God's Practical Advice For Marriage Part 4

Tom Shrader concludes his marriage series by examining the biblical couple Priscilla and Aquila as a model for Christian marriage. He identifies five ways they served God's kingdom together: using their material resources and business to help Paul's ministry, using their freedom to travel and minister, using their biblical knowledge to teach Apollos, committing to the local church by hosting it in their home, and risking their lives for the Gospel. Shrader challenges couples to apply these same principles in their marriages today.

“God wants only one thing from you: obedience. What God says do, you do it. What God says don't do, you don't do it.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: God's Advice for Marriage

Recorded: 2000 at Cannon Beach Conference Center

Duration: 1 hr 7 min

Themes: marriage, service, partnership, hospitality, teaching, ministry, sacrifice, unity, married couples, ministry partners, church leaders, biblical teachers, christian mentors, struggling marriages, new believers, seeking purpose

Scripture: Acts 18:1-3, Acts 18:18, Acts 18:26, 1 Corinthians 16:19, Romans 16:3-5, 2 Timothy 2:4, John 10:10

Theological Themes: biblical marriage, christian partnership, ministry calling, spiritual gifts, kingdom service, church fellowship, discipleship, missional living

Full Transcript

That's good, isn't it? Yeah, I'm real excited about following that. That is a big deal. It's funny but it makes me think of the church back home - that is our theme for our worship team this year, "Returning to the Heart of Worship." That's the song that for the intramural play, meaning for those in the worship team, they come back to again and again. It really does speak to something that can easily get lost in the society and the culture and the time in which we live, and that is that Jesus, that the Lord, that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are about the focus of our worship.

It sounds so strange perhaps to say it out loud, but we're in a lot of places where a lot of churches have really lost that emphasis, really moved away from that. There's just a resurgence, I believe, in just the basics of the faith. This morning when they were showing the movie for the Ecola Bible School, one of the things that struck me - first of all, it's my kind of school, no grades, no tests, I count me in on that one. But what I liked was if you own one of these, you own the textbook for the school, and there's a lot of beauty in that.

Simplicity Over Complexity

I happen to think that most people have made life way too complicated. You hear this all the time, and you usually hear it - I was laying in bed this morning thinking about this - you usually hear, "he's such a complicated person," and it's usually attached to some sort of a tragic figure. When they talk about Richard Nixon, they'll say, "Well, he's a very complicated man," or Bill Clinton, "he's a very complex man," both obviously tragic figures. I mean that not in a political way, I mean that in the true sense of it.

But in reality, I don't think they're all that complicated. I think it's pretty simple, and I think we're all alike. We're all fundamentally selfish, narcissistic, derelict, pond scum, pukes, and that's what we are. When we lose sight of that, when you lose sight of that, all of a sudden you start to see sin as an aberration rather than what it really is.

The way that you keep that focus is not by reading the latest study from Stanford that says we're basically good, but by reading the scripture that says we aren't basically good, we're basically evil. Susan and I have enjoyed our time here at Cannon Beach, which interestingly enough is not over because we get another day of this. We've enjoyed it so much, and it's been so refreshing for me to be in a place that really is focused on the basics and really does come back to the scripture. That is something that's so important to us.

Ministry Information

Let me take just a bit of housekeeping. This happens a lot, so it's not a surprise, but I don't know how to do it otherwise. So many of you in the last couple of days have asked about tapes, and church, and what we do. Let me just give you a website address, and it's real simple. Our church is East Valley Bible Church. So the church website is ebc.org.

What you'll find on that website is all sorts of stuff about the church. Also I think, and I'm not there a lot, but I think what you'll find is tapes, and studies, and everything that we do. You'll find on Real Audio the messages for the last six weeks, so you can track it that way. If you want to order tapes, I think you can do it through that. I'm not involved with that part of it, and there is a cost related to that.

The ministry that I operate separately is Priority Living, and there's a link on the EBVC page to Priority Living. Priority Living - anything you find there that you deem worthwhile, you can have. Any tapes that you want to order are free. Obviously they cost us something, but we supply whatever we can to anybody who asks. In both instances, in the Priority Living study, there's people who are on a mailing list where they just automatically come to them every other week, and there are people on the church mailing list as well.

Please don't in any way construe this as any self-promotion. You're far better off getting Chuck Swindoll and John MacArthur tapes than mine, and I mean that. I don't get any money, and there's none of that stuff. But several of you have asked, and those things are available, and the website just explains all of that real well.

Marriage Design and Realistic Expectations

Let me try to put a bow on this, and I think I can this morning, and then something that I find very interesting that we'll close with. We talked in our very first session about basically God's design for marriage, that the promises - and I appreciate Ruth Ann's illustration how perfect it is - that these promises are unconditional.

When you stand here, two relatively healthy, hearty people, and say, "I do forever," you've got no clue what the world's going to throw at you, or what just nature itself brings to that. You know, in all likelihood, if you hang in there together, one of you will go through the process of watching and comforting the other as they die, and the agony that comes with that physically and emotionally, and all that goes with it. Those promises are unconditional.

We need to come to this relationship, as we do with all of life, with realistic expectations. For me, they need to be defined, and by that I mean they at least need to be clearly articulated.

The Vacation Story

It's a great story. One year for our summer vacation, I had to work a little bit. We take August off. I had to work a little into August. Susan and the girls went over to San Diego, and we had a condo there. They were in a condo there, went to SeaWorld when I was there. They went to the zoo. They hung out.

We went up to Los Angeles, spent a couple of days there, went to see Phantom of the Opera. I saw some friends there. Then we get what is really our vacation up to San Francisco. We spend four or five days in San Francisco. They go to Great America, Alcatraz, all that goes with it, and then we get to what is the heart

Defining Expectations

I want to tell you about a vacation experience that taught me something important about expectations. We were coming back from Sea Ranch, a magnificent place on Highway 1 between Mendocino and Bodega Bay, 114 miles north of San Francisco. We were driving out of Palm Springs, coming over the hill, when one of my daughters said, "We really didn't do much on vacation." My arm was not quite long enough to pop her in the head right there.

The next year, I had each girl take a legal pad and write down everything they wanted to do on vacation. As we did each activity, they checked it off. A couple of days before vacation was over, I'd say, "Well, we haven't done that." They'd respond, "We don't need to do that." I'd say, "Okay, put your initials by that so we understand."

At the same time the following year, driving home in exactly the same place coming over that hill in Palm Springs, I asked the girls how their vacation was. They said, "It was a great vacation." Here's what's key: we did far less the second year than the first year. But what happened? There were defined expectations.

I'm telling you, that's missing in most people's lives, materially and spiritually. It's like when somebody says, "I've forgiven them, but I keep thinking about this again." Well, that doesn't mean you haven't forgiven them. You think if somebody wrongs you or there's some sort of damage that takes place, having amnesia means you've forgotten about it? You think you're never going to think of those things again? No, those things and those feelings are still going to pop up. That doesn't mean you haven't forgiven them. That means that's nature. At that point, I just hold them up to the Lord and say, "No, You deal with that." But see, realistic expectations.

The Reality of Unselfishness in Marriage

Here's the third thing we talked about: the unselfishness part of it. We've talked a great deal about the fact that in marriage, just because there's two instead of one, there will be conflicts and demands and difficulties and adjustments that simply are not present in single life. Paul is very clear: you are better off single than married, although there's nothing sinful about being married.

The primary reason going in, I think, or at least one of the key reasons to marry is sexuality. So if you indeed are a Christian, the most sexually active couples ought to be the Christian couple. There ought to be sex going on all over the place among Christian couples. Because we're the ones acknowledging that this is an integral part of it.

I read a story a few years ago about church discipline. When I say church discipline, we think about somebody who has been unfaithful to a spouse or whatever it might be. I read of an instance around 1750 or 1760 in New England where a Puritan church was disciplining a man for not having sexual relationships with his wife. We think of this Puritanical view where you never think of those things. But see, they understood that was a key part of marriage.

Communication and Forgiveness

Here's the fourth thing: you need to share dreams and communicate, and you need to continually do that. You need to forgive. I love these two sentences: Every marriage, every relationship provides infinite opportunities for forgiveness. In your marriage, there'll be mistakes, failures, even wrongs. Decide now to forgive each other.

That forgiveness is possible only when we realize, as Christians, how much God has forgiven us. At that point, holding a grudge seems ludicrous. We forgive.

Growing Deep in God

Then the last point. Here's how I close the message part of the ceremony: Finally, grow deep in your knowledge and love of God and of His Son, Jesus Christ. God has revealed Himself to us through His Word, the Bible. Through the Scripture, God provides the blueprint for life. By obediently following God and His Word, your life will be built on a solid foundation. You will enjoy the good times in the fullest way possible, and in the rough times, you will have a peace that transcends all human understanding, knowing and experiencing the presence of God.

Our Marriage Preparation Process

Then I say, "As we've met together to discuss and prepare your future..." Let me stop there. Most of these couples I may not have met with personally, but everyone that's married in our church goes through thirteen weeks, at least, of intense counsel. It's done in a group setting, meaning four or five couples, with individual counseling along the way.

We allow people to set a wedding date, but we do not guarantee them that we'll marry them when they come to us. As a matter of fact, there have been several instances where we have had people who are very involved in our church who come to me to marry their children, and we tell them we're not going to marry them. That is not unusual for us.

I think of a couple that came in during this first meeting. I'm going through the process with them, and all of a sudden I notice they have the same address. I let the conversation go for a while, then I always look...

to the gal, because the guy can lie, the gal can't. I look to the gal and say, are you guys involved sexually? And inevitably the girl will go, yes. Well, I saw they had the same address, so that generally means that's what's going on.

So I said, are you guys involved sexually? And they said, yes. I said, are you living together? And they said, yes. And I said, well, then we're not here to talk about marriage, we're talking about evangelism at this point, because evidently you're not believers, or if you are, you're just fallen in sin. And they said, well, we're here to be married. And I said, well, you won't be married in this church.

I knew that their father was a relatively prominent fellow, a visible person in our church. So, the next day I got a voice message from him, and I thought, well, this will be good. And he said, Tom, I just want to thank you for telling him that. We've been telling him, I told him, I said, when he sees that address is the same, he's going to throw your can right out of his office. He won't put up with that for one second.

And by the way, those of you that are afraid that when you take those stands, listen, when you're clear and consistent, the people expect it. If I would have said, we'll marry you, I would have lost so much credibility in the eyes of this boy's parents and in the members of the church, because they know full well. So, we're consistent, and it's simple, and are there times when some people say, I don't know that I've ever had an instance, and we've had them where key people, we've denied their kid's marriage. We've never had somebody leave over it that I'm aware of. And we're just very firm about it, very consistent, and very consistent with what God has to say. And we do it in a loving manner, and we don't get any great joy out of this either.

The Foundation of Christian Marriage

So, let me get back to what I'm saying. As we've met together and discussed in preparing for your future, I'm convinced that you have many, many things in common that will be helpful in deepening your love, but I am certain your greatest asset is your mutual faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

A Christian marriage produces two people who are as much the same as two people can be. Christians in marriage have the same Lord, the same family, the same children, the same future, and ultimately the same destiny. And then I summarize all this with the sentence, this is God's plan for marriage, a marriage that will last a lifetime.

So, as we close today, let me make four points that are in this paragraph. Here's the first one.

God's Word as Our Blueprint

God has revealed Himself to us through His Word, the Bible. Through the Scripture, God provides the blueprint for life. I said at the first night, so it seems appropriate to bookend it, when we hold this book in our hands, we have the Word of God.

It is so important for us as we face life, and all these complicated issues in life, or those issues that seem so complicated for us, to know that we have either the direct answer, or the principles that will guide us to an answer, through what appears to be a stickler of a minefield that's out there in front of us. When I try to figure out what kind of husband I should be, or Susan, what kind of wife she should be, or Susan and I, what kind of parents we should be, the best book we can read is right here. Best book ever written on parenting, right here.

Best book you ever tried to figure out, management. I ask two or three different people here at the conference center who are involved in leadership, number one challenge. What's the number one challenge you have here? And I could have bet you, and would have bet you, a lot of money that I know the answer. It's a no-brainer, because it's the same challenge that Bill Gates has at Microsoft. Personnel. Well, he's got governmental problems, but aside from that, personnel. It's one problem that everybody has. The best manual for how to deal with employees, and how to respond to employers, is right here.

The Owner's Manual Illustration

This is the owner's manual. When you want, here you go, great illustration. One day, I'm doing a retreat down in Tucson, I stop on the way, it's a Saturday night, I stop, I call home, I said to Susan, how you doing? She said, not very well. And I said, why? And she said, oh, it's just, it's been awful. She said, the garbage disposal stopped, I'm trying to think of all the things, the garbage disposal stopped, the hot water heater, I believe, went down, and the garage door was sitting at an angle, it had stopped. And she said, this is awful.

So, when I got home, I said, how you doing, and it was just so unlike her, to be anything but up, and she said, you know what, I learned something. And I said, what is that? And she said, I learned that the garbage disposal and the hot water heater and the garage door opener break on the godly and ungodly alike. That's what she learned out of it.

Well, a couple days later, I'm realizing, I've got to, we've got to now pay for this. We've got to pay for these things. So, I'm saying, what's the lesson for me here? There's got to be an illustration. And I looked at all three of these, and here's what I found that they had in common. They all came with an owner's manual, written by the manufacturer, telling us how to get maximum efficiency out of their product. It came with little checkpoints, that when there was a difficulty, we could go right to a specific area and troubleshoot it. And if all else failed, they all had an 800 number where I could speak to the manufacturer himself about the product.

And I thought, that's exactly what the Bible is. It's the owner's manual for your life and mine, written by the manufacturer himself, telling me how to get maximum efficiency out of His product and how to get maximum efficiency out of life, where I could go in here and troubleshoot and filled with warnings. And if all else fails, I have an 800 number called

prayer, where I can go to the manufacturer Himself. We need to recapture that and explain that. This isn't just a book where we read a verse and then go and do any message we want with a poem and a PowerPoint and an action point at the end. This is where we teach and understand that this is the Word of God.

When we come to marriage, here's what we understand: God revealed Himself through Christ and through the Word. Here's the second point: by obediently following God and His Word, your life is built on a solid foundation.

God Wants Obedience Above All

There's a verse that I mentioned, and it's one of my favorite verses. It's the kind of verse I fantasized since I got here about teaching at Ecola Bible School, because it seems like such a practical thing. I thought, what a great verse for the week: 2 Timothy 2:4. "No soldier in active duty entangles themselves in the affairs of everyday life." You have these young minds where you could come and speak to them about the entanglements that they face in life. To get them on the front end and talk about consumer debt. To get them on the front end and talk about marrying equally. All those things.

But the second part of that verse is, "No soldier in active duty entangles themselves in the affairs of everyday life, so he may please the one who enlisted him." Do you see what that verse doesn't say? It doesn't say, "so he may win great victories." We've got way too much talk about victories going on. God didn't save you to win great victories. He says, "No soldier in active duty entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life." Why? So he can please the one who enlisted him.

How do you please God? By obeying Him. This is so important to understand. This is absolutely critical to our understanding of our relationship with God.

A Story About Pleasing God

Here we go. I've got Jim here. I've got Gary here. Let's say that they decide they're going to spend the afternoon walking through town. So they're walking through town and they get into one of the little shops downtown, the Christmas store. The gals are in doing their little thing and the guys are out going, "Geez, when is this over?"

All of a sudden, two people just come up to them. Gary starts to talk to one, Jim to the other. They say, "Why are you in town?" He says, "Well, I'm here for a conference." "Where?" "Canterbury Christian Conference Center." All of a sudden, both have the opportunity to share their faith.

Gary lays this out and he says, "You know, Jesus Christ died on the cross so that we might have eternal life. We're all sinners." He lays out just a beautiful gospel. Gary says, "Have you heard that before? Would you like to respond to that? Would you like to surrender your life to Christ today?" The guy says, "Up your nose with a rubber hose. No, I don't want to."

Jim, on the other hand, is talking to a guy. He lays out the gospel the same way with the same enthusiasm. This person says, "I've been waiting all my life to hear these words. What must I do to be saved?" Jim says, "Well, you pray." And he leads him to the Lord.

Who Pleased God More?

Now, this is a very important question I'm going to ask you. Who is God happier with, Gary or Jim? The answer here is, He's equally happy with both.

Here's what I want you to see. This is a big deal, men and women. It's God who saves people. It's not Gary or Jim who save them. Their job is not to save people. I was in a church not long ago, and it was about all I could handle to listen to them talking about what a soul-winning church they were and how many souls they'd saved. Let me help you out: none of the souls you saved are going to get to heaven. All of the souls God saves will be there. Your job is not to be a soul-winner. You can't even win a soul. God saves souls. You don't.

Look at the distinction. God's equally happy. In our economy, we're going to take Jim and we're going to bring him back and we're going to have him do seminars and techniques and all this stuff. Gary, we're going to go, "Nice try, Gary. Hang in there. Maybe someday you'll be worth something." That's how we do it as a church, typically. No. God's happy with both because He's pleased with them. Why?

The Key Thing God Wants

Key thing: what God wants from you is one thing. You're trying to figure out, "I want to give God what He wants from me." God wants only one thing from you: obedience. That's all He wants. He's not looking for you to win a soul. He's not looking for you to be victorious. He's looking for you to be obedient. What God says do, you do it. What God says don't do, you don't do it. It's obedience.

One of the sister institutions of Cannon Beach Conference Center is Stonecrop. When you get to both of those, and I've spoken now at both places, when you're around both places and you look at the founders—in fact, the lady who's the founder of this, Heather's mom, her sister was an integral part of Stonecrop—when you read these stories and listen to these people, you see determined people, you see people who persevere. But at its core there is an unbelievable simplicity of ladies who said, "God, whatever You want to do, I'm going to do it. God hears what I want, but whatever You want supersedes that."

See how that is? We get all these people reading all these books and all this complicated stuff, and we've made this so hard, then we beat ourselves up. God wants you to be obedient. Are you obedient today? If it's yes, God's pleased with you. If it's no, He's not. Period. We're done. Let's just go live this. See how simple that is?

Life Abundant in Good Times and Bad

There's a third point: you'll enjoy the good times in the fullest way possible, and in the tough times you'll have a peace that transcends all human understanding, knowing and experiencing the presence of God.

Jesus says something very, very interesting and to me captivating, when He says, "I've come that you might have life," John 10:10, "and have it abundantly." Man never gets that. You see commercials—

The Lie of Worldly Satisfaction

We're constantly bombarded with messages about what constitutes "the good life." One of my favorites is a Corona beer commercial where guys are around the beach, sitting there in their lounge chairs with a beer, watching girls in bikinis playing volleyball, saying, "Man, this is really living." They don't show you about 20 minutes later, where the guy's hung over, with relationships falling apart—that isn't really living.

Man says this is really living, and man is content with a temporary high, with temporary satisfaction. God says no, real living has permanent satisfaction—a high that transcends circumstances. I used to drink a lot. I used to drink an awful lot, and some of you, I'm sure a few of you could match stories, but most of you, I would spill more than you would drink in a day. I thought that was living.

There is nothing that compares to the satisfaction—that's what we're really talking about—to the satisfaction that comes from seeing God use you in another person's life. So if you really commit to this stuff, if you're really serious about this stuff, you are about to embark on an E-ticket ride in the old Disneyland.

Your Greatest Asset in Marriage

Here's the fourth thing. So we've met together and discussed and prepared for your future. I'm convinced you have many things in common that will be helpful in deepening your love, but I'm certain your strongest asset is your mutual faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

I say that to these people that I know. I don't know any of you personally—I've had a chance to talk to a few of you—but I know this: the strongest asset you have in your marriage, if you're Christians, is your relationship in the Lord Jesus Christ. By the way, let me add to that. If you're here, and maybe you're a Christian and your spouse is not, your strongest asset is your relationship in the Lord Jesus Christ.

I wouldn't for a second assume that every person in this room is a Christian, which would mean that some of you are in relationships that probably are not what you'd like them to be. Even the Christian relationships are strained, but you could be in a relationship where one person is clearly not a Christian. The gal or the guy just tagged along, they're going to throw you this bone. You've been on them and on them and on them, saying, "Let's do something, let's do something, do this, do this," finally saying, "Good grief, hunting season's starting, I'll go and do her this thing, and then I get to go hunting for two weeks. I'll throw her this bone and do this."

Where to Turn When Disappointed

Maybe you're here and you're barely hanging on. Here's what I want you to understand: your greatest asset is your relationship with Christ. That's where you find your strength.

I happen to believe that Susan is ideally suited for me, and I would like to think that I'm somewhat suited well for her. But I will guarantee you that there are times in our relationship where I disappoint her and don't meet her needs. And there are times the other way—as terrific as she is—when I find myself somewhat disappointed with her.

In those moments, I don't go trolling for a new spouse or for a momentary substitute. In those moments, I turn to God. He's my strength. He's my rock. He's the one who meets my needs. We need to understand that—that's your strongest asset.

A Biblical Couple Worth Studying

Here's how I want to close this today. When you work your way through Scripture, or even if you get out of the bookstore here, you'll find books on Chuck Swindoll. There's some Chuck Swindoll books down there on David and Elijah, and there might be one on Esther, I'm not sure. We find all sorts of books and all sorts of illustrations out of Scripture for individuals. But rarely do we find one for a couple.

It seems to me as a couples conference, it would be kind of neat if we could find a couple in Scripture that we could look at and maybe pull some truths out of their life. So we're going to do that. Open your Bible to Acts chapter 18. We're going to introduce you to a couple that you know—not Ananias and Sapphira. I always thought they were James Brown's backup singers. No—Priscilla and Aquila.

Paul Meets Priscilla and Aquila

Acts chapter 18: Paul arrives in Corinth, and Paul needs a job and He needs a place to stay. Verse 2: "And he found a certain Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, having recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome."

Just a quick background: Claudius had had it with the Jews. About the time there were about 20,000 Jews in Rome and they were driving Him nuts. Finally He said, "You're out of here," and He just blanketly threw them out—not necessarily out of Italy, but out of Rome.

We know that Aquila was from Pontus, kind of somewhere in Asia. They were, however, for whatever reason, there in Rome and now they've decided to relocate in yet another city there in Corinth. "And Paul came to them and because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and they were working, for by trade they were tent makers."

The Value of Having a Trade

Paul comes to town and Paul needs a job and Paul needs a place to stay. He explores it because His trade was tent making. Every Jewish father made sure their son had a trade. In fact, the rabbis all had a trade. They were not compensated for preaching and teaching. It was expected that they too would ply their trade, which had a whole lot of application.

But get this—what it also did is it kept the rabbi in touch with the common guy. You didn't come into a synagogue setting where the guy in the front didn't understand the guy, if you will, in the pew. Interesting principle.

They're tent makers. They took leather—the tents were made with leather primarily—they would take this leather and they would make tents or other pieces, garments or utilitarian objects out of this. Here's the first point you can learn from Priscilla and Aquila: they used their stuff to serve the kingdom.

In comes Paul and he's looking for a job. Look at what it says: he stayed with them. The idea here is not just that they put him on staff, but he moved in with them. They began, and this is an important distinction—hang with me a second if you would—they began to share with him.

The Difference Between Sharing and Giving

Now I'm going to draw a distinction here, and I don't think it's artificial, between sharing and giving. Each one has its own particular difficulty, its own particular sacrifice, if you will. This morning, when they took an offering, you gave. You didn't share, you gave.

That brings about—I spend so much time during the week with non-Christians or baby Christians—one of the first questions I'll get from them is, how much should I give? I never get the question, should I give? Everybody understands that I ought to give. I should be giving. Nobody ever asks that question, should I give? The question I get is, how much should I give? And as you know, that's a very hard question to answer.

What we get from the New Testament is that we are no longer under that tithe. That may be a basis for us, but our giving is free and it's sacrificial. C.S. Lewis writes this: "I do not believe one can settle how much one ought to give. I'm afraid the only safe rule"—this is so good—"is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditures on comforts and luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the same standard common among those with same income as our own, we're probably giving away too little. If our giving or our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they're too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditures exclude them."

I think that's great advice. Listen to the words: he said there ought to be times when our giving hampers or pinches us. If our income and those like us is being expended just like the pagan on the same creature comforts, then probably something is wrong.

The Challenge of Giving

This giving is a very hard thing because we immediately, as we do everything else, are looking for some legalistic self-satisfying way. So if we say, not 10%, even if we say it's 50%, at least you can go, "I'm done." But you know, God's giving plan for you may be 75% or it may be 5%.

I had a man that we dealt with who was giving liberally at the same time he was stiffing the vendors in his business. He was about to file bankruptcy and my counsel to him was, quit giving and pay off your debts. What kind of a testimony is that? We're going to erect some sort of a pew and put your plaque on it with your name and some guy's going to come in and look at it and go, "This is the jerk—no wonder he didn't pay me. He's building this building." Your commitment as a Christian says my yes is a yes and my no is a no. When it comes to giving, we need to be liberal and generous.

We have moved into ministry and my first year—and I say this only as a point of reference—my first year I made less than I paid the previous year in federal tax. So money was tighter than it used to be. We're walking through a mall and I've got the girls with me. At the time, this would have been about 13 years ago, the girls are like 5 and 7. We're walking through and one of them said, "Oh we ought to get that." And the other one said, "You know we don't have money for stuff like that anymore."

I took them over, because at that moment I realized, uh oh, we got a problem here. I took them over and I sat them down on a bench—I can take you to the bench. I got right down where I could look in their face and I said, "I want you to understand something. We've got enough money for that, but we've decided not to spend it on that, but to spend it on the things that we think God would have us spend it on." That's a very important distinction.

Investment vs. Sacrifice

There's a word that I don't like, and I used it a minute ago because I knew it would communicate to you, but I don't like this word. And the word is sacrifice. I run into this all the time. I hear parents say, "I'm really sacrificing for my kids." Really? No you aren't. You're investing. The word is investing, it's not sacrifice. You know, to me, the sacrifice would be not doing for my kids what I think I'm supposed to do. That's a sacrifice. I'm investing.

When we think of investment, we tend to think of people with lots of money and material things. You today, now, are investing time, energy, effort, and money. I don't for a second believe we're all equal, if by equal we mean identical. Michael Jordan and I did not come into the world with the same opportunity to experience success in the National Basketball Association. We are not equal if you mean identical.

Are we equal in value? You bet. Are we equal in status? You bet. Are we equal before the law? You bet. Do we stand on the same ground before God? No problem, got all that. But we're not identical. You and I are not identical. Some of you have a bucket load of money, probably more money than you got brain. Some of you don't have enough money. Some of you are extraordinarily talented and bright and brilliant and you can deal with complicated issues. Others of you are like me—simple stuff. I need simple things, not complicated things.

The Great Equalizer: Time

But there's one thing we do have in common. We all have exactly 168 hours to invest this week. Boy, there's the great equalizer. It is the great equalizer. Time. See, that's why contentment and all this comes back together, because all those distractions rob me of investing my time in the Kingdom of God. For most of us, our concern is investing with a return to our kingdom rather than His. See, it's time and it's energy and it's effort and it's money.

Priscilla and Aquila did not give to Paul, they shared with him. Sharing is when we take an asset we have and we allow somebody kind of temporary use of it. They said, "Move in the house. Just stay with us here." Boy, when you—

Look at Priscilla and Aquila. The first thing that you ought to realize is that they used their stuff, their work to serve the Kingdom of God. Are you?

Do you understand that God's placed you, whether it's at Boeing or whether it's at Microsoft or Intel or whether it's in a yogurt shop or whether you're at Nordstrom's? Wherever God's placed you, God's placed you there and that's a ministry field. One of the great mistakes that's happening is that as people get serious about their faith, they think they have to withdraw from work. Guys that become real serious all of a sudden want to go off to seminary to have ministry.

Your work is your ministry. If you separate your work from your ministry, you're doomed to spiritual frustration because work will become a hassle because you want to get to the spiritual stuff. Your work is spiritual. You are there as salt and light in the midst of that. And you know what? Frequently, the most powerful sermons you preach at work don't reference Scripture and don't reference Christ, but they allow people to see a distinctive in your life.

Using Freedom to Serve

Here's the second thing about Priscilla and Aquila. Verse 18, still in Acts 18. Paul is done in Corinth, at least for now, and he decides to move on. "Paul, having remained many days longer, took leave of the brethren and put out to sea for Syria and he took with him Priscilla and Aquila."

Not only did they use their stuff to serve the kingdom, they used their freedom to serve the kingdom. In that day and age, not everyone was free. There was a gigantic wealthy population in Corinth, which meant there was a correspondingly larger slave population. They were either slaves because they were conquered or born into that. Some, many, were sold into slavery to pay for their debts, not Priscilla and Aquila. They were free.

Now, this raises a couple of questions. Are you free? We go, yeah, there's no slaves today in this country. Really? If you don't mail an envelope this week to Bank of America, they're not going to come checking on their slave?

See, some of us are in bondage, not necessarily to a human. We're not, maybe not chattel, but we're in bondage to MasterCard or Visa or drugs or booze or sex or laziness or television or golf or working out or whatever it might be. See, are you free?

Financial Freedom and Wise Choices

I said, one of the exciting things about being able to grab these kids right now is to tell them, don't entangle yourselves in the affairs of everyday life. I got a little chart. I didn't bring it over. I used it to teach what I learned on my summer vacation, and it came out of a money class that one of our guys at church was doing.

If you took a thousand dollars when you're 21 years old, put away a thousand dollars a year for 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28. For eight years, put a thousand dollars away a year, and then never put another dollar with it. Or if you start at the end at age 65, you would have compound interest. We based it on 10%. You may be able to do better, not as well. At age 65, you've had $481,000. Isn't that amazing?

And to teach these kids the power of, well, and I, because I spend some time with my girls and go, well, there's a couple of problems. Number one, I'm not 21. And I said, well, I got that figured out. And number two, where am I going to get a thousand bucks? I said, well, I'm glad you asked that one, because I've been thinking about that as well.

If you skip Starbucks, not every day, just skip Starbucks four days a week, and skip a bottle of water, you pretty much got five bucks for those four days. That's $20 a week. In 50 weeks, so we give you a vacation, go and have the Starbucks. In 50 weeks, you got a grand. It isn't that tough to get a thousand bucks. You're diddling it away on these, on a bottle of water.

Look at this. How about this? We got people releasing oil because the price of gas is $1.70 a gallon, but we're paying $1.39 for a quart of water. How stupid is this? We're dumb. We're just dumb people. But see, all of a sudden, are you free?

Freedom for God's Purposes

Now, if you're here, I'm convinced you need to be free in your life, not so you can go. I got a whole bunch of people want to get free, so they can go play golf, or polish rocks, and make a belt, or bow tie, or just go camp. They're going to get their RV, and just go all, wherever highway one goes, they're going to go. That's okay, but I got to tell you, that's not much of a life.

It's free, so that when God calls, as Paul called Priscilla and Aquila, you can go. Are you free? Are you ready to go? Do you understand this? What a great principle. This couple picks up, and make sure you don't miss it. They had a business, and away they go.

Teaching and Correcting in Truth

Here's the third thing about them. We see it there in verse 26. They go to the synagogue. They're in Ephesus, and there's a guy by the name of Apollos, who comes in to teach, and he is, verse 24, an Alexandrian by birth. He's from Egypt.

At this time, I thought this was interesting. I didn't know it, until I did my research. There were assumed to be almost a million Jews in Alexandria. That's interesting. The city was divided into five wards or districts. Two of those districts were Jewish.

There's this man, Apollos. He's an eloquent man. He comes to Ephesus. He's mighty in the scriptures. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord. He's fervent in spirit, and he was speaking and teaching accurately Jesus Christ. Now the next thing is very important, but he was acquainted only with the baptism of John.

What did John the Baptist know about Christ? Well, there's a Messiah that's coming. There's a Lamb of God that's coming. Personal repentance is going to replace this sacrificial system, but that's about it. That's about all John the Baptist knew. Apollos is there in the synagogue. Now hang with me. You're going to have to go back and work this through, but let me just show you. So Aquila and Priscilla evidently are not only going to church, but they're going to

Handling Incomplete Truth with Grace

The synagogue as well, probably following the pattern of Paul. They're going there to share. They come in one day, and here comes this man. He's an articulate, eloquent man. He is mighty in the scriptures. He's powerful of idea and word. He begins to speak about Jesus.

They've got to be shocked by this. They say, wow, but then comes a problem. He doesn't know about the cross, about the resurrection, about the Holy Spirit, or about the church. So what he's teaching is fine as far as it went, but they know it's not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

What do you do? What do you do when you've got somebody around, and what they're sharing is accurate as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough? Do you rebuke them in public? Write a letter to the editor? Look at verse 26. He spoke boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside, and they explained to him the way of God more accurately.

Using Knowledge to Serve the Kingdom

Here's the third thing. They use their stuff. They use their freedom. They use their knowledge to serve the kingdom. Let me tell you something that's self-evident. You can't teach what you don't know.

Early on, I decided I might want to one day teach, and my mentor took me aside, and he said, do you mind if I give you a helpful bit of advice? And I said, no, not at all. He said, when you get up to speak, it would be a good idea if you had something to say. And I said, really? And he said, yes. This comes from years of having to sit through people who evidently had nothing to say, but had an hour to fill.

Why don't you have something to say? Well, what I realized was, I was only so clever to take it so far, that burned about five minutes, and after that, I better know something. See, God will use what you know. When you're in a situation, and God brings a verse to mind, isn't it a verse you know? Isn't it a verse you've read? Isn't it a verse you've studied? See, that's what happens.

They go and they say, and look at what they do. They take him aside, and I believe they do it gently. And they say, listen, Apollos, you are a mighty man, and an eloquent man, but you know what? This Messiah you're saying is going to come, has come, and He died on the cross, and He rose from the dead, and the Holy Spirit's come, and the church has been established. Apollos, you are extraordinary, but you only have part of the truth.

The Responsibility of Spiritual Growth

I'm talking to a guy one day, and we're just moving along, and he's lamenting the fact he's nowhere spiritually. And then he says to me, I'm a baby Christian. And I said, really? How long have you been a Christian? He said, seven years. Seven years is not a baby Christian!

Guys, I love you, but here we go. This is a little of that tough love. If you're here today, and you don't know anything about the Scripture, that is no one's fault but yours. That's your fault. There are tools all over the place. You get on the internet, and there is more information. And I'm not talking about bad stuff, I'm talking about good stuff. It's everywhere.

Someone asked me in the bookstore, somewhere downstairs, where I went to school. Let me help you out here. I have not had one minute of training. Not one second of formal training. I haven't been to school anywhere. And I'm not, let me give you a couple more things, I'm not very smart, and I'm not a scholar. You know what? I believe this is the Word of God. So if I know it, I'll have something to say.

The Work of Spiritual Development

You've got to study this stuff. There's no way to microwave your spiritual growth. There's no way to jump start it. You can't pop it in and say, gee, I'll be a genius by tomorrow. It just doesn't work that way. You've got to work, and work, and work, and pray, and work. And you pray, God, show me what I'm supposed to learn. God, teach me.

You know the stuff they call the basics? That's the great place to start. It's the things we come back to again, and again, and again. Just a side note, I admire Priscilla and Aquila, but I really admire Apollos. Because Apollos took this teaching, and what we see is, he indeed sees his life change, and now he wants to go out and he wants to teach that Word.

Commitment to the Local Church

Two more things, quickly, and then we get to go eat. Not only did they use their stuff to serve the kingdom, and their freedom to serve the kingdom, and their knowledge to serve the kingdom, the fourth thing, they were committed to the local church.

Well, I don't see that here. Well, that's exactly right, because you're not in the right place. You've got to turn to the right, to 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 16, turn there if you would. Paul writes this letter back to the church, back to the church that was there in Corinth, the place where he met Priscilla and Aquila.

He writes back to them, 1 Corinthians 16:19. Paul has this pretty harsh letter. He then speaks in chapter 15 about the resurrection. In chapter 16, he's beginning to close the letter, introductions and greetings. 1 Corinthians chapter 16, verse 19, he says this, "The churches of Asia greet you. Aquila and Priscilla greet you heartily in the Lord with the church that's in their house." They were committed to the local church.

The Priority of Local Church Involvement

Now, you think you're committed because you go and teach a Sunday school class, or you usher. I'll tell you how committed they were. They said, listen, this place is so important to the kingdom, and it's really significant to understand this. And I'm sure that I am not risking at all chastisement on the part of Heather or the staff.

As much as we think it's important for you to be a part of and support Cannon Beach Christian Conference Center, it's far more important that you support or are involved in the local church. You need to be involved in the local church. God did not provide as an institution Cannon Beach or Priority Living, but did provide as an institution the church. God's people are designed to come together in the church. You need to be in a good Bible teaching church. You need to use the majority of your gifts in the church.

Now, in our particular church, I was telling somebody last night, I had on a Young Life shirt. Most of the Young Life staff, salary staff, go to our church. The other day, they told me that 80% of their volunteer teaching staff goes to our church. So, we're very involved in the community. We have people involved in crisis pregnancy, Christian family care, Young Life, all sorts of organizations. But they understand that their authority and their structure comes from the church.

You need to be in a church and committed to a church. How committed were they? What a great lifestyle. They said, we don't just serve in it, we host it.

Let me tell you the obvious, that comes at a price. You know when they came in and they came into church, they go, wow, this is neat. What do you got to eat? What's in the refrigerator? And you're not there very long before somebody knocks over a cup and stains the carpet. And people ding these things. And many people I know are afraid to open up their house.

Overcoming Material Attachments

Because in there is that chair that great-great-grandma gave to great-grandma that gave to grandma that gave to me. Let me help you out. It's a chair. If it's that important to you, put it away where nobody will get at it. But to say, gee, I'd love to serve God, but I got this chair. Here's my deal. Give it here and let them sell it to build a gym and now you don't have the hassle of worrying about it getting dinged. Get rid of the stuff.

You don't need, if that stuff is that important. And again, I'm not anti-material. But if what you're saying is, keeping my carpet clean is more important than serving God, then you got a major problem.

Let me give you the flip side. Because I hear this too. Well, we don't have a very nice place and we don't have very nice stuff. Well, let me tell you your problem. Pride. You're worried somebody's coming to come in and say, well, gee, this is a dump.

If it's a dump, that's your problem. That's their problem, not your problem. If you come in and it's just not what they have and you don't have doilies and fine china and all that, who cares? When I go to somebody's house, you know what I'm looking for? I'm looking for a plastic cup. That's what I like.

The Heart of Hospitality

I don't want china. I don't want this. I want stuff that we can throw away. So when we're done, we don't have to be worrying about whether we break something, and we can talk and be comfortable. That's what I want. I want to wear shorts and a t-shirt.

I don't want to dress up to go to somebody's house, and I'm comfortable in that environment. But whatever it is, whether you are saying, well, we don't have much, or we got a great place and we don't use it, then you have failed to understand what Priscilla and Aquila understood.

Willing to Risk Everything

One last point. Not only were they people who used their stuff to serve the kingdom and used their freedom to serve the kingdom, used their knowledge to serve the kingdom, not only were they committed to the local church, the fifth thing, they were willing to risk everything for their faith.

You're in Corinthians, move left just a little bit to the book of Romans. You don't have to go very far. Book of Romans. In the 16th chapter, Paul closes this letter, and in this close, He mentions almost 30 names of individuals. At the top of the list in Romans 16:3 is Priscilla and Aquila.

One thing I didn't mention at the beginning, you'll never see their names separated from one another either. We're talking about them as a couple. It so applies to what we're doing. And He says this, greet Priscilla and Aquila.

Now, I want you to understand this. They were in Rome, they got blown out of Rome. They landed in Corinth, they went to Ephesus, and now apparently, they're back in Rome. I want you to understand, I just want to reinforce this, I want you to understand the sacrifice.

The Cost of Following Christ

When they're coming into town, they know how hard it is to start a business, to lease the space, to get the material, to find the orders, to sell the stuff, to manufacture it, to deliver it, to collect it. They know how tough it is. But you know what they understand? Their life is not about making themselves circumstantially easy, but serving God.

So now they're back in Rome. Greet Priscilla and Aquila. How about this title? My fellow workers in Christ. When you think about me, you think about them. Don't separate us, we work together.

Verse 4, Romans 16:4, Priscilla and Aquila, who for my life risk their own necks, to whom not only do I give thanks, but to all the churches of the Gentiles. And Paul is not exaggerating, we know it's infallible, we know it's true, He's saying, they risk their lives to save me. That's what I'm saying. They put everything on the line. They risk it all.

By the way, look at verse 5, the beginning of it. Oh, also greet the church that's meeting there in their house. They can't get out of this. They can't stop. They're so swept away with Christ and who He is and what it means, and serving their God. Not a God, but their God, in a personal way that they just give and give and give. They're willing to risk their lives.

The True Test of Faith

I have a tendency to kind of minimize that, in a way. Almost every man I know, if his child was out here and just moved off the beach a little bit, and was in jeopardy of drowning, almost every man I know, whether they could swim or not, would risk their life for their children. For us, the test really is not, would we die for our kids? The test is, will we live for them? I believe.

I don't know if this is true. But I believe if some guy, all of a sudden, we were under siege, and they came up the stairs right now, and they came up on this platform, and they said, Tom, you deny Christ, or we'll kill you. If that happened, I'd say, well, how are you going to kill me? Because that might affect the decision a little bit. We're just going to blow your brains out. I'd say, I think I would say, I'm positive I would say, okay, but get it done with the first shot.

Practical Questions for Married Couples

I think when you look at Priscilla and Aquila, and you're at a couples conference, you can draw some great lessons from them. You can apply their standard to your life. Do you use your stuff to serve the kingdom? Do you use your freedom? Are you free? And if so, do you use your freedom to serve the kingdom? And if you are not free, by the way, what are you doing to get free?

Do you use your knowledge to serve the King? Are you committed to the local church? Are you willing to risk everything for your faith?

Dreaming for God

I mentioned before dreaming. Do you have any dreams? What would you do? This is a great question: What would you do for God if there were no restraints and no limits on you? How about this: What would you attempt to do for God if you knew you couldn't fail? I think once you start to answer those questions, there's your dream.

I don't live in Na-Na land. I know there's restraints and I know there's difficulties. But what I'm saying is, if that's your dream, then what are you doing to pursue it? Maybe you can't accomplish it today, or in a month, or in a year, or in five years. Maybe it's going to take ten years.

Living Beyond Yourself

Right now I am involved in something that's very important to me, and that's our church. I know that much of what I'm going to do in the next five to ten years, I'm not going to see the end of it. I'm not going to be there to carry it out to the end, I don't think. But it's not about me. That's where it gets so comforting. It's not about me, it's about Him.

Heather's mom and dad never saw this. They probably never even dreamt in their wildest dreams that this conference center would be anything like this. That doesn't diminish their dream, nor take away from their goal.

What has God called you to do? He's called every one of you to do something differently. It doesn't matter what God's called me to do, or Heather to do, or whether He's given you a gift like Lisa, or Jan, or Ruthanne, or whatever. What has God called you to do, and what are you doing to pursue it? What are you doing to make it become a reality?

I know it's of Him, I know He supplies the strength, I know He's the one that brings this to fruition, but where's your obedience toward that? If God's put a vision in your life, a dream in your life, what are you doing to pursue it? What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? If you knew there were no limits?

Renewing Your Vows

After all of that message, what I do are the vows. It might be good for you to reach over and take the hand of presumably your spouse. I'm not going to ask you to repeat after me, because that is going to complicate it. But maybe, let these vows serve as a close.

Here's what the vows are. First for the husband: I take you to be my wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, as long as we both shall live. I do.

Ladies then you: I take you to be my husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, as long as we both shall live.

The Meaning of Wedding Rings

Just a reminder of the rings. I'm not a jewelry guy. I don't wear a watch. My theory is there's clocks everywhere I go, and I don't need one. I don't like stuff on me, and I would not wear this wedding ring, except that early on I saw how much it meant to Susan. I think the more weddings I do, the more I'm reminded of what I say next.

The wedding rings you give to each other are beautiful symbols of your love for one another. They're an unbroken circle without a beginning or an end. May they symbolize your unending love for each other. They're made of precious metals and finely crafted and highly valued. Your marriage too should be precious, fine and valuable. For the years ahead, let these rings symbolize the beauty and the value of your love for each other.

Closing Prayer

Father, thank You for sending Your Holy Spirit to lead us to the Savior, to save us from our sin. God, thank You for the leading that You've provided us, the gentle nudging that comes to us in the course of a day, through Your Scripture, or through a friend, that confirms to us what we know—that our job, and our mission, and our purpose in life is to glorify You, to give You glory, to enjoy You forever.

God, we thank You that we can be in a beautiful place like this. God, my sense would be that, at least normally, You'd be touching hearts at a moment like this. It's so easy to do here. Our prayer is—and maybe we've taken runs at this dozens of times, maybe there's a spouse that's even afraid to utter the words of commitment again, knowing that the other one will say, "I've heard that before"—God, let this be different.

Let this be a time when we understand the extraordinary consequences of our sin, and vow through Your strength to be the men, the husbands, the wives, the women You'd have this group be. God, we present to You our lives as a sacrifice today. We thank You for Jesus, for His death and His life. We thank You for Your Spirit that saved us, regenerated us, that convicts us today.

Father, we thank You for a holy, righteous Judge who decided to extend to this group of people mercy and grace. God, we thank You for it and we pray to You this afternoon. In Jesus' name, Amen.