The Faithful Follower

Won't you take a moment. One of my priorities for this next year is to develop a little bit better and stronger community. I told our leadership team- I say a leadership team- I've been doing a class called Trajectories and we did one session of Trajectories Thursday mornings at 6:00 am and then we did the other one at 6:30 pm. Throughout the summer.

It's just a leadership pipeline type deal.

I'm trying to help people be better, parents, be better spouses, be better employees, employers, and you know leaders on teams here at the church And one thing that I mentioned to them is I said: "We got to get close enough for CO". You know what I'm saying? I'm not saying we should give away CO. I don't like that.

And if you come from a, I don't know.

I'm not going to say anything further about CO, but it was just something that stuck in my head. We're not as close as maybe God would want us to be. The Bible gives an image of us being knit together. I'm not saying you need to be knocking on people's doors, You don't know, But what I am saying is we should grow closer and closer together as we pursue Jesus together.

Amen, somebody.

So how about you look at your neighbor and say, "Hey, my name is. If you need to meet somebody, that's okay". Isn't it a crazy thing? You've been sitting down the road from somebody.

Ain't never met them before.

You showed up here for community, but you sit here in isolation. Don't do that. We're going to be in Revelation, chapter 3, today. We've been going through a series.

Anyone remember the title of this?

It's right behind me. I was watching my message last week to make sure it wasn't total trash And, that was a joke. That was a joke. I was watching the message last week and I said that last week we're doing a message or message series called Faith.

That- and I'm looking at y'all acting like you're supposed to remember, and I looked in the video right behind me.

It's too easy. We're doing we're in a series called Faith That Sticks. The idea is to develop a resilience in our faith, a resilience in our faith that enables us not just to simply get through trials, but to live life daily in such a way that- and you'll hear this today- that we're pillars, we're stable, we're able to be used by God in good and bad scenarios. I think a lot of times I'm pretty decent in the hard times, Like I'm good at having faith when it gets difficult.

I ain't got no other option.

You know, you know those times where you don't have an option but to have faith. That's the easy time, but the hard stuff is when you actually have to choose faith over what seems easy. And, and that's what I want us to do, I want us to choose faith regardless of whether it's an easy or a hard time. And, Revelation, chapters 2 and three, is where we've been camping out.

We haven't gone through the whole book of Revelation.

It's it's it's a long book and there's a lot of content to it. It would probably take me a couple years to get through it. It took me seven weeks to get through two chapters. You know what I'm saying.

We've been going through that And essentially, Revelation was sent to seven churches plus a few in Asia Minor- present day Turkey- And we're in our sixth week of this series.

In this clock, clockwise route in Asia Minor, there is kind of a mailing route. It starts in Ephesus, moves to Smyrna, which was a pretty good church, Then we went to- I'm going to forget it, I think it was- Pergamum, Then Theotira, Then last week we talked about Sardis, And this week we're going to be in a church called Philadelphia. No, this is not the city in Pennsylvania. This is a city in ancient Turkey called Philadelphia.

The name is no longer Philadelphia, It's some other name that I struggle to pronounce.

You can look it up yourself. But we're going to be. Is that me? We're going to be in chapter 3, starting in verse seven.

I'm going to read the entire passage and then I'm going to walk you through, what I think will be really helpful for you.

So let's do that right now. I'm not going to make you stand today. I just like to change things up every single week. No tradition that is pointless here.

You, you really, you ever realize how some things we keep as traditions aren't really that valuable.

It's like you have a traditional seat that you sit in every single week, and if you walk in and someone's sitting in it, it ain't a big deal. You can go sit somebody somewhere else. I was a pastor. The first church I was a pastor at wasn't even that big.

It was like 300 people.

I wasn't the lead pastor, I was just an associate pastor, So that's probably why this happened. Anyways, I was a worship leader and I go to sit down-, because I wasn't leading worship that day- and a person comes up to me and they're like "Hey, what you doing" And I was like, "I'm just getting ready for worship". They said, "That's where I sit" And I was like, "Who do you think you are". I was pastor of the church and this person had the audacity to come tell them: Anyways, don't do that here.

It is unacceptable.

Here at this church, Starting in verse seven, And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia, write: "He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, and who shuts and no one will open". This is a description of Jesus, says this verse eight: "I know your deeds. Behold, I have put before you an open door which no one can shut, because you have a little power and kept my word and have not denied my name. Behold, I will cause those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie.

I will make them come and bow down at your feet and make them know that I have loved you Because you have kept the word of my perseverance.

I also will keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth. I am coming quickly. Hold fast to what you have so that no one will take your crown. He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God and he will not go out from it anymore, 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 out of heaven from my God, and my new name.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches.

Anyone who has an ear said "Amen". I love this passage because it is convoluted. If you were listening to that passage, maybe you're reading along in a different translation and so it was automatically confusing, But maybe you were just reading along with my translation. The New American Standard Version is what I'm doing through this series and you're like over my head.

That is me when I'm reading a lot of these passages On first reading.

It's over my head. I don't understand it. I have to go and do research to try to understand what is being said. I have to do research into the Old Testament to see what parts of the Old Testament they're utilizing.

And if you heard that just now and you're like, "Whoa, this is why I come to church, so someone else can tell me what I would have never understood when reading that".

First off, I'm grateful that you came to church and I'm grateful, that you might be gleaning from what is being preached. But I want you to know this: You can apprehend the nature of God even in difficult passages like this. I'm not saying it's going to happen immediately, but by the power of God's spirit in your life and by the power of consistent study and consistent prayer, you can get there. And there's really not an option.

If you want to live faithfully, If you want to know who God is and faithfully follow him, there's not an option.

It, it, it's. It's hard, It's hard to get to know more and more about God, but like I just said a few moments ago, even when it's hard, it's worth it. What do we say at the church? I'm forgetting the axiom that I've said: When it's worth it, it's worth it.

Good job, Maggie.

I'm so glad you're sitting up front, You, You sitting up front. You've been sitting in the back, worshiping in spirit and, in truth, And I see you back there and I'm like this girl needs to stand up front. I actually told her I need you standing up front. Make me feel better.

She's back there saying amen And, on the quiet days I need some help, You know.

So what I want to do is I want to actually, if you noticed, last week it was a pretty intense sermon where I talked about nominal Christianity and I said, essentially my Jeff Foxworthy moment: You might be a nominal Christian if, but this week I want to flip it, because Philadelphia, along with Smyrna, were the two churches of the seven that we've been going over who were considered faithful and there was nothing really constructive to give to them. They hadn't been doing a bad job. Philadelphia's been doing well. So, whereas last week was talking about nominal Christianity, this week I want to talk to you about what it looks like to faithfully follow Jesus.

My sermon title is the faithful follower.

What are the characteristics of a faithful follower of Jesus? Now, I want to be clear upfront. I will not give you an exhaustive list of what it looks like to be a faithful follower. I'm going to give you the Philadelphiaian list of what it looks like to be a faithful follower.

So know this.

This is not complete. So if you've been working on being a faithful follower and you're doing something that I don't list today, that's amazing. And this is not the beall endall list. It is not exhaustive.

So don't write this stuff down and say, "This is all I have to do".

There is so much more to being faithful. I'm going to give you a short list today And you can assess whether or not you've been following Jesus faithfully. So I'm going to jump right into it and I'll be breaking down the Scriptures as we go. So again, the sermon title: faithful follower.

The first point, the first thing a faithful follower will do is they learn the Scriptures.

I kind of mentioned that to you, but I want to give you the text and how it's relevant. Verse 7 says this: "And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia, right, He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, and who shuts and no one opens, says this". Now be honest with me. Be honest.

How many of you knew what John was referencing when he said that, as you heard it read a second ago?

How many of you knew what he was referencing in the Old Testament. How many of you knew? Good, I'm glad no one raised their hand. Because before I studied this a few years ago, I didn't know either.

This is like the most rando use of the Old Testament of the seven churches, And so I had to go do some study and research.

And the reason I give you that point: they learn the Scriptures. A faithful follower of Jesus who wants to apprehend the nature of God is going to come up to a Scripture like this. They're going to come into a life situation that seems difficult. They're going to come to this fork in the road that says, "I could go the easy way or the narrow way, And they're going to choose the hard, the narrow, the difficulty, and they're going to embrace it".

You might say it this way: People who are faithful followers of Jesus have learned to embrace difficulty.

They learn the Scriptures. And I've tried year over year to figure out ways to simplify the Scriptures so that people who are coming in for the first time can grasp the nature of God. But the more I move forward, not only is your faith simpler than you might think it is, but there are so many complexities involved in it, after you've trusted in Jesus, that you'll get to spend the rest of your life exploring it. If you're willing, I think it's worth it for you to learn the Scriptures.

And some people have been saying- and it's really interesting to me- one of the biggest pieces of feedback that we get when people come to church is that they preach the Bible there.

And I'm going to be honest with you, It's crazy to me that what I'm doing here on a Sunday is some of your version of heavily preaching the Bible. Because, to be honest with you, if I went into certain circles, they would look at my sermons. They have, in some circles, looked at my sermons and said, "You don't really preach the word that much". Why do I say that?

I say that because if this is super heavy Bible preaching for you, then it's crazy to me that the other church, whatever the other churches- are doing, because this is very limited.

In fact, as you dive deeper and deeper, you're going to not only know God more, you're going to love God more. You're going to see that Philadelphia here. Learn the Scriptures. How do I know?

They learned the Scriptures?

Because John would. John would not have used this reference if they hadn't known the Scriptures. Now, to give you a little context to Philadelphia: , there's quite a heavy Jewish population in Philadelphia. So here's what you have.

You have a mixture of pagan philosophy and theology, pagan worship and Jewish worship.

Now, if you were a Jew in the ancient world, in Rome, you were allowed to practice Judaism. You were allowed to go to the synagogue. Judaism was what they call a legal religion, Religioa, if you want to. I don't care why I gave you Latin.

Why did I give you Latin?

I just told you it's a legal religion Means the same thing. But it is a legal religion. So people in Philadelphia were regularly practicing. And if you would go to synagogue- weekly, or even daily, depending on how involved you were- you would be learning from the scrolls, And one of the heavy scrolls you would have heard would have been the scroll of Isaiah.

It's the first thing we hear of in Luke 4, where Jesus pulls out the scroll of Isaiah and he selfidentifies within that text.

This is from Isaiah. Now, I don't expect you to have known, because I didn't know until I looked it up, But if you go back to Isaiah, chapter 22, you have a really random situation. I'm I'm telling you how random it is. It is interesting how Revelation is utilizing the Old Testament right now, But it tells me that Philadelphia must have known the Scriptures, Otherwise why would he use that?

They knew the Scriptures so well that some random piece of information in Isaiah, chapter 22 was utilized and they would have understood it.

How many of us, if we hear a Scripture, don't even recognize it's Scripture? For me, I was having a conversation with somebody the other day. I'm not going to tell you who it was, but I was synthesizing Scripture without quoting or sight citing Scripture, Like I didn't say Revelation 2:22 says this. All I was saying was I was quoting Scripture And one person looked at me and said: "It'd be really nice if you utilize the Scriptures".

And I was like: "Excuse me, sir, I've been summarizing the broad swath of Scripture here, but if you want me to give you some, I will do it.

And then I did and I felt like a jerk. But anyways, they said it, You know what I'm saying. So I went in and what I realized in that moment is: oh my gosh, you don't. You don't know the Scriptures, And so I want to help you know the Scriptures here.

Here's what it says here in Isaiah 22.

I'm going to read it for you. It says: "Then I will set the key of the house of David on his shoulder. When he opens, no one will shut. When he shuts, no one will open.

I will drive him like a peg in a firm place and he will become a throne of glory to his father's house.

So random, right. Here's your context. The context is there's really bad leadership under Hezekiah. There's a household administrator named Shbna who's not doing a good job, and they're dealing with conquering peoples trying to come in and mess around with Judah.

And so Isaiah writes a prophecy against this household administrator named Shbna And he says: "Your mantle's about to be taken from you and it's going to be given to a guy named Eliakim who's a son of Hilkaya".

And he says: "He is gonna hold open a door and no one's going to be able to shut it, And then there's going to be a peg driven into a firm place". That's so random, right? That's crazy random. Some random dude in the house of David- Literally the house of David, the administrator getting kicked out of his position, demoted heavily.

A new guy comes in who's stronger in leadership.

Why would he reference that? Well, because Eliakim, the guy who came in after Shbna did a decent job, But guess what? He died. And guess what?

Judah still got conquered by Babylon down the road.

It didn't work out. But he's utilizing that Old Testament passage to tell the people in Philadelphia that even if you're persecuted, even if there's bad leadership in the synagogue, even if you're getting kicked out of your community, even if things are going haywire, guess what? I got a guy. I got somebody who one day is going to be driven into a firm place.

He's going to hold open a door that no one can shut And when people come up to it, they can't open it, They can't shut it, They can't do anything with it, Because the peg that's been firmly dug in it's going to hold it open for eternity.

It's going to hold it open for salvation. It's going to hold it open for your access to God. It's going to hold it open so that, even when you're persecuted, you don't have to stress out, because they're not the ones who dictate your future. And that's it's.

It's a prophetic utterance that he's utilizing to say it wasn't necessar necessarily Eliakim, It was actually Jesus.

He's the one. He had nails driven into his hands and feet. He died on your behalf so that you might live life eternally and abundantly. When you look at Jesus, you don't have to be stressed out about who's shutting the door of the synagogue in your face.

You don't have to be stressed out about who's shutting the door of the trade guild in your face.

You don't have to be stressed out if your family disowned you. Why? Because those of you in Philadelphia who were small, of little power, you can recognize that. It's not your place to stress.

It's your place to lean on your savior.

You're not the peg, driven firmly, It's him, So rely on him. I wish I could have articulated that better, but it is difficult, right This Isaiah 22 passage? How do you bring that forward? They must have known the Scriptures because he didn't even explain it to them.

They knew the Scriptures so well that they did not require explanation.

I spent way too much time on that Scripture point but hope you understand when you go home that if you never open the Scriptures your spiritual walk is going to be limited and you're going to be anxious. Why? Because you don't have the words of God in your spirit. Number two: they are bigger than they look.

A faithful follower of Jesus.

They're bigger than they look, Verse 8, . It says this: "I know your deeds. Behold, I have put before you an open door which no one can shut, because you have a little power and have kept my word and have not denied my name". Now, scholars all pretty much agree that when he says you have a little power, he's saying that you're the small crew, You're the remnant, You're the group of people.

You might be five, you might be 50, but you're a small population of people who are being faithful to God in the midst of a community that is not being faithful to God.

You're remaining firm under duress and difficulty. He's telling them, even though you have little power. What's he say? Even though you have little power, God, well, Jesus is the one holding open this door, And it's not you who provided your own access anyways.

So who cares about your limited power when you have eternal power on your side?

When you're a faithful follower of Jesus, you're bigger than you. Look, I remember when I used to play football. I wasn't good at it. How many of y'all?

No, I'm not going to ask, I feel insecure up here.

And then I preach a bad sermon for you. I played football, but I played football. I stood on the sideline. Mostly We're undefeated team.

That's been my excuse.

I probably wouldn't have played, even if we stunk as a team. But anyways, I played football a little bit and I remember I was on special teams one time and, I was always scared to tackle. Why do I tell people this? It just makes me look bad up here.

I was scared to tackle when I was a sophomore in high school.

I don't know why. I was scared to break my back and the guy that, I was hanging out with mostly he like dislocated his hip. So I got a little nervous- You know what I'm saying- So I wouldn't tackle very well. And then I remember I was doing special teams and this guy was running with the ball and I like put out my arm and he like fell over and I was like "Oh, wow, This is cool".

And, and then I'm like I was like pumped about it and this guy who had dislocated his hip- he was really good, He played starter.

He walks up to me. He said, "Bro, you bigger than you look". And it reminded me when he said that, when I'm reading this passage of a passage in the Old Testament where the 12 spies were sent into the land of Canaan. Moses sent them in order to assess whether or not they could conquer the promised land, the land of Canaan.

And 12 of them come back.

Two of them are pumped and excited about what God can do. The other 10 say that there are giants in the land. We can't conquer it because we were as grasshoppers in their sight. And if there's one thing that I've learned in my life, it's that when I have faith in Jesus, God can do way more than I could imagine.

I, If I were doing this thing in my own power, y'all would be in trouble and I'd be in trouble. But I've learned that with Christ, all things are possible. I'm bigger than I look. You're bigger than you look when you're a faithful follower of Jesus.

And what John is telling the people in Philadelphia, it don't matter how small you are-, there was a scene in the book of Judges where God whittleled down a group of people to 300.

When they could have been 3,000 or more. He whittleled them down because he doesn't need numbers, He needs faith. And what I want to encourage you, just as a pastor of this church, this works in your life And this is really going to be crucial for our church. Without faith, you can't do much of anything of substance, But with faith, impossible things can be done, And I want us, as a church, to be one that operates in faith.

So, just like the people in Philadelphia, even when your family, your employer, everybody else seems like they're not in your corner when it comes to your faith, be the remnant.

I started writing a song two weeks ago. I'm not going to sing it for you, Don't stress, But I started writing a song two weeks ago and it was just about this idea of in my life, I'm going to be the remnant. I'm going to be, I'm going to be the one that's resilient and faithful in good and bad times. I'm going to be the one that God is able to look at and say, "Hey, that's a faithful servant.

You can follow him.

Hey, that's a faithful servant, You can trust him. Hey, that's a faithful servant, You can go to him. Hey, that's a faithful servant, I want to utilize him for my next big thing". That's, I want to be the remnant.

I want to be the one that, in the midst of tons and tons of people who struggle with their faith or are nominal Christians.

I, I, I'm remaining as a faithful individual. Don't you want to be a remnant? Don't you want to be resilient? Don't you want to recognize that, even when it's small, you're bigger than you look?

And this takes us into our next point: The people who are faithful followers of Christ.

They let God fight their battles. I see a lot of people on. I'm just going to speak on politics for a second, because that election's done and people still talk about it. Just, that's old news, you know.

We're just living in it now.

Like I, I, I, I get annoyed with those who claim to be followers of Jesus, yet they get really stressed out about politics. I'm going to be honest. I mean just being honest with you. Like I, I know it's a thing to be concerned about.

Don't do do not get me wrong.

Like I'm not saying to absolve your responsibility and going into the voting booth, I, I support you being able to vote. I support you being able to do the things that better our community. But when it comes to anxiety and worry, that's really a thing that Jesus said not not to do. He said: "Be anxious about nothing".

Through Paul, he said: "Be anxious about nothing, but in everything, with prayer and supplication, make your requests known to God", And ultimately, God's going to give you peace that surpasses understanding when you give your worries to him.

So people who stress out about politics is? It's kind of frustrating to me And some of the people that stress out about politics or anything else- they feel like they have to go on Facebook and fight the battle Number one. I'll give you a real practical piece of advice. Most people don't care what you think.

I'm just gonna be honest with you.

Most people don't care. Now, I'm not saying you can't be helpful. Some people can be helpful, . But some people go on.

They feel like they got to fight the Lord's battle too.

It's like I got to go be a defender of the faith. It's like he did all that was necessary to bring the entire world to salvation if they would commit and trust in him. Right, Like he did all that And he is perfectly capable of going to someone in a dream without you doing something. You were not the beall endall of the faith.

Now he wants to use you, but he doesn't need you to defend him, And so I've learned this about faithful followers of Jesus is they don't fight their battles.

They let the Lord fight their battles. I could give you example after example in Scripture of how the Lord went before the people of Israel, How the Lord went before his disciples into a community so that things would happen. I- I- I have heard story after story of how the Lord went before missionaries who were about to go into a village and the village ended up trusting in Jesus because God went before them. Faithful followers of Jesus, yes, they do what the Lord calls them to do, but ultimately they trust in God enough to fight their battles for them.

And when Jesus is standing before the Pharisees and the Sadducees, when he's standing before the Romans, he says not a word when they're accusing him.

Why? Because he recognizes what's going to happen in the future. He recognizes that he's good with God. And if he's good with God and if God wants to fight his battle, he's going to fight his battle.

I don't need to do anything for him.

And what does that mean for you? Because I know that sounds all fun and good and all that other stuff. What does that mean practically? It means that when someone wrongs you, you don't have to talk about it to all your neighbors and friends.

It means that when you have this weird uncction in you to gossip about somebody else because you want to pray for them. You know what I'm talking about: because something bad is happening and you want to tell someone else about it, but you just use prayer as a disguise to help you get into that gossip conversation and you don't have to talk about it. When someone dishonored you, you don't have to dishonor them. When someone does something wrong to you, you don't have to do something wrong to them.

The same thing I'm trying to teach my eight-year-old and my 5-year-old is the same thing I want to teach you Is that if, if God is real and if you trust him and he, he is willing to fight for you.

He says he, he works to the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. He says: if God is for us, who in the world can be against us? I think this is something we have to recognize as we go out into the world. We do not have to fight our own battles.

In fact, all we have to do is go sit with him.

If we go sit with him, he's going to radically shift my perspective. He's going to radically shift my discipline. He's going to radically shift my temptation When I go to him rather than seek to simply fight my battles. It changes everything.

Your route needs to not be fighting sin, It needs to be finding Christ, .

And when you find Christ, he helps you fight sin. Because you gonna keep doing wrong, You gonna keep thinking wrong. But when God gets into you and transforms you from the inside out, that's when things start to change. You cannot do this on your own.

That's why God offered his son for us.

They let God fight their battles. Next, They know what's coming. They know what's coming Because, even when God doesn't decide to fight your battles, there's a scene in the Old Testament in Daniel: , with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, They're about to be put into a fiery furnace and most likely die if you go follow the worldly logic. And here's what they say: , they say our God is willing and able to deliver us from this fire and from this affliction.

They say he's willing.

So they're excited and pumped about God fighting their battle for them. But then they say this: even if he doesn't, we still won't bow to you, because they know, in the long run- Look at your neighbor, say it: It's a long game, It's a long, It's a marathon, not a sprint. In the long run, God is going to fully redeem him to yourself. He's going to fully turn the world on its head and make it worship him.

Every knee will bow, every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.

In the long run, sometimes in the short, though, he doesn't come to our aid like we want him to, but in the long run, those who are faithful followers know that, even if God doesn't re redeem them from this specific trial, in the long run he's going to help them. Verse 10 says this: "Because you have kept my, the word of my perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, the hour which is about to come upon the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth". Verse 11, I am coming quickly. Hold fast to what you have so that no one will take your crown.

Hold fast to what you have so that no one will take your crown, And I wish I had a better illustration for you, because there's going to.

I'm going to incur judgment when I make this next illustration for you guys, But I'll never forget it was 2015. I was a youth minister. I wasn't a senior pastor, So don't judge me. You know, I watched a film that my mom suggested, or my mom put on- See, I'm blaming her, So it wasn't me, She put it on-, and I was watching a film about this guy who, who, like, had a life.

We didn't really know about this life, that this person had gone through, His wife had just died recently, and he was really, really sad about it.

And then, as I'm watching this movie, you start to discover this person had a past that was pretty significant. And then one day someone steals his car and kills his dog. And I was like: and then they start talking about this guy as they're walking forward, And then you start discovering the past of this guy and you're like: "You killed his dog". And I remember when the guy said: "Whose dog?

You, You killed this person's dog".

And there was this feeling. For anyone who's watched that movie- you know what I'm talking about already- There was this feeling within each one of us is like: "No, you didn't kill his dog. No, you didn't. I don't know anything about this dude, but this dude knows" And like: "You just killed his dog.

It's not going to work out well for you".

And I remember that was the first feeling I was trying to think of. What does it feel like to know what the future's going to be like when you serve God? Like what does the future look like when you know that, ultimately, God's going to restore you to himself? What's the future look like when you know that every knee will bow to him?

What's the future look like when you know that the enemies will bow at his feet?

What's your future look like when you know what's about to happen When he's coming on the clouds, When he restores you to himself, when he kick- well, I'm not going to go into the negative place, but when he does what we know he's going to do, when you're a faithful follower of Jesus, you know that future and you kind of feel like John Wick's about to rescue you know. You know what I'm saying. Just for those of you who didn't know what I was talking about, it was just like: ah, Jesus is better than John Wick. There's your, there's your, there's your quote for the week.

Faithful followers of Jesus know the future.

The people in Philadelphia, they know. Not only. I'm not going to talk to you about all this, theological, like dispensational type stuff. I'm just going to tell you this: Whatever the hour of testing is, Philadelphia gets to ignore it because they're going to be spending time with Jesus.

Whatever that hour of testing is, when it's over, he's going to put our enemies at our foottool.

Whatever that hour of testing is, at the end of it we're going to receive the crown of life and spend eternity with God, And Philadelphia knows it. They're like: "No, I'm good, I can be in this little remnant of people who got kicked out of the synagogue, kicked out of our communities and kicked out of whatever else. Why? Because I know the future And you can be in the same boat where, even if your employer doesn't like your faith, even if your family is struggling to comprehend your current faith, even if there are people in your life who talk trash about your faith, here's what you know: He's coming back And when he comes back, he will reveal to all what you've been telling them right now.

Picture the people who, who, who, Noah told about the flood.

I'm not trying to make you think negative, I'm just trying to help you understand. Picture the people that Noah told about the flood. When the flood comes, They're like, "Oh, I should have listened". What's that song?

That terrible, horrible Christian song, that was made in the late 80s, early 90s that I didn't get because I didn't become a Christian till I was in eth grade.

But then you started singing it as a joke one day- What is it called? Wish They'd all been ready And I was like, "What a creepy song. I can't believe weirdo Christians sang that in the 90s. But there's a truth to it.

It's like.

It's like, man, there are people who are disagreeing with you. I saw, I saw an Instagram or Facebook comment, that said something really, really negative about our faith, And I remember thinking like, like yo, if you're, I guess, if you're right, I guess it's chill for you, but I don't think you're right. And the fact that you're going to be wrong long term, man, that is going to be a sad day, And Philadelphia understands this. This is kind of the, the passion with which the author, John, is trying to get to him And he tells him this.

He says: he says: "Don't let them take away your crown".

Well, no, Here's what he- that's the way I paraphrase- He's a hold fast to what you have so that no one will take your crown. Now I'm going to summarize this really quickly. There are a lot of meanings for the crown, but essentially, for the purpose of our teaching today, your crown is your confidence and assurance in Christ Jesus. Don't let him take your crown.

Don't let him take it.

The crown that you wear helps you see the future. The crown that you wear in Christ Jesus, your confidence in Christ Jesus, helps you get through pain right now. The crown that you wear helps you in the midst of suffering. It gives you stability when everybody else is flaking around because it's difficult outside.

That crown that you wear is a confidence.

Don't let them take it. Don't let them take it, And the way you don't let them take it is two, twofold. First, you got to ignore some people. They don't know what they're talking about.

Some people will say stuff on Instagram, Facebook, social media- and I'm just like yo.

It must be fun to just write stupid every day. You know, some people you can just ignore Sometimes. What you got to do, though, when it gets really difficult, is: you got to open God's word, And the more God's word you have in your brain, the more crown you got lifting up. Crown is another word for head in the ancient world.

Right, The head.

The head You got to fill your head with the right stuff. And the more the right stuff you fill your head with, the more you think on the right things, the honorable things, the true things- guess what? You're going to be more confident in Christ Jesus. And the more confident you are in Christ Jesus, the less you're going to let him take it from you, because you know what's coming.

And then the final thing: they're secure near the fault line and they go by a different name.

They're secure by the fault line and they go by a different name. Now it's really interesting what happened in Philadelphia, way back in the day in Philadelphia. I don't know much other than what archaeology will tell me And what archae. What archaeology tells me is that there were a lot of earthquakes in Philadelphia at the time.

It's near a fault line And in AD17, this is what they tell us- There was a big earthquake that kind of destroyed the city of Philadelphia.

And what happened during that time is Rome came in and helped them rebuild the city. This is AD17. Remember, this is being writen in about 80, 86 to96. There's 10 year frame that we can maybe utilize to understand it.

So John is writing to a group of people, essentially telling them to be stable in a city where instability is common place.

And what happened when Rome came in is they actually gave it a new name for a time period. Scholars disagree on whether this actually happened, but it looks pretty legitimate when you look at the primary sources. They changed the name from Philadelphia to Neo Cesaria And then, under Vespacian, who's an emperor during the 70s- h I might get the date wrong, but under Emperor Vespacian, you can check that out, It's open source-, he changed it again back to Philadelphia, but he called it Flavia Philadelphia. This is a city that, because of the instability in the city, was rebuilt by Rome and there was a name change, and then there was another name change.

So these, these two final comments that I made, are so interesting and contextual that it was renamed Neo Cesaria and then Flavia Philadelphia, that it was near a fault line and instability was commonplace, And so every building that was built when Rome came in had to have been built with strong pillars that could withstand any shaking that came from an earthquake.

And so here's what John writes here. It says this: he who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God and he will not go out from it. And I put this here. I put, if you are stable now because of your faith in Jesus, then you will become a pillar in the house of God.

But let me take that more relevant to here.

I think God's trying to build some pillars in this room: people who are stable, people who are faithful followers of Jesus. That when there's political turmoil, when there's worldwide turmoil, when there are weird things happening in our community, when someone's going through loss, that you, because of your faith in Jesus- just like he was telling Philadelphia- you can be stable when things get shaky. That I think. I think that is one of the biggest evidences of someone's faith- is when they can remain stable when life would have them become shaky.

My, my one of my favorite people is my father-in-law And I.

I've talked about this before, but I'm bringing it up here because he is one of my favorite people, because no matter what has gone painfully in his life, he still has faith. I, I'm, I'm talking. My wife said amen because she's seen it up close. I went to a funeral recently to a friend of mine over at Wellspring Church and lost his 21-year-old son recently and his whole family got up there and they preached the funeral and one none of them shed a tear because they were so focused on Jesus And I remember sitting there like tearing up more than they were, because I was like, how do they have this type of faith?

And- and that's what I want us to be here, I want us to be a group of people who are so saturated in our relationship with God that we become stable near the fault line.

And it's funny because when Rome came in and rebuilt, they rebuilt it sturdy and strong. There are a couple pillars in one of the old school churches and synagogues that are still there to this day. You can actually go look up pictures. It was stable, .

But then here's what he says in verse tw, still in verse 12.

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 out of heaven from my God, and my new name. And when I read that, after understanding the context, it clicked to me that it was Neo Cesaria, new Cesaria for a season of time, before it was then again turned to Flavia, Philadelphia. It's just an interesting component to think about when you're writing to a group of people whose city had undergone two name changes, that you would talk to them about a new name, And what this tells them is that when a new name comes in, that means that there was new leadership coming in. And for all of you in this room, I think this should be encouraging to you, because you might have been looking at your parents, your employer, a mindset, a thought process, a worldly philosophy.

Whatever your boss, whatever your leader was, When you come into your relationship with Jesus, you don't go by that old mindset, You go by the new, transformed mind.

You have a new name. He says: "I'll write on him the name of my God, the name of my city, of my God, the new Jerusalem who comes down out of heaven". You have a new name in Christ Jesus. You have new leadership, new management, if you will, And so I want to give everyone in this room who has trusted in Jesus, I want to give you some confidence right now.

You might be called out by the shame of your past.

You don't have to be. You might. You might feel like people think of you the way that you used to be. You don't have to worry about that, because the God of the universe, who, everyone's underneath his feet, calls you by your true name, by a new name, one that's not consumed with shame, but one that simply proclaims his fame throughout the rest of the world, That, that that's your new name.

Y'all remember Saul, Saul of Tarsus?

No, most of y'all, don't? Some of y'all do, because you read Acts. Most of you don't. Why?

Because because you remember the name Paul the Apostle who, under his conversion, he shifted his name, called it Paul.

Now, they didn't do this after every baptism, except for some weird season in the third and fourth centuries where everyone, every time they baptized someone, they gave a new name after a martyr. That was interesting, But for the most part they didn't do that. But it happened with Paul And I think, poetically, for us it would be helpful if we would just call ourselves by the new name. Your old name might have been drunker.

Don't have to be anymore.

Your new name can be sober in Christ Jesus. I was just making stuff up. Your old name could have been sleeping around. That was the cleanest I could come up with for that one.

I'm just being honest with you.

But your new name could be holy and set apart. Your old name could have been gossip, Could have been something bad, Could have been cheater, liar, could have been any of those. But now it can be holy, anointed, set apart for the Gospel of God. Saint man, it's time for us to go by our new name.

Philadelphia, I bet, was really encouraged by that letter, cuz they also got the other letters.

They're like "Yeah, we solid". I want to receive a letter that's positive from my God, Don't you? So for everyone in this room who has trusted in Jesus, be encouraged to go by your new name. But for anyone else in this room who has never confessed with their mouth that Jesus is Lord, believed in your heart that God raised him from the dead.

Man, you can receive that new name.

You can become holy and set apart today, to no longer live in anxiety but to step into a life with God, And the way that you do that is by simple confession and belief. So if everybody would bow their heads and close their eyes, I'm going to pray this prayer together out loud, for the benefit of those praying it for the first time. Repeat after me: God. I believe that Jesus is the son of God.

I believe he died on the cross and rose from the grave.

Forgive me of my past, Make me new and give me a new name. I commit right now to follow you. It is in Jesus's name that we pray, and all God's people said "Amen". Shoot your hand up.

If that was you for the first time, Let's celebrate those who just trusted in Jesus.

Amen And I.