Acts 18 | Aquila and Priscilla

Good morning.

Welcome to King's Church.

Hope you guys are doing well.

You guys doing good?

Hey, happy fall, baby.

It feels beautiful the last couple days.

If you have a Bible, let's jump in.

Acts chapter 18 is where we're gonna be.

Acts 18 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 18.

Acts 18 · chapter mention

If you have a Bible, we're jumping right back into our study in the book of Acts.

And as you guys are turning there, I'll tell you a quick story.

A few years ago, my wife and I, Matley, were living in Ames, Iowa.

Uh go cyclones, uh, shout out anybody.

And we were driving home to Denton uh for Christmas.

And if you guys don't know the drive from Ames to Denton, it's a long drive, 12 hours, but it's a simple drive.

It is one road the entire way.

Everyone's favorite highway, highway 35, okay?

You just literally, guys, you just hop on 35 and Ames and you land in Denton, Texas.

So, anyways, we hop in the car, driving up for Christmas, and I don't even put it in my GPS, okay?

It's one road.

And so we hop on we hop in the car, we're driving.

I'd only been married six months, and I'm like, babe, I got this.

And so uh we passed Des Moines, Iowa, and the next uh city on Highway 35, big city, I think is Kansas City, uh, which shout out to the Chiefs, okay?

We're representing over here.

Um anyway, so we get past Des Moines, uh, we're driving for like an hour, and my wife goes, Why are there signs for Nebraska everywhere?

Um and it hits me uh in this moment uh that we're about to enter Nebraska, uh, which is concerning uh because nobody goes to Nebraska on purpose.

Uh but what it turned out is I had accidentally, you know, 35 does one of these things.

It's not an exit, the highway just splits.

And then I had been driving an hour west instead of an hour south.

And so I'm freaking out.

My wife's like, should we, you know, pull over and put the GPS?

I'm like, no, wait, I got this.

Well, eventually I do.

I put it in my phone, and we are way off course, guys.

And so we have to take the back roads of West Iowa through country living uh town to get back, you know, to Texas, the promised land.

And what happened was to make a long story short, we're driving on these back roads.

Uh we hit a bump, uh, and my car started acting up.

Uh, I was driving fast, like 70 miles an hour, but the odometer said 30 miles an hour.

Uh and my wife's like, hey, should we pull over?

I'm like, no, baby, I got this, trust me.

Uh then we hit another bump and the car starts making noises.

And long story short, we make it to Denton, we're just gliding in.

I take the car to the shop, and I'll never forget.

This is the next day, the guy calls me.

He said, Where did you drive this from?

I said, from Iowa, 12 hours.

Uh and he said, he started talking about like how my car had uh broken struts, whatever that is, and something about a broken axle.

And he said this, I'll never forget.

He said, Son, I'm not religious.

Uh, but you might want to pray and thank God that you made it here in this thing, because the only thing holding my suspension together was gravity, apparently.

And so, anyways, I share all of that because I share all that because I was, guys, I'm telling you, when I left Ames, Iowa, I was so confident in where I was going that I didn't need to look up to see where I was headed.

Okay, I stopped looking at the goal, I stopped looking at the end, I took my eyes off the prize, uh, Texas, and I turned out to be lost, uh, almost in Nebraska.

And I share all that to say this morning.

We're in Luke chapter 18, and Luke is gonna do something very, very important.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

Today, he's gonna introduce us to a true power couple, okay?

A marriage, a duo.

Uh, not what our culture would say, a power couple.

Uh, Justin Herbert, Madison Beaver, killing the team over here.

Not Kelsey and Swift.

No, no, no, guys, today we're gonna be looking at first century tent makers whose names are Aquila and Priscilla.

And they're not exactly the power duo you'd expect, but I think in the New Testament, they are maybe the greatest picture and most beautiful picture of marriage in all of the Bible.

And here's what I want to do this morning.

Uh, I want to trace their story, Priscilla and Aquila's story, from beginning to end, uh, starting in Acts 18, but not ending in Acts 18.

And here's why I want to do it this morning.

Two reasons.

Uh, first of all, uh, for all of us who are married in the room, uh, it's good every once in a while to look up and to ask the question, where are we actually headed?

What are we building here?

Not just building a life together, but where are we actually headed?

Because if you don't look up in the mundane of life and raising crazy kids and picking up Cheerios, uh, you might actually drift somewhere you don't want to be.

And that's why I start for all the married couples, but also look around.

We're a church full of college students and young singles, baby.

And you guys, this is good for you, okay?

Don't tune out.

We have students who are starting to date, uh, who are wanting to date.

Uh we got a lot of couples getting engaged every other week in our church, okay?

BK and Malia, Aaron and Trey, Katherine and Colton, Chelsea's engaged, and we got a lot of newlyweds.

Guys, people who just got married two weeks ago.

Olivia and Jax just got married, uh, Chris and Hannah just got married.

And guys, I'm all about it.

Uh, but here's what I want to say uh this morning before you begin that journey, long and yet also simple, you need a clear picture of where you're headed.

And our culture, it has a lot of pictures of what marriage should look like, but today I want to give a better picture in front of us.

Not just a marriage that survives or makes you happy, but I want to talk about what a marriage devoted to Jesus looks like.

And whether you're married or you're single, uh, because marriage is not the ultimate goal in the Christian life, it's good for all of us to have a biblical view of marriage.

And so the question I want to ask this morning is simple.

What does a marriage devoted to Jesus actually look like?

And this morning I'm not gonna be able to say everything about marriage that could be said.

All I want to say is what we can observe from Priscilla and Aquila.

Sound good?

Okay, with that in front of us, let's let me introduce you to the couple of the hour.

Let's start in Acts chapter 18, verse 1.

Acts 18:1

If you got it, say got it.

Okay, we're back in the story.

This is what it says.

After this, he, Paul, left Athens and went to Corinth, where he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla.

Because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome, Paul came to them, and since they were of the same occupation, tent makers by trade, he stayed with them and worked.

He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and tried to persuade both Jews and Greeks.

Okay, we're picking up right where we left off.

If you've been with us, you know we've been following Paul around, and now he's on his second missionary journey.

And he's traveling around with his boys, and he's preaching the gospel, he's planting churches, he's getting ran out of town, all this stuff.

And now in verse 1, it tells us he left Athens behind and he came to uh Corinth.

Okay, not is it Corinth or Corinth?

I don't know, it's not this one down the road here, okay?

We're talking about Corinth in the Old Testament or New Testament.

It's a major city in the Roman Empire.

Okay, it's wealthy, it's influential, uh, but also if you read first and second Corinthians, it's full of idolatry and pagan stuff.

Okay, Paul knows how to pick his cities.

Uh, and he's made it here.

Uh, and God is gonna use him to establish a church, okay, a famous church in this city that we just made it, where two letters of our New Testament are written too, first and second Corinthians.

But what's interesting about this city is how Luke introduces this leg of Paul's journey.

Usually he jumps straight to, Paul goes to the synagogue and preaches the gospel, but today, before he gets there, he introduces us to two people that Paul meets.

Look again at verse 2.

When he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who recently came from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius kicked them all out.

Okay, so we learn a little bit about the background of our couple.

Uh first, Aquila is a Jewish man who's from Pontus, okay, this region near the Black Sea, and his wife Priscilla, they have been living in Rome.

But the emperor Claudius kicked out all the Jews in that city, uh, which is if this is a very interesting history fact.

Like, this is not just an event recorded in biblical history, but extra-biblical, other ancient scholars talk a lot about this big deal when Claudius kicked out all the Jews out of Rome.

And one of the reasons why he did this is amongst the Jewish people there was a disturbance over the name Crus.

And most people, almost every scholar goes, well, it's not Crestus a name, it's Christos a title.

There was this big fight amongst the Jews about somebody named Christos, uh, which we learned very quickly.

What's happening in the book of Acts was happening in Rome back then.

People were preaching Christ.

Some people believed, other people got ticked, but the Claudius Emperor, he didn't want anything to do with it, he just kicked them all out.

Uh, which leads to our two people meeting Paul uh randomly uh in this city.

But nothing is random in God's world, right?

Well, here's what happens.

You can see it, Paul, he's gonna jump in with them.

Look at verse 2 again.

At the very end, Paul came to them, and since they were of the same occupation, tent makers by trade, he stayed with them and worked.

Okay, so Paul meets them and he finds out they're in the same line of work and they hit it off.

Okay, they're tent makers.

And Paul is a tent maker.

Uh, but don't think like camping tents that you can buy at Academy, okay?

These are like big leather tents.

Okay, people back then needed tents for traveling, for commerce, all kinds of things.

And it just so happens that Paul has the same occupation.

And it says, look at what it says, the couple welcomed Paul, and where did Paul live?

With them.

And he stayed with them and he worked alongside them.

Priscilla and Aquila partnered with Paul.

They saw this single, passionate preacher man, and they said, Hey, we will partner with you.

And so what happens is he stays with them and works during the week, and they support Paul so that on the weekends he can preach the gospel at the synagogues.

Okay, that's what's happening here.

And we find out later he stayed for 18 months, okay, a year and a half.

So longer than this church has been alive, Paul has been in Corinth preaching the gospel, and he establishes this church, this powerful church.

And while Paul gets all the airtime of being the big church planter, guess who's behind the scenes?

Supporting Paul, praying for Paul, encouraging Paul, probably financially bankrolling the church plant, Priscilla and Aquila.

Uh, which leads me to our first observation.

The first thing I want you to see about this couple and their marriage, a marriage devoted to Jesus, and it's this they were partners in the mission.

That they were partners uh in the mission.

Here's what I mean by that.

They weren't just partners with Paul, no, they were partners together.

Uh every single time in the Bible that one of these two gets mentioned, they're mentioned together.

It's always Aquila and Priscilla or Priscilla and Aquila.

They were partnered together.

And here's what I mean: their marriage, uh, it wasn't just the two of them building a life together.

No, it was the two of them giving their lives to something bigger than themselves.

And I think that's very important for us to understand as we consider marriage biblically.

Okay, most of us, when we think about marriage and all the things that we do together, uh buying a house together, traveling, uh, raising kids, making memories, uh, all that is fantastic.

Uh, but the question about marriage underneath all of those things is this what are we doing those things for?

Does our marriage have a mission to it?

Does our marriage have a vision to something bigger than ourselves?

Because if you read the Bible, the goal of a Christian marriage, it's not just building a life together, but it's giving your life to a greater purpose.

Namely, the glory of God, the advancement of God's kingdom, making disciples and building up his church.

And so for all the married couples in the room, I think this is a great question to look up this morning from the day to day and to ask the question: Is our marriage on mission with Jesus together building his church?

Uh, and for all of our college students or dating couples in the room, uh, this right here, being partners in the mission of God, it has got to be at the front of your mind.

It's got to be at the top of your list.

Not just are we united in hobbies?

Not just are we united in chemistry or attractiveness, but is this someone I can see spending the rest of my life, the old days of my life, building the kingdom of God, partnering together to share Jesus?

That's the first question.

They were partners in the mission.

Now let's keep going because what's great about this couple is that this wasn't just something they believed, but their shared mission actually impacted the decisions of their life.

It actually changed Monday through Saturday, and specifically uh where they lived and what they were willing to sacrifice.

Okay, let's keep reading, but skip down to verse 18.

Uh, verse 18 is where we're at now.

Paul stayed a year and a half.

Now, verse 18 says this.

After staying for some time, Paul said farewell to the brothers and sisters, and sailed away to Syria.

Look at this, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila.

Now, maybe you skip past that in your Bible reading without thinking.

Uh guys, but don't miss that.

Okay, Paul is leaving Corinth and he's heading towards Syria, and who's hopping on the boat?

Priscilla and Aquila.

They're packing up shop, they're joining the team.

Now remember about this couple, these guys have already been forced out of Rome, their home.

And so they move to Corinth and they start over.

They establish their business, they probably made friends, they pitched their tent, so to speak, and now here they are again, packing up their bags again and sailing off again.

First they were compelled to leave Rome by force, but now they're compelled to leave not by force, but by the mission, by the vision.

They're so compelled that they hop in and they go to Ephesus.

If you keep reading verse 19, what's gonna happen is Paul and them they eventually get to Ephesus, and Paul is gonna leave them there.

He's gonna sail off.

He's gonna keep the mission moving forward, and we're gonna see God's gonna use Priscilla and Aquila and Ephesus to do great things.

But zoom out and look at the picture again.

Here's what you have: you have a married couple with jobs and with businesses and with friends and a life that they're building, who are now willing to pick everything up and to go somewhere else to be part of what God is doing there.

Which leads me to the second uh quick observation I want to make about this couple, and it's this they were willing to go.

Uh they were willing uh to go anywhere and to do anything that God called them to do.

They were available, you could say.

They were willing to be used by God.

Their lives were not ultimately tied down to one place or one city or one plan so that they couldn't imagine picking up and going somewhere else for the gospel.

They were open-handed.

Uh, and I think there's something very powerful here that I want to say that might resonate with some people in the room.

Uh, because I know usually as we talk about going and missions and church planning and sending, uh, there are people in this room who immediately think, well, that's not for me.

Like, I'm not going anywhere.

This is for those young college students who have no roots, who have zeal and ambition, and all those single people.

Like, most of the time we're talking about those people, right?

I'm not going anywhere.

And honestly, I can understand that.

Okay, I appreciate God is not going to call everybody to move cities.

I'm praying that a lot of you stay in Denton.

Don't leave me, please.

Like, stay here.

And God is going to call people to put roots down in Denton to build a church.

But I do want to say this, everybody in the room don't count yourself out.

Uh you cannot, if you guys know God, the God of the Bible, you cannot assume that God will not call you somewhere else.

Because the moment you do, you start to discount what God does in the scriptures.

Don't imagine just because you have a career, a house, kids, and a great school, all these deep roots, don't assume that God can't use you or call you to go somewhere else for the kingdom of God.

You know, I love the SALT network.

Okay, I love church planting.

Uh I want to help start new churches in Texas, across that country.

I want to send college students and young singles to go plant new churches and reach more college students.

But I'll tell you this almost every time we plant a church on that map, it's not just college students who go.

It's not just young singles who go.

Every single time, I think, God raises up married couples and families to go with them to plant a church.

And this is our story, is it not?

Right here, King's Church, 60 people moved from across the country a year ago.

And I'm so thankful that mixed in with all of our young singles and recent grads, we had married couples.

Uh think about them.

Couples like the Pagets, the Bellamy's, the McCollums, the McGuinnesses, and the Satoffs.

Uh, people who God is used in a big way in this church, right?

You start listening to those people, like, oh my gosh, God has used those people.

People who've moved from Michigan, let's see, people from Wisconsin, Indiana, and even people from Nebraska have moved here.

Uh escaped as fast as they could.

But you think about those people, I here's what I think.

I I just boldly say this.

I think God has honored their sacrifice with this church and what he's done here, and the 34 people who've been baptized in this church, because these people moved.

And I think the rest of their lives, those couples, as they have kids, they'll be able to tell the story to their kids about how mom and dad said yes to doing something hard and risky and rewarding for King Jesus.

And when my two older kids ask me, Dad, why was I born in Michigan?

Aren't we Texans here?

And I think I can tell them, well, because mom and dad said yes to moving to Iowa, to Michigan, to just get caught up and whatever God was calling.

And I think God is gonna use that to raise their ambitions that Jesus is real, he is the king of heaven and earth, and he is worth sacrificing for.

And I pray that all the kids in that room will grow up hearing stories of mom and dad saying yes to Jesus, not just moving across the country, but sacrificing risk, putting teeth to your faith, or else they're gonna catch your hypocrisy and walk away.

But if your faith is real, they'll see it.

And I pray all those kids at King's Kids see the men and women of King's Church live marriages and singles on mission for Jesus.

And that's what Priscilla and Aquila do here.

When Paul gets up and says, We're going to a new city, who's coming?

Priscilla and Aquila say, We're in.

Is there room on the boat?

And so would you join me in praying for married couples in this church?

Not just to send church planters, uh, the married couples to go with.

Sound good?

Okay, let's keep going.

Because when they showed up in a new city, Priscilla and Aquila didn't just sit around.

Okay, they were actively involved in the mission.

Okay, our couples in Ephesus, Paul left them there.

But then Luke gives us this incredible story in verse 24.

Now skip down to verse 24 of Acts 18.

Now a Jew named Apollos, a native Alexandrian, an eloquent man who was competent in the use of the scriptures, arrives in Ephesus.

He has been instructed in the way of the Lord, and being fervent in spirit, he was speaking and teaching accurately about Jesus, although he knew only John's baptism.

Okay, so stop right there.

We're now introduced to this new guy named Apollos, okay, the new kid on the block.

Uh and he's from Alexandria in Egypt, uh, the center of learning back then.

And guys, as you read this, it feels like Luke cannot stop boosting this guy up.

Okay, he's eloquent, he's educated, he knows his Bible, he's passionately preaching about Jesus.

This guy is awesome, uh, but there's a problem.

And if you can see it at the end of verse 25, it says this dude only knows about John's baptism, uh, which we're not exactly sure what he did or didn't know.

But clearly there's a gap.

Like there's something missing in his theology, uh, which would make sense, guys, back then.

Not everything was in your Bible at this moment, okay?

It makes sense if some things were confusing.

And so here's the question when Apollos rose on the scene, what do Priscilla and Aquila do when they hear about this new kid rolling up preaching with some misunderstanding?

Do they stand up and embarrass him?

Do they make a video about him critiquing him and putting it on TikTok and saying he's a false teacher and running him off?

Do they critique him publicly?

No, what do they do?

Look at verse 26.

It says he began to speak boldly in the synagogue.

After Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained the way of God to him more accurately.

Okay, can you see it here?

They didn't embarrass him, they didn't write him off and say, We're Paul's people, we're not Apollos' people.

No, no, no.

What did they do?

They saw a gifted young man who loved Jesus and who had some gaps.

But instead of criticizing him, they invested in him.

Like they came along side.

Him.

They helped him grow.

And guys, don't miss this.

Okay, this isn't Paul doing it.

This isn't one of the apostles.

Who is this?

Man, just a husband and wife, some tent makers who knew the word of God and who cared enough about young people to invest in them.

And you guys know this.

This guy, Apollos, goes on to be quite a force, doesn't he?

Like under God's power.

The next couple verses, if you look down, Apollos travels around and Luke says this.

He was a great help to those who by grace had believed.

Apollos was doing a big deal.

And he vigorously refuted the Jews in public.

Okay, so don't miss this.

This couple chooses to invest in one man, and God used that one man to strengthen an entire church.

In fact, if you keep reading in your Bible, Apollos becomes such an influential teacher that Paul mentions him in 1 Corinthians, which leads me to the third observation about this couple.

We don't know how long they spent with Apollos and how many conversations they had, but we do notice this.

They saw an opportunity to invest in someone and help them grow their faith, and they took it, which leads me to the third thing.

They invested in other people.

That they invested, their marriage wasn't just raising kids, wasn't just caring for one another.

They had eyes out and they invested in other people because a marriage devoted to Jesus invested in other people.

And there's a lot of ways we could dice this up, but I want to keep it practical and uh from our text.

Okay, there's two very specific avenues that Priscilla and Aquila invested in others.

The first is here what we just read with Apollos, and it's this they invested God's word into others.

You can see it here.

They knew the word of God and they invested it in other people.

Uh and these guys weren't pastors, they were not seminary professors.

This is just a couple who love God's word and love God's people enough to point people in the right direction.

And guys, that would be an awesome thing to happen at King's Church.

That we would be people investing God's word into other people, especially the wisdom of older saints investing into the zeal of our younger believers here.

Which leads me to the second, super easy and practical way to invest in other people.

They didn't just open up God's word, they opened up their home for other people.

They opened up their lives for other people.

And this is where the story of Priscilla and Aquila gets very exciting.

Uh, because we saw them do it with Paul earlier, right?

Verse 2 and 3.

Uh, but Priscilla and Aquila, their story does not end in the book of Acts.

Uh actually, we can follow their adventure together all over the New Testament.

And we learn something about them that's repeated over and over again.

Uh, you don't have to turn there, but I'll put it on the screen.

In 1 Corinthians 16, uh, Paul is writing, and he basically says, Hey, Priscilla and Aquila, say hi.

Okay, it says they greet you warmly in the Lord, and then look at that.

Along with the church meeting where?

In their home.

So they're in Ephesus, and apparently they've opened up their home for believers to come gather.

And we'll look at it again soon, but the same thing happens when they're in Rome.

They're gonna do it again.

And the point is this: wherever they go, whatever city they're in, they open their home for God's people.

They make room for people in their lives.

Their home was not just a place, a sanctuary for them to build this little life together.

It was a place for people to come and find comfort and wisdom and encouragement.

And I just want to take all of that and I just want to lay it on King's Church this morning.

I want us to be a church full of people like this, with homes full of people coming in and out, uh eating meals together, studying the Bible, praying, where older believers invest in younger ones, sharing life together.

And guys, I'm not just talking about married couples here.

Okay, we want this for everyone.

Okay, college students, young singles, having people over in your dorm room, in your apartment, the front seat of your car.

You don't got to wait to get married to do this.

And I'll say this to all the young married couples with crazy kids like myself, uh, with houses that are just crazy full of magnetiles and dirty dishes and crazy kids.

Hey, it would be awesome if our kids grew up in homes where they watched mom and dad invite people over and invest in those people, God's word.

Uh, you don't need a perfect home and a perfect season of life to invite people into your house.

You can practice hospitality anytime.

Just invite people into your home.

So maybe a good challenge this week, you know, out of the sermon, is turning to your spouse on the way home today or your roommates in the car and asking this question.

Well, who can we invite over to encourage this week?

Will there be other people in your homes this week, the rest of this month?

Because you never know what God might do.

Now, here's what I want to do to close.

Uh I want to keep following this couple's story, and I want to make one more observation.

I want you to kind of trace their story, okay?

Come with me on the journey.

We first met them in Corinth in 50 A.D., okay?

Then we watched them pack up and move to Ephesus about two years later, 52 A.D., and they invest in Apollos.

And then the letters in Corinthians was written in 54 A.D.

But fast forward a few years later, and now we're in Romans 16, and Paul's going to write a letter to the church in Rome, and I want you to see what he says about our couple in Romans 16.

It says this give my greetings to Prisca, same woman, and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their own necks for my life.

Not only do I thank them, but so do all the Gentile churches.

Greet also the church who meets in their home.

Okay, here we are.

I know it wasn't on the screen.

Guys, here we are, seven years later.

Okay, it's been seven years.

And Paul, they're back in Rome, the same city they were kicked out of.

What are they doing?

They're still partners in the mission.

They're co-workers.

We learned something here.

They even risked their lives for Paul.

And we have no clue what that means.

We don't know anything in the Bible about what they did.

Did they hide them from the authorities?

Did they cover for them?

We got no clue.

But Paul is so thankful that he says this not only do I give thanks for that couple, it says, all the Gentile churches in the whole world say thank you to Priscilla and Aquila.

Can you see their impact?

Behind the scenes impact from these guys, which is wild.

But here's what I want to do now.

I need you to fast forward another 10 years.

Okay, so now we're gonna be about 17 years removed from Acts 18, where we started this morning.

And Paul, the apostle, this great apostle, is at the end of his life.

He's about to die, and he's writing his last letter to Timothy.

And dude has seen a lot.

Paul's done a lot, he's about to die, and at the end of his letter in 2 Timothy 4.19, he throws in this last time we ever see Priscilla and Aquila.

He just says this, hey, greet Prisca and Aquila.

And then the household of this other guy.

But that's it.

That's the last time we hear about this couple in the Bible.

There's no dramatic ending, there's no big send-off, just a greeting from Paul to two of his old friends.

And here's what I want us to see.

It's very simple.

It's been 15 years or so since we first met him.

We've seen Priscilla and Aquila in different cities, in different churches, different seasons of life, and yet here they are again, all these years later.

And what can we say is true about this couple?

They were faithful.

Faithful.

And that's the final thing about their marriage and marriage that we get in the Bible.

The last thing I want you to see about a marriage that's devoted to Jesus, and it's this they remained faithful.

Faithful.

And what do I mean by that?

Well, uh, they were faithful to one another.

Uh I'll say something that's very obvious that we learn here.

All these years later, our couple is still married.

Still together.

All that moving around, all the uncertainty, risking their lives, all the sacrifices, and Priscilla and Aquila stayed side by side.

And church, I know that sounds very simple, but isn't that something?

Like in our culture and in any culture, maybe one of the greatest things you can do in your marriage is to remain faithful.

This past week, my neighbors, uh, Johnny and Connie, celebrated 60 years of marriage together.

Uh, six decades.

Uh, and I asked them, I said, and they still love Jesus and love each other.

And I said, guys, how'd you do it?

You know, how'd you stay together six decades?

Other than marrying someone that rhymes with your first name, Johnny and Connie, how do you do it?

Sixty years.

And they just smiled, Connie in her wheelchair, and Johnny standing up and just said, This we just stayed together.

Just stayed together.

And so, married couples, can I just say to all of us in the room, stay together.

Stay faithful.

Keep pursuing one another.

Keep forgiving one another, and keep forgiving one another, and keep choosing one another, day by day, year by year, until death do us part.

Right?

But notice one more thing here, they weren't just faithful to one another after all these years.

Can it be said also that they were faithful to the Lord?

Like they're still on mission.

They're still loving Jesus.

They're a little bit older, and they're still making their lives count.

And so maybe this is a word for some of the older couples in the room.

Our empty nesters.

We're so thankful for you guys.

Those who've been following Jesus for decades longer than I've been alive.

Can I just say this?

You don't think your best days of serving Jesus are behind you.

Like your kids may be out of the house and your house might be quieter, but you might have the most time, the most money, and the most wisdom than you've ever had in your life.

What an opportunity you have been given to still be alive and still love Jesus.

And so can I make an ask of you?

Will you help us here at King's Church?

Would you go all in with us and help us build this church?

Because I got a church full of college students here and some young married couples and young families, people who are desperate for the wisdom of older saints in their lives.

Will you invest your time and your wisdom and your resources?

Will you open up your homes and disciple young believers?

Would you give generously and serve sacrificially wherever it's needed?

Why don't you help us lay a foundation?

That would be a worthwhile next chapter of your life to help start something new that helps reach college students in Denton and might impact generations to come.

And listen, you may have retired from your career, but you never retire from the mission of Jesus.

The most fruitful years of ministry might still be ahead of you.

I think Priscilla and Aquila would say that.

And so, church, there you got, there you have it.

Priscilla and Aquila, partners in the mission, willing to go, invested in others, they are faithful to the end.

A beautiful picture of what marriage is about.

And you know, I wonder sometimes as I was prepping the sermon, when Paul sits down years later to write those famous words in Ephesians chapter 5 about marriage that have probably been preached in this wedding venue a thousand times.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

You know, I wonder, as he wrote that, if he ever thought about his old friends, Priscilla and Aquila.

I mean, you think about it, Paul worked with those guys for years.

He traveled with them, he sacrificed with them.

And we don't we don't know this for sure.

But I wonder if there's another marriage that Paul knew better than theirs.

And in Ephesians 5, when he tells his husbands, tell all the husbands to love their wives as Jesus loved the church and gave himself up for her, I wonder if he saw Aquila do that a lot.

And then when he writes at the end about this mystery of marriage being profound, that it represents Jesus and his church.

I wonder if he thought about them.

You see, if you read the New Testament, you know that marriage was never meant to be the ultimate thing.

That marriage is a divine drama, a play.

It's a picture of something far greater than itself.

It's meant to point us to eternity's greater romance, that Jesus Christ has come for his bride, the church, and guys, one day he is coming back for her, like we just sang.

So you think about it, we spent all morning looking at this couple who devoted their lives to Jesus.

But guys, Jesus gave his life for those two, and he's done it for us.

He left his heavenly home on an adventure for us.

That's why we can go, that's why we can sacrifice.

He sacrificed for us not just comfort, but his own life.

And what's crazy about the gospel, and the reason why it's important as a married couple to remain faithful, is because it tells the story of how God stays faithful to us.

Jesus will never leave his bride.

If you are in Christ, may just think about it one more time this morning.

If you are in Christ Jesus this morning, you will always be in Christ.

The Bible says nothing can snatch you out of his hand.

What he began, he will finish till the end.

Once you're a new creation, you'll always be a new creation.

And nothing can snatch us out of the Father's hand.

He'll never leave us.

And so, married couples, stay faithful.

Invest in other people.

Be partners in the mission.

And single people, don't lower your standards for something less than this.

And all the while we have the end goal in mind, not marriage, but union with Christ.

Let me pray for us.

That God would help us.

And we'll sing.

God, I'm so thankful that you don't just put Ephesians 5 in the New Testament.

God, every time I do a wedding, I look at that scripture and I ask for help because it says, husbands, love your wives like Jesus loved the church.

And God, that is so hard.

To love like Jesus loved us, uh, impossible.

And yet by your spirit you have given us a heart for our wives.

I pray for the men in this room, the husbands especially, that if there's ever any pettiness in our hearts, if we're ever cowards that don't want to go into the room to apologize, God, if this weekend we have wronged our wives, would we this morning, under the conviction of the sweet Holy Spirit, would today be the day that we do what Jesus did on the cross, that we die to self and pursue our wives?

And for the women in the room who are married, Lord, the calling to submit to the husbands.

Why?

Because Jesus submitted to the Father.

God help the ladies in the room joyfully follow the lead of their husbands and cheer them on.

I can imagine Priscilla cheering on Aquila through all of this, the doubts, the insecurities, and his leadership, leading his family from place to place and feeling insecure, and yet behind him was a woman who loved the Bible, who could speak the Bible.

God help the women in the room know the word and speak it to their husbands even today.

God, for the single people in the room, especially the ones who want to be married.

God, we acknowledge that's a good gift.

And I pray for them that they would find someone worth joining together for the mission of God.

Help them not lower their standards.

And God, help us not pursue a picture of marriage that the world gives us, but one that the word gives us.

God, lift our eyes up, give us contentment where we're at, especially the singles.

Help them use this season to yes, want marriage, but to live for Christ, to be ambitious, to go where you call them.

And Lord, I pray for all of us that we would love Jesus more today as we're reminded of what he did for us on the cross, that he is our husband, as it were, and we are his bride.

So help us now sing and be reflective of our own hearts.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.