I want to ask you a question and I had to explain this game to somebody else and I'll tell you that story and I might have to explain to some of y'all but who here has ever played six degrees of Kevin Bacon? Is anybody good at it? Okay, Brian's good at it. I found a website I'll actually do it for you this week.
So we were playing in the series and we've been talking about being neighbors and neighborhoods and today we're going to talk about relationships and what strategic relationships look like. But we're in the office and Molly was helping me out to kind of plan and get ready for this series and we're looking at stuff and I brought up the six degrees of Kevin Bacon to her and she'd never heard of that game before. So I explained it to her where you take a famous person, an actor, a movie star, a musician and you try to figure out how many things they have done it takes to get them to Kevin Bacon. Okay, okay, let's do one real quick.
I don't know if she told me to do this person or if I just came up with my own but Molly is the world's biggest Taylor Swift fan. So we decided we're going to play six degrees of Kevin Bacon with Taylor Swift. Well Taylor Swift is a huge fan of Law and Order SVU. She has her cat named Olivia Benson and had Mariska Hardigay, I think it's a good name.
It was in her video for Bad Bloods and if you've ever played six degrees of Kevin Bacon you've realized if you can get to Law and Order it you've won because everybody's been on Law and Order. It's a little bit more sleuthing but found out that Mariska was in leaving Las Vegas after 1990 or 2000 and there's another person. So Taylor Swift, there's actually degrees of Bacon, they call this, I like anything that involves Bacon but degrees of Bacon that we figured out that Taylor Swift was three degrees of Bacon away from Kevin Bacon and that four degrees is actually really, really rare. That's a big stretch to get to four degrees of Bacon.
But I tell you the story because relationships are really powerful, especially one of the things I love, I'm not here from Monroe, I've lived here for about seven years now, I've been rusting for a while before that. But think about those people you know that know every, Facebook's made this a little bit easier if you've noticed. You can tell all of your shared relationships and your connected friends and that sort of saying it makes you have really fun conversations with people. Especially when you realize you might have should have met them 10 years ago but you didn't until now.
Relationships are strong, relationships are powerful and we're all connected to each other in really unique ways. I think about the last time you talked with somebody and you realize, oh wow, we were at the same place, we did the exact same thing. A couple of years ago I phone call from another Methodist pastor in the state, there's a good friend of mine who called and said, oh yeah I figured out we're four cousins. I had known him for 10 years and didn't know we were related.
Apparently his extremely fancy North Mississippi family had a red headed, they had a black sheep who'd say that. They decided to go down to South Mississippi for a few years and kind of kick it around. And all I knew of my great grandfather was, well he moved from North Mississippi and he was around for a while and he skinned out of town. And so I found out that I am the white trash family of my friend, Matt's, high fancy bow tie wearing North Mississippi elite.
And if you meet Matt, we still exemplify this exact same relationship today. But everyone has a circle. You have a circle. It's a relational network, whether you know it or not.
And our circles are powerful. This is about influence. Everyone of us has influence. Everyone of us has the ability to influence.
Something that I say a lot and you might get tired of me saying it, but is this that you are the best person to reach the people that you know? We just have to realize where our circles are and learn to leverage this influence. So this morning we're going to look at a chapter in the book of Acts, a story of Paul, but also the story of a lot of other people. We're going to kind of jump around the entire chapter a little bit.
We're going to look at that. We're going to look at relationships. We're going to look at what it's like to be intentional in our relationships. And we're going to talk about the power of your circle.
But if anything and acts when we read, we realize there's two things that are unique to Paul and his ministry. The first one is that he had explosive relationships. He had relationships that were consistently driving him further and farther. But Paul also had a missional strategy.
He had a strategy that he followed to reach people. We see that very, very well in Acts chapter 18. So let's open up our Bibles, chapter 18, verses 1 through 6 for this first section. So listen to these words.
You'll be on the screens behind where you can read them on your own, on your Bible or on your phone. Then Paul left Athens and he went to Corinth. And there he became acquainted with a Jew named Aquila Borne Pontius who had recently arrived from Italy with his wife, Priscilla. They left Italy when Claudia Caesar deported all the Jews from Rome.
And Paul lived and worked with them for their intent makers just as he was. Each Sabbath found Paul at the synagogue trying to convince the Jews in Greek alike. And after Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul spent all of his time teaching the word. He testified that Jews that Jews was a messiah.
When they opposed and insulted him, Paul shook the dust from his clothes and said your blood is upon your own heads. I am innocent. From now on, I will preach to the Gentiles. So in some kind of quick moving round about fashion, we see Paul, he's on one of his missionary journeys.
He leaves Athens and he shows up in a town and in Corinth. Now Corinth was positioned in modern degrees. It's positioned on an isthmus to where people had to be read next in Corinth and tell you what they did. They were really close to both parts of the Mediterranean and narrowed down right here.
So in Corinth they would actually pick up the ships out of the harbor and they would roll them on logs the six or seven miles across to Isthmus. And they would drop them on the other side of the Mediterranean, saving around a month long voyage. Somebody from the country figured out that solution. So Paul shows up there and he meets this husband and wife, Quilla and Priscilla.
The word that they use to describe him meeting them, it doesn't really show the emphasis in this translation. But it says the Greek word, your risko, I memorized this in seminary by thinking of the word Christo. It just slides out in front of you. But this is the word that's typically used when you find treasure.
Like when you unexpectedly stumble upon something that's extremely valuable. So Paul unexpectedly stumbled upon this relationship with his husband and wife that would prove to be very valuable to him. They both practiced the same trade. They were tent makers or they were leather workers.
Corinth was a town that had a lot of Olympic style games and so their trade was in high use there. So they decided to live together and they would probably have most shop makers in this way. Would have a workshop on the bottom and have a living quarters on top. And you think about it, if he partnered with a couple more of these tent makers, leather workers, these canopy makers.
Like when you think tent, not like the little coal man you buy at Walmart for mom and me or dad in the lab camp out. But these big huge pavilions and they had to have a shop big enough to stretch these things out. And they had to have a place to teach. They gave Paul a place to run churches out of and to start churches as a strategic relationship.
And then living together would allow that to happen while Paul could also just pour himself into them. But also look, there's more people that are mentioned. It's passage, silence and timothy are brought up. Two more people who've assisted Paul before his ministry.
Well, you realize that Paul collects relationships. Paul collects friendships. Paul stumbles upon people that will be valuable and to evaluate him as a person, valvialist ministry quite often. And there's a pattern that he keeps up with these people.
And we're seeing this unfold, this chapter with Priscilla and Aquila. That everyone has a circle. And Paul's circle right here, it expanded. It got bigger.
And he stays in court for a couple of years. And so we're fast forwarding. It might be 17 verses in scripture, but it's about two years of time in Acts 18, 18. It says this, Paul stayed in court for some time after that.
He said goodbye to the brothers and sisters and went to nearby Censchria. And there he shaved his head according to a Jewish custom marking ending of a vow. And then he set sail for Syria, taking Priscilla and Aquila with him. So Paul's ministry strategy is to move constantly whenever he feels the time has come for him to move.
And right now we see him. He has, he's picking up, he's moving, he's changing, going to start something else once co-worth is healthy. But he takes Priscilla and Aquila with him. He needs to have them with him, but he also feels their relationship is not yet done.
The things he's teaching them, the things they're teaching other people, the ways they're praying together, the ways they're seeking Jesus together, all these things that he's not yet done with their relationship. This is development strategy that Paul has. And it's said that he lived with Priscilla and Aquila, this word abide. It's the same thing we read that Jesus talks about in John 14 and 15.
He says, abide in me, his eye abide in the Father. He says, deep relational proximity, this is the relationship that matters. And so Paul's pouring in and we're seeing this is how Paul develops people. He develops them one on one in personal ways.
That we all have a circle and our circles get bigger. We don't drop people. That is our relationship expands. That are the things that we do together expand.
And finally, we come to a really unique place. And at 1824, this is what it reads, meanwhile, a June end of Paulos, an eloquent speaker who knew the scriptures well, had arrived in Ephesus from Alexandria and Egypt. And so when Paul was in Ephesus with Priscilla and Aquila, he decided to leave. He left them in Ephesus to do their own work.
And we pick up right there. A policy even taught the way of the Lord. He taught others about Jesus with enthusiastic spirit and of accuracy. However, he only knew about John's baptism.
When Priscilla and Aquila heard him preaching boldly in the synagogue, they took him aside and explained the way of God even more accurately. A policy been thinking about going to Chea and the brothers and sisters in Ephesus encouraged him to go. They wrote to the believers in Chea asking them to welcome him. When he arrived there, he proved to be a great benefit to those who had by God's grace, who believed.
So Paulos, the Priscilla and Aquila are left alone. Paul has to leave and go on back to Jerusalem to finish this up. But they're there. And now we begin to see the fruits of this year's long relationship of pouring into and developing Priscilla and Aquila that it works out.
They run into this guy named Apollo's who had been traveling as well and they realized that he did not have the whole story. So they did the exact same thing Paul did. They took him in. They took him into a relationship with them.
They took him in into proximity and closeness. They spent the time developing him and discipling him. And Paulos then proved to be a tremendous asset to the church all over the place. Priscilla recognized what God was asking him to do when they met him.
Priscilla and Aquila realized that they had been trained by Paul to do this very thing. And finally, in verse 27, we read that Apollo's feels called to go along and go somewhere else. So the church in Ephesus writes him a letter of recommendation. Think about that.
But they're saying, they're leveraging their influence. They're sending their influence along this church to let them know he's trustworthy, he's good, he's going to be an asset to you. We're willing to extend our influence for this man named Apollo's. Everyone has a circle and our circles are supposed to reproduce.
So we read this and we see that if Paul had a mission strategy about relationships, we can see pretty clearly we don't have to ask ourselves that question. We'll read that Paul has his pattern that he follows and Paul collects relationships, but he collects these people and disciples them and trains them and prays with them and sees them grow and then sends them out to do the things that God is calling them to do. If Paul has a mission strategy, if Paul has a relationship strategy, shouldn't we then have a mission strategy, shouldn't we have a relationship strategy? That's not just a question.
He's like, oh, Chad's supposed to have one of those. That's what he does for a living. But this is for all of us. And this is not just for us as individuals as us to think about as a church.
What is our church's relationship strategy? How do we identify the way that we relate to people, to share with them who God is. Think about the conversations he's asked a couple weeks. We've had a lot of individual specific conversations.
But if Paul was showing us all of this, I can't help but think that I should and that we should have the same levels of strategy. It's weird to think of God being strategic, isn't it? That's typically not something you attach to it. But what we see is Paul's mission definitely has a rhythm and a pattern to it.
So a few things for us to think about. The first one is a phrase I said over and over and over this morning. Everyone has their own circle. Everyone has a circle.
You're the best person to reach the people that you know. Think about it. Think about all the people that you see on a weekly basis. And I imagine that if we put all of our collective Facebook networks together this room right now, we'll see a lot of overlap.
But as much overlap as we see, we'll also see a lot of expansion. We'll see a lot of people that only a handful of us know. That's just the fact of matter. I'm going to know people that you're not going to know and you're going to know people that I'm not going to know.
If we realize how deeply personal evangelism equals relationships, if we realize how deeply personal it is, then we realize that us, if we care about the people that we are around the most, that we take responsibility for them. Everyone has a circle. You have a realm of influence in your life, no matter what you do. And that realm of influence is going to have a certain degree of uniqueness to it.
That you're the only person who can exert that influence. This is deep personalization and honors deep personhood. Last week I talked about how when we used the word witness, many of us kind of tightened up a little bit because of our gnarly experiences within the past, we deeply care about people. We realize that the deep and big honor it is to honor who that person, when she said love your neighbor as yourself, he's saying you realize how much every single person is valuable.
Then we begin to understand the brevity and the depth of those statements. We realize what a role we have in influencing others. The second thing is this, that you never know who is in your circle. Paul stumbles upon Priscilla and Aquila.
They're right there in front of him. It's a valuable relationship. They're valuable to the kingdom. They're valuable to this mission.
They're valuable for what's about to be poured out. It's just right there in front. It's valuable. Imagine what would have happened if they would have not run into each other.
Imagine how that would have impacted this ministry. Not for just for Paul, just for Handy having a couple people to help him, but their ability to stretch out. Think about this. This is the last couple years.
This has been just so formation on my own personal life. What if Jesus strategically puts people in our life that we were supposed to be responsible for? Think about that. What if there are people that are put in front of you for a specific reason?
Because you might be the best person to reach that person. What does it look like to realize that, wow, this might be a very easy person to have a relationship with or this might be a very tough person to have a relationship with. But to say, I really think Jesus has put them in my life for a reason. And what it looks like to make relational decisions based off of that.
We're surprised. We never know what Jesus is going to do or who Jesus is going to put in front of us. And the last thing is this, that circles, they turn into spheres when we leverage our influence. Think about it.
It becomes from a two dimensional pathway to a three dimensional dynamic relationship, a dynamic strategy that's here. Because you've asked me, who's this Paulist guy? I keep talking about this Apollo's Apollo's Apollo's Apollo's. I've never heard of this guy before.
Well, a couple of things. Number one, by the point in time that we're right here in Acts, this entire book is now about Paul. There is nothing that's not about Paul, but about chapter 15 in Acts. Luke who wrote Acts just took a detour for about eight or nine verses to talk about a situation where Paul is not in whatsoever at all, where it's not about Paul as the primary actors.
And we hear about this guy named Apollo's that we hear about only a couple of more times. I've got to think that the writer, but as far as I can tell from about an hour-long glance last night to make sure this statement was true, this is the only passage now from about 15 on in Acts that's not about Paul. Now, we hear about Apollo's in a couple more places. I'm beginning to think that the reason that Luke decided to put this little bit of a story in here is because Apollo's vital to this movement of the church in the first century.
This is what we do know about Apollo's. He is mentioned later on. He's mentioned by Paul. Paul, when he's in Rome about to die, he's kind of making some calls.
For some folks he wants to see again or some folks will be helpful to him in Rome and is asking him to send him Apollo's. He's like, bring me Apollo's. So we find that their relationship ends up meeting at some point in time. We find that Apollo's had a tremendous ministry in Corinth.
It kind of stirred up a little bit of a Kirchnuffle, I guess. It's the reason that Paul had to kind of write first and second Corinthians. That Apollo's was a leading person in the first century. The book of Hebrews is the only book in New Testament that we can't say with absolute certainty who wrote.
Even the church fathers, 150 years after the formation of the New Testament will say the only person who knows Hebrews is Jesus himself. The strongest argument for the person who wrote the book of Hebrews is Apollo's. The reason I think that Luke stuck these eight or nine verses in here was for us to realize this is how important Apollo's is to the church. And imagine if a Priscilla and a Quilla had not known what it was like to leverage their relationships, to leverage their discipleship, and to leverage the training and the time that Paul spent with them that none of this might have ever happened.
That that person that Jesus puts into your life might have a dynamic impact for generations of Christians after you. And then you're circling through your circle, turning into spheres when we realize what influence is like and how powerful influence is. So this week as I was preparing, I realized I needed to actually spend more time back checking my Taylor Swift to Kevin Bacon through Mariska Hardigan. And I found said website that lets you enter a person's name in and it will automatically tabulate for you and attach to IMDB and gives you all the information.
And I realized that me trying to get to Kevin Bacon from Taylor Swift through Mariska Hardigan was actually a long way to do it. That you didn't even have to do it. Because Taylor Swift was in the Hannah Montana movie in 2009. And there's one more person between her and Kevin Bacon.
That relationship was closer than I imagined to be. Underestimated the power of relational networks and relational circles. Now, hopefully that does not have a life-affecting impact. But think about it.
Your circles are strong. The circles that you have right now are stronger than you can ever imagine they are. And we shouldn't underestimate them. Because they can have impact for dozens, if not hundreds, or thousands of years to come.
Whatever Jesus is asking us to do. Our circles are strong. So leaving you with this. What are your circles?
Think about the places where you have influence. Some of you might be questioning, well, I don't have influence anywhere. Okay. I'll give you that.
I used to think that same thing. But if you ask yourself how I leveraged my influence, you might find out there's where the issue is. What is it like to step into places intentionally and realize, okay, I'm here for a reason? Jesus, show me what that reason is.
Where are your circles? What are your circles? You might have circles that make a lot of sense. You might have circles that make absolutely no sense to you.
You might have places of circles that you wish wouldn't matter to you but are worthless. I spent about two years trying to invest in a group of people that never absolutely panned out what's over at all. And I ultimately had to drop it because I realized I was spending several hours each week trying to get a toe in the door and never really could. That was hours I could spend in places I already have been able to leverage influence.
So what are your circles? Who is in your circle? Think about the people. Do you get the chance to be around the most in life?
This is about relationships. And us learning what it's like to truly be in relationships with people. What's it like for us to realize, I said this last week, but think about it again, that there's no such thing as a second generation Christian. Every single one of us who can call Jesus Lord, who have learned what it's like to trust Him, we were in someone's circle at some point in time.
It might have been a grandmother or a grandfather or a parent and you came to faith in an extremely young age. You might have been an adult and you can instantly tell me right now who that person was and what was the situation and what allowed it to be. Every single one of us, we were in somebody's circle at some point in time. There's no such thing as a second generation Christian.
So who is in your circle? Friends, we're about to come into the summer. This is the world weekend. This is the beginning of summer in most of our hours.
We're about to step into three months that are going to be all about relationships. One of the things I love about Monroe, people ask me about what's so unique about Northeast Louisiana. I'll tell them, I'll tell you what even the grownups take summer here. Life just changes around us here in this area when summer hits, right?
Like you want to find a time to have a little bit more recreation, find time to have a little bit more relationships, have the time to spend a little bit more time on that back porch with your friends or out on the lake or in your driveway, wherever your relating happens. We're stepping into a season where every single one of us can dig super deep in relationships. Our prayer is that we make this the summer of intentionality of us just saying, okay, I'm going to be intentional. Jesus, help me to see why I am where I am and who I need to be pouring into because we've all been poured into before.
Let's pray. Jesus, thank you for having folks that have gone on before us. Some of us can tell you those people are, some of us might not be able to and that kind of gets more fun. We just realize how maybe a host of people or a community of people or how people raid for us without us ever knowing it.
But Jesus, as we begin to contemplate your love, help us to see how you want us to react to that love and how you want us to share that. Jesus, for the people in this room, they're still struggling with calling you. We're kind of brave for them to see you clearly. God, for those of us who are comfortable with that fact, I pray that you would send us out and let us see the people who we need to pour into.
For those of us who are continually pouring out, I ask you to help us take it to the next level and learn what it's like to multiply and to lead people like Paul. God, thank you for not making this dishonest and depersonalized, but making this about relationships. We see that you're your son. There's love for you, his care for you, and his response to you, his obedience to you, and how he taught that to his disciples and said, if you want to know the Father, just pay attention to me.
I thank you for those who have gone on before us, help us to have the faith, to have the holiness, and to have the life where we can now be those for people for those around us. Jesus, thank you so much. I pray.