tonight, chapter 18.
We're gonna look for a few weeks at
some character studies on couples and in marriages
in the Bible.
There's tremendous lessons just looking at the marriages.
There's a great tendency when we pick up
the Bible, we'll, you know, to look at
somebody, you know, like Abraham and be familiar
with him, to study Sarah, be familiar with
her, but oftentimes not look at the marriage.
There's an awful, we know a certain amount
of maybe about Joseph, and we know things
about Mary, but we don't think about their
marriage oftentimes.
And you can look at, but there's so
many studies that you do in the Bible.
You can look at Ruth and Boaz, but
usually most studies that you'll hear or you
read about, I one time noticed this when
I was going through and just getting, I
love doing character studies.
One time I began to realize I couldn't
find much about couples.
They were always taken as individuals.
And so I want to look at, in
the coming weeks, at marriages.
I think there's a tremendous amount to learn
just by looking at them.
And one of the most wonderful and the
simplest of them, I suppose, that we're going
to look at tonight and learn from is
that of Aquila and Priscilla.
The, it's a wonderful story to me of
the power, what I've called it in just
my own study at any rate, the power
of a shared marriage.
They're a wonderful couple.
I think we'll see as we kind of
look through the scriptures on them and find
out a few things about them.
Because they're a couple that obviously when you
find out about them, you come to realize
that they were not simply married in the
technical sense of the word, which many, which
every marriage is, but they were married experientially.
In the sense that they were a couple,
they just had this wonderful shared marriage.
The couple, every time they're mentioned in the
Bible, that there's six times that they're mentioned,
three times it's mentioned as Aquila and Priscilla,
three times it's Priscilla and Aquila.
They just seem to be, I mean their
names are reversed, but six times, every mention
of them, they're together.
Every time, whatever it is that they're doing
it, they were doing it together.
And their lives were just wonderfully together.
And it stands out when you look at
so many other people and studies in the
Bible.
But to see this couple, every time you
see them, their names are there together.
Many people, I think when they get married,
they get married to run away from their
problems.
They've got all sorts of tensions and problems
and struggles and they find, and you get
two people very commonly that they don't like
where they're from and it's not working out
there in their world and it's not working
out at his house or his home or
his world.
And these two meet each other and decide
let's get married.
And the thought so often is, is that
they're both running away from difficult circumstances and
all they're doing is reproducing another difficult circumstances.
Oftentimes are people that live selfish lives and
they're still quite selfish late in their teenage
years or their early twenties or something.
And life is uncomfortable, but they meet another
like-minded selfish person oftentimes.
Both of them are unhappy where they are,
but they think let's get married and it'll
solve all the problems.
So they think.
All they do of course, as any of
us that are married know that that, that
can really produce more than it solves.
And many people just intensifies their problem, but
it's something to work because when you get
married, it isn't long until you realize that
you're sharing everything.
You're sharing each other's clock.
Time is, belongs to both of you, money,
debts, food, the temperature gauge, all the activities
virtually of life, anything you're doing now involves
somebody else.
And life gets quite complicated.
I was talking to a couple this morning,
they were walking in and he had, of
course, this big bag on one side and
I said, where are you running away to?
And then his wife turned around the corner
with a little baby.
And I said, I'll say no more.
And they're coming in late, you know, a
little and just getting here.
And, uh, and I said, you remember the
days before you were married when somebody just
called you and said, let's go to the
beach.
And in five minutes you were packed and
out the road and on the freeway.
And you have to get married.
You want to go someplace.
You got to start a checklist about a
week ahead, you know, on to make the
thing work and to make it work with
the family and because everything, every decision, the
ramifications, they multiply, they intensify all the problems
trying to make it work.
And in the most real sense in marriage,
everything you have, it's community property.
It's something to where it belongs to both.
And that's time, that's energy, that's effort, that's
heart.
And it's amazing on how it is.
And I'm thinking, I remember just some dear
friends of ours, a couple that had been
married for a number of years, but one
time they shared a little story that was
so real on a marriage.
They had gotten, they had on their bed
these electric blankets.
And, uh, one day she went and she
changed the bed and, you know, put on
clean sheets and everything.
And that night she went and put the
bed, that's their second lookout.
They put the blankets back on, but she
didn't realize that when she made the bed
again, that somehow or another she'd turned the
blanket around and it got, and she laid
it back there, uh, with the blanket reverse
side.
Well, they went to bed that night.
And when they're, uh, they fall asleep, he
turns on his thermostat for his side of
the bed at the temperature that he liked
it.
And she reaches over and turns on her,
a little different bed, you know, two thermostats.
And, uh, he's kind of realizing he's a
little cold.
And so he kind of turns his up
a little long, you know, it wasn't quite
as warm as he likes it.
And of course she's over there to where
hers is a little warm.
So she turns hers down a little notch.
And then he turns in his, it seems
to getting colder.
So he turns it up another notch and
she keeps turning hers down.
And he said one, they woke up one
morning at two o'clock in the morning
and he is absolutely frozen and she is
burning up and they're wondering what in the
world is going on.
And all of a sudden they, she realized
what had occurred and they both had each
other's thermostats.
Well, that's marriage.
When you get married in a way that
you don't even realize you've got each other's
thermostats and you've got control of each other's
lives in a phenomenal way.
You can turn each other up and down
the dial and you're sharing in the most
dramatic way, uh, when you get married.
And, uh, in order to do it well
and do it effectively, it takes quite a
spiritual life, uh, to make that happen.
It's not a place for selfish people.
It's not a place for people that want
to run their own lives and have their
own space and have their own friends.
It's something that, uh, do that and just
live your life that way.
Most marriage separations start with that.
We're in their thought and in their attitudes,
they just simply kind of take their own
controls and they try to, you know, keep
their own life in its own form of
regulation rather than in a real sharing and
in a real, uh, giving up of their
life and of their identity to one another.
But this isn't so with Aquila and Priscilla.
They're one of these types of couples.
Every time in the Bible, you see them
together.
Uh, they work together and share together, minister
together.
They, they apparently, they did it all together.
They're a couple that when you look at
them, they were friends and, and mates and
lovers and companions.
And, and they were obviously quite willing through
the years to be able to give away
more than they took, uh, for a marriage
like this to come along.
Uh, you got to be this type of
couple.
When I see them so many times in
scripture and so many times always in the
positive and always ministering and always caring and
always doing it together and you see how
well they did things together.
I, they're probably about the only couple in
the Bible that I think for sure could
probably wallpaper together.
I'm not sure, but there's somebody that honestly,
I almost look into, I'll bet they wallpapered.
If there's one couple that probably even attempted
that, it might be Aquila and Priscilla.
But the, uh, they were a couple that
to me like Jonathan, uh, and David, uh,
is told in the story back in first
Samuel chapter 18.
Remember when they met that their hearts, the
Bible says they were just, uh, united together
in a wonderful way of where Jonathan went
and he, he, with David, he came and
he took his sword and he took his
robe and he, uh, it was basically his
whole, uh, identity.
Uh, of course the, it was, they were
a military nation, Israel was, and everything from
the sword, everything to the, uh, to, you
know, the outfit, it all identified him as
the heir to the throne.
It identified him as a military captain.
But when David and Jonathan met, you may
recall that Jonathan, he looked at him and
there he gave over his, his whole identity
and he said, here, it's yours.
He gave him his throne, gave him his
future.
And when I look at Jonathan, I think
of this phenomenal man who there heir to
the throne and yet he was a man
that he gave up his throne to give
it to another as if to say here,
this belongs to you.
I was only a steward of it for
a time.
It was only given to me to take
care of until the person I'm to give
it over to and share it with, and
it comes along.
And that's what Jonathan did for, you know,
for David and how these two loved and
ministered and cared and watched over each other
in such a wonderful way.
They were able to give up their identities,
able to give up their thrones, uh, you
know, for each other.
That's the secret as well, not only of
a kingdom that's going to, uh, that's going
to succeed, but it's also the secret of
a marriage that's going to last into the
decades of people that understand the very core
of their being.
They can look at the other person and
realize that my life is theirs, my thermostat.
In effect, it's theirs who I am, where
I go and what I do.
I want it to be theirs above all
other things.
I think women know this, understand this better
than men, uh, oftentimes, but it's something that
in order for a marriage to work, it's
got to be equal in the sense of
that both parties really honestly understand what it
is to give and what it is to
care.
And I think few couples, particularly in this
day and age, uh, realize how much we
need from each other for a marriage to
work, how much they were designed to give,
uh, to each other and to receive from
each other.
How much a marriage is strengthened when it's
a shared marriage.
When God created Adam and Eve, he deliberately
right there.
It's, it's interesting in the Hebrew and it
says in God, when he created Eve, it
was for a help and then meet, it
says M E E T for Adam.
But the interesting word in the Hebrew is
it means it, it's, it's the same word,
help and meet.
They're both, it's reiterated twice.
And it means that the word means the
same, both help and meet.
They're the exact same Hebrew word.
And it's essentially, if you literally translate it,
he said, so that I might make a
help help for you.
And, uh, uh, he doubly intensified, not just
a helper for you, you're, Adam, you need
a help help, you know?
And I mean, that's what it says in
the Bible that when God created them, that
there's two people that they, that they understand
this.
They realize as they look at a marriage
that there's something about them that above all
else, that there is a person that when
God created him and, and, and when Adam
looked over at Eve and, uh, and she
was beautiful to him and he said, behold,
this is now bone of my bone and
flesh of my flesh.
He recognized there immediately though he didn't understand
what had happened, the miraculous thing that she
was literally bone of his bone.
I'm sure he came to find it, but
something there that this is my other self.
This is the completion of myself.
I'm no longer complete.
I think Adam, when he looked at Eve
there, the thing of wanting to reach out
and, and when he took her in his
arm and he embraced her, he wasn't being
sensual or sexual and in, in anything other
than a wonderful sense of the word.
I think Adam, the thing that when a
man would like to take his wife and
embrace her and pull her right inside himself,
he'd do that if he could, because that's
where she came from.
She was part of him.
There was something missing.
There was the completion of himself.
He now looked and here's another body, another
being, another flesh, another uncle, you know, bones
and being in life there.
And yet at the same time, God is
looking there and the ultimate thing is, is
now to take their lives and blend them
back together.
Now to have them, you know, come into
where through life is that these two were,
were once one, had become two, would now
once again become one in such a total
way that you couldn't even define one without
the other, that they, that they require the
presence of each other to identify and define
their own identity again.
That's what God created when he created marriage.
He wanted something where the other one above
all else, and that's not the, the rest
of the world isn't that way.
You may have friends and you can have
children and you can have parents and you
can have all sorts of other things.
But when, and as there is a marriage
that occurs, it's something to where now there's
somebody that you look and say, this is
my help, help.
You know, I don't know how you can
figure, play with that word all night, I
suppose, and how you want to phrase it
and say it and think it, but, but
in the finest sense of the word that
there is two things that they will look
and say here, I have made somebody that
is now you'll require them, not just help
if you need it, help if you want
it or help if it might be there,
but no, it's something there, Adam.
It'll be the most wonderful thing in my
experience in all of life when you grow
into it, when you understand it and what
it is to, to love and to care
and to commit of your heart, of your
time, of your energy, of your effort to
yourself to say here, help her.
And to look at her and say, now
you help him.
And when that begins to happen, you've got
a wonderful thing when you've got two people
that are help mates to where they literally
share back and forth their lives in such
a wonderful way that I think to me,
when you look at Aquila and Priscilla, and
Priscilla and Aquila, their names are equal three
times each where she's first three times, he's
first the other three, but to where they're
almost one person, one ministry, when you look
at them in scripture, when you look at
them serving, who is first or second made
no difference, I don't think, to them or
anyone else, who spoke or what was going
on, I think it was something that they
realized here are two people that their lives
have just been poured into each other.
They share the same heart.
They share the same direction.
They share the same purposes together.
And when a couple realizes that many times
when you get married, we're threatened by each
other.
Many times are very insecure, you know, and,
and to admit the need that we have
for one another, to admit the need that,
you know, that there is to share our
lives with one another, to many, many people
that were, were so insecure that we won't
do it or we're afraid to do it.
But, uh, it's got to happen, uh, for
a marriage to be successful.
I know when we started dating and here
I was sensing at the time, God may
be calling me into ministry.
I was a new Christian.
I didn't know the Bible.
I was just beginning to study it, but
come to find here, Jean was born and
raised in the Bible.
And, uh, she had every night, uh, their
family would sit down and her mother and
father would open up the word and they
would read together and they would share and
they would pray.
And they were so mature by the time
Jean was born there in their mid forties
when she was born, uh, that, uh, there
was such a wonderful godly home about it,
that she was just nurtured in this wonderful
place.
And then, uh, went to private Christian grammar
school in high school and college.
And then in the summer they had a
cabin right over here at Mount Hermon.
She worked there all the summers and would
just listen to all this Bible teaching.
I was intimidated when I met her.
We'd go out and start talking.
She knew every Bible story.
I didn't even know the story was in
the Bible, let alone what it was about.
You tell me somebody's name.
I didn't.
I'd never heard Joshua.
I don't know if I'd heard of Elijah
or Elisha.
I don't think I've heard it at the
time of Jeremiah.
I was brand new, uh, right off the
tulip truck, Christian kind of a thing.
And, and here was somebody that had just
been raised in all of this and so
entrenched in it.
And, uh, but it was, we would go
out, I'd ask her, tell me these stories.
And she would tell me all these stories.
And I was so intrigued.
She got me an Edgar Myers Bible storybook.
Some of you probably get them for your
kids.
She got one for me.
You know, it's a read them.
They had to be a little kid at
night.
You know, that's, but I so love the
stories.
I think that was the birth of why
I love Bible character so much.
I love the stories, uh, of it all.
It would minister to me so much, but
it were people begin in a marriage.
It's interesting out of that.
And as she would tell me these stories,
all it did was enlarge my desire to
retell the story.
It all did was when I'd hear these
stories and it was such wonderful stories.
I realized I want to tell this story
to somebody.
I want to share this with somebody.
These are great stories.
And, uh, so I began taking all the
stuff I could get from her and then
going out and sharing it with other people.
Next thing you know, I'm being called in
ministry, but so much of it came from
her and her sharing it with me.
And, uh, then as time went on and,
and I kept studying and teaching and ministry
and sometimes she'd be doing something, I could
give her some of it back.
She'd forgotten.
She told me and, uh, whatever it was,
but I'd tell her things back and we'd
just share and share and share back and
forth messages and thoughts, uh, and, uh, things
so much.
So I remember one time, I remember years
ago, she was going to teach at something
and she was struggling over a message.
And I turned to her and I said,
well, which one of my messages would you
like to borrow?
You know what she, she turns to me
and she says, neither.
But the, uh, that's about how many were
mine.
The rest of them were hers.
But the, uh, but the thing is, is
that when people in a marriage, when you
look there and in the whole desire in
marriage is how can I share it in
the realizing that when you get married, there's
somebody there that your whole being, God says,
help each other.
And it's again, when time goes on, oftentimes
it's awkward because we aren't usually good at
it, not at all by nature.
Uh, we have, it's a learned thing and
it's a spiritual thing once we really come
to where God helped me become a helpmate
at where we know what it is to
help.
Well, Ann and I, Sapphira, to me getting
back to them, I got way off on
other stuff, but to me that they're the
power, the wonderful shared life together.
They all, they, they served, uh, let me
get into the text here.
They served others together.
Uh, Acts chapter 18, I didn't even read
this.
Did I just said turn to it, but
it says in Acts 18 verse one, it
says, after these things, Paul departed from Athens
and went to Corinth and he found a
certain Jew named Aquila born in Pontus who
had recently come from Italy with his wife
Priscilla because Claudius had commanded all the Jews
to depart from Rome and he came to
them.
But an interesting thing here, Aquila and Priscilla,
they met Paul at a time maybe of
trial in their own life.
They'd been shoved out of their world and
their life and their comfort zone, moved over
into another part of the world.
But here as they were thrown together, it
was a wonderful thing that happened.
But at any rate, they came together.
Verse three, it says, so because he was
of the same trade, he stayed with them
and he worked for by occupation, they were
tent makers.
And he reasoned in the synagogue every Saturday,
uh, Sabbath, and he persuaded both Jews and
Greeks.
But here we see firstly, you know, when,
uh, when Paul, uh, along his, in his
missionary journeys, as he comes along, he met
Aquila and Priscilla.
And there for some 18 months, they took
the apostle Paul into their home.
And as they brought him in, he imagined
this 18 months that these two opened up
their lives, shared their office, shared their business.
They were tent makers, had something going there
within it.
And here is this wonderful couple came, they
opened up everything, their business.
I mean, come on, work with us.
We're of the same trade.
We can, we'll put you to work here
with us.
And, uh, uh, and in they moved together
and in they imagined the thing that they
maybe thought when they first met Paul, that
they were just helping out some traveling preacher
or something.
But imagine what a blessing it probably was
for them to have the apostle Paul in
their home.
They maybe thought they were doing it for
somebody else, but usually it turns out this
way.
Whenever anybody knows what it is to share
their, not only their lives with each other,
but their ministry with others, oftentimes God will
see they get repaid in the most wonderful
of ways.
It was something there that this relationship for
18 months as it began here, it went
on.
And because later over in the, in chapter
18 and in verse 18, it tells us
there that, uh, so Paul still remained a
good while and he took leave of the
brethren and he sailed to Syria, uh, and
Priscilla and Aquila were with him.
But here it's something to where now what
had happened is, is that when Paul felt
like God was moving him on this, the,
this couple, they picked up stakes too and
they went off with him and, uh, joined
him as he went on now on to
Ephesus.
And, uh, then Paul later on, he left
them behind in Ephesus and, uh, there they
set up a church in their own home.
It tells us in first Corinthians, uh, chapter
16 in verse 19, Paul, when he's writing
there to him, uh, uh, he writes and
he says, the churches of Asia greet you.
Aquila and Priscilla greet you heartily in the
Lord with the church that is in their
house.
Here we meet him first, just a couple
that came along and ministered to Paul.
And then they ended up moving with Paul
as he went on.
And then the next thing you know, you
find this couple, the church is in their
house.
They're out ministering to other people.
And, uh, something that is so wonderful as
to me that when a marriage comes together
and it is together, they've learned what it
is to serve each other and to share
their lives with each other.
First of all, that is something that in
and of itself, it gives tremendous potential to
now going on into further ministry.
If somebody can have a happy marriage, somebody
knows the secret of a helping marriage of
a shared marriage, they've got far more potential
in ministry than most of them even dream
of.
Most marriages to me, I find myself and
I'm looking for leaders.
When I'm looking for people to, you know,
to come and be a part of leadership
in any way, I always look at their
home.
I always look at what goes on.
Are there's two people that know what it
is to give to each other.
And oftentimes I ask them if they'll get
involved in leadership and say, Oh no, I'm
not a leader.
And I, I've, no one's ever seen that
in me and no one's ever asked me
and I've been around the church or I've
been here or there or whatever, but I,
I'm, I'm just a pucet or something and
I'll help with this.
I'll help with that, but I'm not a
leader.
And I'll turn around and say, you are,
when I look at your home and I
look at the love that you have for
your wife and the love that she has
for you, I see the way that you
two help each other.
Obviously God has taught you and he's working
wonderful things where you know what it is
to treat each other as more importantly than
yourself.
That's a spiritual work.
That's a blessed work when that's happened.
And when people understand that and they can
do it in such close proximity as a
home, they're ready far more than oftentimes they
realize for ministry.
They're, they're, they're prepared to serve in the
most wonderful of ways.
And when you have a couple that just
understands what it is to care for each
other, and here's Aquila and Priscilla, they brought
in Paul into their life and next thing
you know, they're sharing their, not only lives
with each other, sharing their business with Paul.
And then the next thing you know, Paul
goes off and they're, they go off with
him.
Well, let's go help you.
Let's see what we can do.
And the next thing you know, they've got
a, a ministry going on.
And, uh, which to me is another great
lesson because one of the things to me
that I think is a great tragedy today
is a lot of people think of a
marriage as an end in itself.
It isn't.
Marriage never was created to be an end
in itself, but there's just this two people
that just live happily.
It's there for a purpose.
It's there for a reason.
It's there as a tool of which ministry
can be pouring out of it.
And I see a lot of books, and
I think the reason a lot of people
are tired, I think a reason a lot
of marriages, they've gone so far and now
they sit around and, you know, and, uh,
and stare at each other and they're bored.
It's because of the fact that they built
their marriage and they got happy for a
while, but you can't maintain it unless it's
a vehicle through which other things are happening.
When God created Adam and Eve, it wasn't
something that was just there for themselves.
They were helpmates for another reason and another
purpose to go on and be fruitful, multiply,
to reproduce, to minister to others way beyond
themselves.
And, uh, they were helpmates for a far
greater purpose.
And here, uh, Aquila and Priscilla, they were
that type of couple.
They were there for a great purpose.
And they were there to look and, okay,
we're here, we've fallen in love and we've
cared, we've learned a lot of tools, but
now let's implement these tools into ministry, into
service, into something to where instead of just
sitting around and starting to stare at each
other or just, uh, try to be happy
and comfortable and entertaining, uh, to ourselves, let's
do something with our lives.
And that's one of the things that is
missing in a lot of people because they
haven't picked up a passion to say, you
know, once their lives and their marriage are
together, how can we use this?
And they begin to look, you know, whether
here at Paul, you know, how can we
serve?
What can we do?
And, you know, let's take our house.
Can we make a church in this thing?
Is there any way that it can be
a ministry, a service?
And wonderfully it was.
And if you don't do that, uh, you'll
end up looking at each other.
And then after you look at each other
for a little while, I'll tell you, I
mean, I look in our marriage and I
think we've got, uh, a wonderful marriage.
I probably think it's more wonderful than my
wife does, but I think it's a great,
but the, uh, she may have a few
suggestions, but, uh, at any rate, uh, I
mean, we have, I would honestly say a
very wonderful marriage.
And yet at the same time, one of
the things is, is God has always shown
us that that marriage is to be used.
It's to be going someplace, not just staring
at each other.
I don't know if you've ever otherwise, because
when you just start staring and looking, next
thing you know, you're nitpicking.
Next thing you know, you find out what
you don't like about each other.
And, uh, uh, we become, to me, I
think as human beings, kind of like orangutans.
I don't know if you've ever been to
the zoo and stared at orangutans, but they're
amazing things.
They're just sitting in these cages and unlike
anything else, if you're ever at a zoo,
watch them.
Because what they'll do is they just nitpick
at each other all day.
They'll be, they go through each other's watch,
they go through each other's hair, they sit
there, you know, and start looking around and
they find something in there and they pull,
get this bug and pull it out and
eat it.
It's gross.
It's quite gross, but they do.
They're just staring at each other, picking at
each other, fiddling with each other all day
because they have nothing else to do in
life.
Well, I think that's the way a lot
of marriages are.
A lot of things, if you don't, is
that funny?
You got that picture in your mind, don't
you?
How could they eat that stuff?
Well, we'll do that.
If there isn't something to where we got
some other project in life that's higher than
our marriage, and that our marriage is just
a vessel, it's just a tool through which
other things can come out of it.
And Aquila and Priscilla, they were that way.
They not only had a shared lives together
and a shared service and ministry together, they
knew what it was to sanctify others together.
Look over in chapter 18 of Acts and
in verse 24.
It tells us now, a certain Jew named
Apollos, born in Alexandria, an eloquent man and
mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus.
This man had been instructed in the way
of the Lord and being fervent in spirit,
he spoke and taught accurately the things of
the Lord, though he knew only the baptism
of John.
So he began to speak boldly in the
synagogue.
And when Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they
took him aside and they explained to him
the way of God more accurately.
And when he desired to cross to Achaia,
the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive
him.
And when he arrived, he greatly helped those
who had believed through grace.
The amazing thing about this, if you're not
familiar, well, in Acts chapter 1, you may
recall, or in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, when
Paul wrote, he looked there and to the
church there at Corinth and he said, you
know, you're split and you're divided and some
of you say I'm Paul and some say
I'm Apollos and some say I'm of Cephas.
But this guy Apollos, he ended up ultimately
being categorized, of course, as an apostle himself,
right up there where the church looked and
says, man, this guy is as great a
guy as anything we ever got from Paul
or from Peter.
And yet he was a guy that he
was met one day in a synagogue by
this couple, Aquila and Priscilla.
They came in and they just looked at
this guy, didn't know much.
He just knew the baptism of John.
And there was just what he'd heard from
John the Baptist on repent, the kingdom of
heaven is at hand.
Prepare ye the way of the Lord.
As he's coming in there, sensing God's doing
something, sensing that there's a whole new breaking
forth of life.
He didn't know what it was.
He hadn't the slightest idea at the time,
but the spirit of God had stirred something
up within him.
But the wonderful thing is Aquila and Priscilla,
this wonderful couple, they see this young man
and they take him into their home.
They brought him in, you know, like they'd
taken in Paul.
Now they bring him in and they sat
down and they instructed him in a more
excellent way or they taught him the way
more accurately.
So he sat down with this guy and
if you could just imagine him sitting there
in the evenings around there telling him the
full truth, telling him the wonder of it
all.
Let me tell you, you're talking about, you
know, preparing the way of the Lord.
The way of the Lord has come.
And having a policy.
What?
Yes, he's come.
Who?
His name's Jesus.
Going through the scriptures, saying here, you know,
here he was born of a virgin, see
this?
And he came forth and wrapped in swaddling
clothes of a virgin, as told in these
scriptures here and as they taught him and
taught him and taught him.
Thereof now he was born of a virgin,
a spotless life, the perfect offering of his
life upon the cross for all the sins
of the world and his victory over sin,
death, hell and the devil, rising out of
the tomb himself, ascending to heaven and then
the outpouring of his spirit and listening to
Apollos at night, watching him as he would
just sit there taking it all in as
this couple just took him.
They themselves, they probably never thought of themselves
as pastors or as trainers or as disciplers
or whatever else, but to think, here this
couple, that just because of their shared lives
with one another, their shared marriage, their love
for God, that God used their home and
their life to bring people in, such as
the Apostle Paul, somebody quite mature, and then
to bring in somebody completely immature and to
have him be trained so that when he
went on to minister they could write letters
and say, accept him, this guy is ready
to go, but he was taught, his life
was set apart, it was sanctified.
And how they could lead him into the
power of God, how they could lead him
into a knowledge of God and a depth
in Christ and how to see this young
man, Apollos, as he'd go out and share.
Let me tell you, marriage, as wonderful as
it can be with each other, but when
ministry happens, when people know what it is
to invest their lives, so often, again, our
flesh and our selfishness says, oh, I want
to do this with my time, I want
to do this with my energy, I want
to do this, I want to go vacation,
I want to go spend my time here,
here's how I'd like to do with my
weekends.
But let me tell you, when a couple
that knows what it is to share their
life in Christ and know what it is
to love one another, and they've got something
to where they can just begin to wrap,
you know, young people and young couples into
their arms and take them into their home
and say, let me tell you the way.
They, you know, let me tell you, there's
no country in the world you'll ever fly
to, I don't care first or second class,
I don't care five-star hotel, you'll never
come back with an experience as phenomenal and
as wonderful to the soul and as enriching
and as thrilling to somebody as when they
realize, I've actually poured something of my life
into somebody else.
I'm actually seeing the kingdom of heaven increasing.
I'm seeing somebody equip their life to think
to go on, and I'm going to become
a grandma and a grandpa through Apollos, as
he goes out and leads people to Christ.
This week I got a picture that my
daughter-in-law mailed me.
It was to me, it was addressed to
me.
My wife immediately confiscated it, I'll tell her
to give it back.
But the thing is that my grandson, she
sent him up and she immediately came over,
grabs the whole thing, I told her you
can borrow it if you can't take it
off the office, she immediately took it out
and went and had duplicates made.
But at any rate, the thing is, as
I look there, there's something about a grandchild.
Now you've all got nice kids and they're
cute and all that, but they don't touch
my grandchild.
You know it's funny, when I drive by
these cars and I'll see somebody with one
of these little bumper or license plate frames
that says, my grandchild is cuter than yours,
I want to pull him over and say,
you're crazy, you've never seen mine, there's something
wonderful about it.
Well it's true in the spiritual world.
When there is something to where you're pouring
your life into somebody, and seeing them grow,
and seeing them go on to reproduce, you're
a grandmother, you're a grandpa.
And it may take some time, it may
take some effort, but the reward of it
is absolutely wonderful, it's fantastic.
Taking people in, loving and caring, and the
fruit of it.
And Aquila and Priscilla, obviously they were this
type of a couple.
There was somebody there as you see them
again and again in Scripture, the only thing
you know about them is they love the
Lord, and they love the church, and they
love people, all the way ultimately until their
very death.
In Romans chapter 16, in verse 4, Paul
writes about Aquila and Priscilla, he says, I
greet Priscilla and Aquila, this time her name
is first, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus,
who risk their own necks for my life,
for whom not only I give thanks, but
also all the churches of the Gentiles.
Look at this couple.
Here is Paul writes them, as he says,
by the way, say hi to Priscilla and
Aquila.
And he says, my fellow servants, you know,
workers in Christ, and he looks at them
and he says, they risk their very necks
for me.
They put their own neck on the line
for me, as he looks at it, for
my life.
He looks there as if to say any
fruit that went on in my life after
a certain point, he says, heaven and earth
can credit Aquila and Priscilla for it, for
their love, their ministry.
What they did for me was a great
blessing.
And he says, not only do I give
them thanks, but also all the churches of
the Gentiles.
Here was something that the churches all over,
the whole Gentile church knew Aquila and Priscilla,
though we never know of them ever standing
in a pulpit.
We never know of them at all in
a lot of the conventional things of what
a lot of people would call leaders.
But they're somebody that they're marriage.
They knew what it was to love the
Lord.
They knew what it was to love each
other.
And they knew what it was to take
full advantage of it in such a way
as they could bring people right into their
home, into their lives, and minister to them
in the most wonderful of ways.
And you look there and you realize this
couple, they did.
History tells us they more than risked their
necks.
The Catholic church actually celebrates July 8th, is
the day that this couple was martyred together
for their witness for Christ.
History about Aquila and Priscilla, they were given
sainthood for their lives.
But how accurate it is, who knows?
We do know that though they moved from
Rome to Corinth to Ephesus, and then they
ultimately moved back to Rome.
And you go through the scriptures and follow
them.
But it's something their lives were absolutely mobile.
Their lives were, they'd say, God, where do
you want us to go?
They'd look there and what do you want
us to do?
Just send us.
You want us in this town?
You want us over there?
We're needed over here.
Whatever it is that we can help.
Whatever it is that we can serve the
church.
You see them sharing and serving and sanctifying.
Until ultimately, as tradition has them about them
in Fox's Book of Martyrs, one day this
couple was led out of Rome together outside
the city.
And there together they were beheaded.
There this couple there for their witness for
Christ is together.
The amazing, wonderful thing about them.
And to me, I think wonderful is the
right word as well.
But there is the blade dropped on their
heads together.
And there they were united together in marriage.
They were united together in service.
They were united together in sanctifying, you know,
the body of Christ and ministering in it.
And they were united together in appearing before
the Lord Himself.
And they're a wonderful story to me.
And many times people don't realize the power
of their home.
They don't realize the power of their marriage.
There's a couple here.
I won't embarrass them because, well, Lee and
Paul aren't the type that like to be
talked about.
But the thing is, is that they, this
summer, they had a, he was telling me
the other day on how, well, I went
over, we had dinner with them one night
and they had a couple of girls, swimmers,
Olympic swimmers that stayed with them for a
few months in their home.
And we had dinner with them one night.
It was a wonderful evening together.
But just being there, and it was so
wonderful because, I mean, just the prayer and
the talking and sharing openly, just talking about
Jesus and who He was and what He
was doing.
And these two girls, of course, coming from
Russia, knew nothing of the gospel, knew nothing
at all about any of it.
Coming to church here and so sweet and
graceful they were and so warm and friendly.
But as they left, one of the things
that they said to Lee, or that I
don't know who they said it to, I
just heard it second or third hand, but
that they commented on how that when they
went home they wanted to get married.
They had never wanted to get married before.
They grew up in a world where the
home, the marriage, the idea, the concept of
it was just so miserable.
And how the thought that they had decided
just being in a place to where just
the power of a marriage and the power
of how it can touch people's lives.
And to me, when somebody realizes it, you
can talk and talk and talk, but when
you can live.
In Aquila and Priscilla they lived.
The Bible says one shall chase a thousand
and two a great nation.
Or in another scripture that one shall chase
a thousand and two ten thousands.
It's like there's a multiplication factor.
You can take a man or you can
take a woman and send them off alone
and have them do something, they can do
something.
But when their lives are together and blended
and they're in love with the Lord and
they're in love with each other and they
love serving and they love bringing people in,
there's something that there's a multiplication factor, there's
a power and a dimension to it that
we can't fathom it on how it touches
and blesses other people.
But oh, when we just learn, God.
Maybe you know, for those of us that
are married, to be able to say, God
make us an Aquila and Priscilla.
If we are selfish or we don't, you
know, we're messing with each other's thermostats all
the time or we're, you know, playing with
each other's heads.
We don't know what it is to care.
God humble us.
Help us, you know, know that when we
know what it is to esteem each other
is more important than ourselves.
When we know what it is to want
to genuinely care for each other.
Give away our throne.
Then is, you know, when we end up
having one in the most wonderful way.
And then when you do it there in
your home, you now have a tool that
now God can use in the most wonderful
ways.
Few Christians, few Christians to me ever know
it.
Ever know what it is.
I remember the year that we spent in
England when we were young married couple and
we used to sit at night around the
table with Alan and Marjorie Redpath and different
times other people, you know, over there.
But they didn't realize them at all, but
on how at that age you're just watching
them so much.
Not that you've seen their staring at them,
but you are.
You're watching attitudes.
You're watching how they think and how and
watching them on how they care.
And of course, in England, you know, everything
is darling, you know, and but that's kind
of wonderful, you know, on how that and
talking in the way that they would care
and say and be interested and serve one
another.
And out of that, I mean, then when
you watch people as they speak or they
minister, but when you realize they truly love
each other, it's a wonderful thing.
And if you're married, may God take your
marriage and do something wonderful.
If you haven't discovered the potential of it,
what you can do of taking people into
your life and ministering to them.
We're in such a selfish generation where we
think our lives are our own.
We think our marriages are our own.
We think our homes are our own.
But we look there and realize, God, how
can you take this, whatever it is we
have, and use it, open it up and
have it touch people's lives where we pour
something in them or may take a little
time, may take a little energy, may cost
us a little something over here with an
evening there or something with this or that.
Take them in.
But God, when we can do this, there's
some way you can use it and have
at it.
And if you're not married, there's still phenomenal
potential with all of us with our lives.
When we look there and say, how can
I take and minister?
You don't have to be married, obviously, to
minister.
That's for sure.
But the wonderful thing is when we realize
the power of our lives and service and
how God can use them.
Well, let's pray.
Father, we just thank you, Lord, for your
Word.
We thank you, dear Lord, for your wonderful
goodness to us.
And Lord, I pray that in the evenings
as we would just look at marriages, Lord,
that there wouldn't be one of us that
would be content with our marriage.
That every married couple here, there would be
something to say, God, speak to me.
Teach me.
If there's any way that I've thought or
conceived, even of my own marriage, as wonderful
as it may be or as many needs
as it may have, but to say, God,
help me.
If there's some way that I can become
a better helpmate, help me.
Humble me.
Teach me.
Lord, that we can grow and in such
a way that our lives can bear fruit,
children, grandchildren, in the most eternal sense of
the word.
So God, take us, use us, teach us,
help us.
Thank you for your Word.
May the thoughts, Lord, of it tonight just
go into each one of us and encourage
us.
Lord, not that we would find ourselves struggling
with what maybe we don't have or are
upset that we want, but maybe the other
doesn't seem to, but God, we can just
know what it is to pray and say,
Lord, set us where you want us, teach
us and help us.
Strengthen us all.
For Father, we ask it in Jesus' name.
Amen.