of all the people Jesus has ordained for us to reach, us, right here in this church in Providence, to reach through our relationships and through the ministries of this church. And some of the ministries may not have even yet been articulated yet. I imagine there are gifts that are latent, many gifts latent in the pews right now that we are waiting to engage. We want to engage your gifts, your spiritual gifts in the purpose of the gospel. And that is a glorious enterprise when all the members of the body are functioning in union with the Holy Spirit. That is a wonderful thing. That is a thing that even the world cannot deny. We have open doors of opportunity all around us. Everywhere we go, we see open doors of opportunity for growth and opportunities to spread the glory of God around us. By advancing the cause of Jesus Christ through the enterprise of the local church, you and I will safeguard against the warning that we find at the end of verse 11. where he says, so that no one may seize your crown. This statement means the Philadelphian Christians had already garnered some crowns for their faithfulness under trial, but the contest wasn't over. There was still a potential for loss, he said. There was a possibility of disqualification before the end. Now the crown in view here is not the crown of life, referring to salvation. There is no possibility ever stated in scripture for a true believer to ever lose or forfeit their salvation. I want to make that abundantly clear. Don't interpret it that way. Romans 8 verse 30 says, Those whom He predestined, He also called. And those whom He called, He also justified. And those whom He justified, He also glorified. This is an unbroken chain that began before the foundation of the world and will culminate in the presence of Christ in heaven. And each of those actions is stated in the past tense. I want you to notice. They're all stated as if they're a done deal, and it's only a matter of time. Your salvation in Christ is guaranteed. But the crown, in verse 11, is not the crown of salvation. It's not the crown of life. This is about reward in heaven. Reward for stewardship on earth. The culture in Asia Minor, where the Philadelphian church was located, they understood the Olympic Games. They understood Greek culture. In those games, laurel wreaths were typically given as crowns to the victors in each contest. And by the way, this may be of interest to some of you, the word Jesus uses in verse 12 for conquerors or victors in some of your translation, that is the word behind the brand name Nike. The name Nike comes from that word. It means victor or conqueror in an athletic contest. That's the same word they use for victors in the Greek games, Nike, Nike. Now because the laurel crown was made out of real leaves, it was a fragile laurel wreath and it would perish. It would wither and it would turn brown and the leaves would fall off and it would die. And it would be just a very pathetic remnant of a victory won to the one who achieved this laurel crown. But here, listen to what Jesus is saying. The crown of reward in heaven will never fade. It will never die. It will never perish. I want to ask you, for which crown are you running right now in life? Which crown are you pursuing? Are you pursuing something that's temporal, that's going to fade and die with you? Are you pursuing something that is eternal, that can never diminish, never fade, never be taken away from you? That's where we need to invest our time. That's where we need to invest our lives, is into that which is permanent, not something that's just going to burn up when the world is destroyed at the end. Now, that may not make sense to a lot of us, especially if you're pragmatic and you're very practical and you're thinking, yeah, but we have business. We have to deal with material things, and indeed we do. We live in a material world. And our Lord has ordained that faith be conveyed and conducted in a world of things that are seen and touched and felt so that we might magnify Him by saying, we have confidence in that which is unseen. In Him who is invisible, He is more powerful, more real than things that are seen and touched and tasted and felt and perceived with the hands and with the senses. This is the way we magnify Him, among other things. Now sometimes our spiritual labor seems so difficult, and the meaning, especially to unbelievers, seems so obscure. I mean, this looks like, to all those who are pragmatically minded like a waste of time. Why would we sit here on Sunday morning hearing someone tell us what the commands from the Word of God are from more than 2,000 years ago and how it impacts our lives right now? We are men and women of faith. We are men and women, boys and girls, who are hearing the words of God, which are inerrant and imperishable, and are as relevant now, more relevant, in fact, than tomorrow's newspaper. And this affects everything we do in life. This is how we feed our hearts. We have to trust that Jesus, our King, is trustworthy and He knows best. We have to believe that. And when we study His promises, that's how we feed that faith. Now in verse 11, our Lord is protecting our future reward in heaven. In our day, we know about Olympic athletes who have won gold medals, only later to become disqualified because of, you name it, steroids, some other form of cheating. And as a result, they've lost their medals. They lost the temporal medals. Appearances can be so deceiving. So many of the people in society right now who look like they're winning the race of man are going to be losers in the end. And so many of the people who look like they are losers right now on the earth in the face of man are going to be the ultimate victors, the Nikes, the conquerors through faith in Christ. Now, here we have a close parallel to what Jesus is saying about someone taking your crown. No one can take your crown unless you disqualify yourself through sin or neglect. But I need to be quick to add that we live in a world that is fallen, and we live around a fallen race of people. And when we look around the world, we're not going to find much to bolster our faith. We're not going to find things in the world to feed our faith. You can't go to the movies. typically, although I've seen some wonderful movies made recently that are made by Christians that do exalt virtue and honor and character. But for the large part, the movies that are out there, the television shows, are trash. Just garbage that will not build your faith. And if we feed our hearts with trash all week, We can't expect to come to church on Sunday and then be filled with a bounty of God's Word because our appetites have been spoiled with what John Piper calls the white bread of secularism. That we stuff ourselves with the world and it's almost like in church we have to have an emetic to vomit all of that worldliness up before we have any room for the things of God. The thing that causes us to forfeit a reward, among other things, is not having a hunger for the things of God. Because sin is what is the most deadly thing to our faith. Sin. Now, others may try to lead you into sin in the world. If you're living a Christian life, you know why? Because it makes them feel better. If they can knock you off course and get you to live the way they live, and like what they like, and say, you know, church is no big deal, things of God, that's no big deal, you don't have to live according to His way. If they can get you to acknowledge that, it makes them feel good about not being a Christian. Makes them feel like if you're a Christian and you do these same things, then what's the big deal about me? And that's a false message. That's a lie. And so your non-Christian peers and the society around you may pressure you to do things that you know to be wrong and sinful, and you must hold fast. Don't yield to that. Because when you give in to that pressure, you're letting someone take your crown and plunder your rewards. We're talking about stewardship, not salvation. Now in verse 11, Jesus is telling Christians, don't give in. Hold fast. His coming is going to be sudden. It's going to come without warning. He could come before our evening service tonight. We don't know. We don't know. And so we must always be ready. Now look at verse 12. Here's what's at stake. Verse 12 says, the one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it. Now this promise tells us that overcomers will be permanent worshipers in the presence of God. There's a sense of permanence here. A pillar represents stability, permanence, and immovability. Remember the architecture of the Roman Empire. Some of the only things that are still standing from this era are the pillars. If you ever visit the ruins of the Acropolis, you still see these monumental columns and pillars, sometimes holding up little fragments of the other stones that are above it. But for the large part, After all of the changing winds of the earth and all of the earthquakes and floods over the centuries, those pillars are emblems of endurance. Pillars can also represent honor. In pagan temples, for example, they were often carved in such a way as to honor a particular deity or a hero of society. And this imagery would have been close to the believers in Philadelphia. The marvelous promise Christ makes to believers is that they will have an eternal place of honor in the temple of God, which is heaven. They will also have permanence, because he says, never shall he go out of it. What an interesting phrase. You know what that refers to? It refers to the lack of permanence they had in their city of Philadelphia. Because all the time in Philadelphia there was a warning that earthquake is coming, we've got to get out of here, everything's going to crumble. Or there was a warning that there's an enemy coming, we're going to be invaded, we need to get out of here. People would drop everything they had and they would flee out of their city so that they wouldn't be killed. And that happened over and over and over again in Philadelphia. Here is Jesus saying, you're going to have permanence. You're going to have permanence in the house of my God in heaven. You're not going to be run out of heaven. You're not going to be removed because of an earthquake. You're not going to be flooded out. You're not going to be burned out. No one can plunder you once you're in heaven. And so this is an image of security in eternal glory. So once the battle is fought, believer, once the battle here is finished and done on earth, believers won't have to continue fighting sin. We won't continue having to preserve our rewards. That will be done. It will be a fait accompli, an accomplished fact. it will be permanently settled. And what takes place in God's presence at that moment is worship. Because you know that you didn't do it. You know it wasn't your grip that kept you saved. It was His grip. All the time. And this will culminate in worship. You know, we find this especially in Revelation 4 and 5. Revelation chapters 4 and 5. Overcomers will be permanent worshipers in the presence of God in heaven. And that is so glorious, that needs a whole other series just to go through what it will be like when we worship in heaven. And how what we do on Sunday mornings is really to be a foretaste on earth of what we're going to experience as believers in heaven. I know that so often what we experience falls far short of that. But that should be our goal. We should want to celebrate what is true in heaven here on earth. You know, in the Lord's Prayer, Jesus said that we should pray, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Where better for that to take place than in the church? If there's any place on earth where that should occur, it's here in the church. This is where we know God's will. This is where we should pursue God's will and celebrate God's will and pray that it will be done and pursue that end. And so once the battle is fought and finished, believers won't have to continue the struggle and the fight. And when we worship, it will be with permanence. Finally, notice the rest of verse 12 and 13. He says, and I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. So here's the third proposition. New names will characterize our new citizenship in heaven. Now, so far, we've learned that you and I, as believers, must hold fast with perseverance throughout the Christian life. This is how we safeguard our crowns. And to this, Jesus adds to our security by reminding us of our permanence as worshipers in heaven. And now, the next point is that this permanence is marked by a new name. The new name represents intimate ownership by God. Now this is ownership in the manner of adoption and not like an object. He's not treating us like objects where we are owned or merely as slaves, although there is a sense in which he is our beloved master and we are his well-protected slaves. There is that relationship metaphor, but here this is an ownership as in terms of adoption. You're mine. You're mine. You belong to me. I love you. I gave myself for you. You are mine and no one can snatch you out of my hand. There is a permanence here. The name He writes, He says, is His name. It's his name. That's like he's putting his name on us as if you belong to me. That's what it means. And notice that he uses the words, my God, four times in that one verse in verse 12, my God, he says, your new name is Christian. You are beloved. You are redeemed. You are his. The new Jerusalem represents our new citizenship. We are to live on earth as citizens of heaven. Although we have dual citizenship, because we are also citizens of an earthly nation, we are principally citizens of heaven. And therefore, when there is ever a difference between our earthly citizenship and our citizenship in heaven, to which do we defer? We must defer to heaven. We must do what is right according to our citizenship in heaven, to be good citizens of earth. This is the way good citizens should behave. A Christian should be the best of citizens on earth because we represent an eternal standard, not a temporal man-made passing standard. Now, to those who have little strength or little influence because of being ostracized and alienated by society, Jesus promises recognition in His kingdom that is worthy of the most noble hero of any society. That's another thing that we find in verse 12. The rewards for overcomers far outweigh the momentary costs that we have to pay in this life. You know, sometimes the commands and requirements of Jesus simply will not make sense. They just won't make sense to us in this life, according to our way of thinking. That's why we need the Word of God. That's why His Word corrects our thinking. And yet we have to remember, as His people, that He always has a purpose. And His purpose for believers is always 100% good. Remember the two servants at the beginning of the message? One got frustrated with the king's orders and he gave up, but the other servant persevered, filling the basket until at the end of the day the well was completely empty. Then he saw it. He saw it. There at the bottom of the well was a diamond. The king had placed the diamond there knowing the well would have to be drained. The servant said, now I see the use of pouring water into the basket. If the bucket had brought up the ring before the well was dry, it would have been found in the basket. My work was not useless after all. It all makes sense. Someone has said that among our first words in heaven will be the exclamation, of course. Of course! Won't that be glorious when He has revealed the explanation for all of the things that He's having us do? All of the things that don't seem to make sense right now, all of the tragedies and the losses that we've faced in this life, the things that we would call tragedy, pure tragedy, it will make sense one day. And we will see that it was perfectly good and right. And we will say, of course. If you and I knew what God knew, and that's an audacious thought, but if you and I knew what God knew, and if we were good, which we are not, but if we knew what God knew, and if we were good, we would want exactly what God has purposed, and we would say, Amen, Hallelujah, over what He brings to pass. One day, that will be our testimony. When we are in the presence of the Lord Jesus, when we have been resurrected, exalted, glorified. That will be our testimony. Paul wrote to the church at Corinth this wonderful exhortation. He said, therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Your labor is not in vain. When God's command does not coincide with your expectations or mine, remember to wait until the labor is done. The labor's not done yet. There's still work to be done, and there's always something good at the end of obedience to God. Would you bow your heads with me in prayer? Father, thank you for revealing so many of the rewards and reasons for your commands to us. You are sovereign. Your will is absolutely perfect and good and right in every way. May our lives, especially as displayed through this church, be a picture of what pleases you. Dismiss us now with your blessing as we pursue the unfading crown of victory through faith in Christ. For Jesus' sake we pray, and all God's people said, amen, amen.