Getting Crowned

The fragile crowns would begin to wilt and wither away shortly after winning. Most people chase after these kinds of crowns – temporary, fleeting, fragile, useless in the end. Tell me, what do you live for? A millionaire Christian was sleeping in his bedroom when an angel came to him and woke him up. "It’s time for you to go to heaven", said the angel. "Oh, I’m not ready, what should I bring?", said the man. "Nothing, just yourself", replied the angel. But the millionaire pulled a large suitcase from under his bed and opened it up. It was full of gold bars. "Can I just bring this along?" he pled. The angel said, "OK, but only the suitcase". So the millionaire was taken up to the pearly gates where St.Peter was waiting to welcome him. Looking at the suitcase Peter said, "I’m sorry but we don’t allow any earthly possessions here, you’ll have to leave the suitcase behind." The man said to Peter, “But the angel said it was OK.” Peter says, "Well, let me take a look then.” He opened the suitcase to see all the gold bars inside and immediately fell to the floor rolling around with laughter!

The millionaire was amazed at the saint’s antics. Why was he laughing? After a while Peter was able to stop laughing and managed to let out one question, "Why do you want to bring pavement into heaven?" Folks, what is important to you? And will it be worth anything in heaven’s eyes? Are you busy making a name for yourself, or are you living for a prize that will never fade away? Are you so busy competing with others, that you forget that the real prize comes when you conquer the battle for your mind and your heart? What prize do you seek? Whose attention do you clamor for? Whose approval do you really want? Who have you set up to be the judge over your life?

So the person who lives to please God will receive a crown, and the more you trust Him, the bigger the reward. But what will we do with our crowns when we get to heaven? Just sit around and wear them all day? As far as I can tell, no. Let’s read Revelation 4:1-11.

So we read that these saints, probably representing the saints of the OT and the saints of the NT, cast down their crowns before God in worship. As I studied this, I kept thinking, “Why? Why give us crowns if we are just going to give them back to Him? Why reward us if we aren’t even going to keep the reward?” Well, in the few moments we have left, we’ll see 3 possible reasons why we would give back the crowns to the One who gave them to us first.

Well, reason #1 why we will give back our crowns to God is that 1) everything belongs to Him and is from Him anyway. You know, we often forget this truth. We are only stewards of things, not the owners.

We are only given things on loan. Our homes, our vehicles, our income, our families, our spouses, our children… none of this is ours. It is all God’s. 100% of it. We own nothing. But yet we think it’s ours. We think we can do what we want with it. It’s our money to spend. It’s our time to waste. It’s our gifts and abilities to use however we want. But God says: “No, actually, it’s all Mine.” Fellow pastor and friend Denn Guptill wrote these words: “How many people here have ever taken their kid’s to MacDonald’s. Ok you’ve taken the fruit of your loins to the golden arches, you’ve forked over some of your hard earned wealth, received your dinner and now you have retired to one of the tables to indulge yourself in these culinary delights.