Ephesians 1 - Pauls Prayer - Part 8 — Gareth Evans

The Reality of God's Presence and Pentecost Revival

Are you a people of hope? Are you a people of glory? Have you experienced that burning within of the reality of God, of the infinite dwelling within you? That's what we want you to know. On the day of Pentecost, when the men and women came out of that upper room, they said they were drunk because they were changed men and women.

Peter's Pentecost Explanation and the Glory of Revival

Why? Peter said, we are not drunken men. This is that which was spoken of the prophet Joel, for glory has come upon us. That's what he was saying. And Paul says, I pray for you in Cape and Ray in 1995, that you might know the riches of the glory of God among his people, his inheritance.

Amen. That's what revival is. You know, I come from Wales, the land of revival. It's called the land of revival. I was telling Peter a little, it's always invidious to give personal testimonies, you know what I mean?

But it's a little illustration that was a great blessing to me. I was preaching, lay preaching, a lot of it in Wales, a lot of opportunities. Preaching in a church that would hold two and a half thousand people, built during the revival in 1904.

Maybe some of you have not heard of the revival, but in 1904 in Wales was what they called the greatest revival probably since the day of Pentecost. I read it in an American book just a couple of weeks ago, the same thing, comment.

This church was built at that time to seat two and a half thousand people. There were 25 people in the congregation the night I preached there and scattered through the building. At the end of the service, a man comes up to me, he'd been seated about eight rows back, he and his wife.

And his wife said to me, oh Mr. Evans, I need to apologize for my husband, not knowing he was standing right behind her. And he said to her, it's alright my dear, he said, I can apologize for myself. He said, Mr. Evans, if I appeared to be sleeping, I really wasn't, he said.

But as you opened the meeting in prayer, I bowed my head and I heard the voice of old Elder Lewis, one of the elders of the church, when I was a boy. Because at 16 years of age, in that same pew, I gave my life to Jesus, 1910 or whatever it was.

And he said, for 60 years I've not walked with him as I ought. And when you opened in prayer today, I heard old Elder Lewis' voice. And I was convicted and I'd made myself right with God during the service.

Didn't you hear a word I preached? God doesn't have to have a preaching note to speak to, you know that, don't you? But the man made himself right with God. Then he said to me, I don't know what it was about the prayer, but I know this, that you, like he, Elder Lewis, are a child of the revival.

Now Elder Lewis had come to the Lord through that glorious days when the Spirit of God moved upon my country. And pubs were closed, the prisons were closed, the judges were issued white gloves because there were no cases to try.

The miners went down the pits and sang worship songs an hour before they dug coal. That's the story that happened in Wales in those days. 60 ,000 people came to the Lord, and God's Spirit swept through the land.

And Mr. Lewis was a child of that revival. But this old man John says to me in 1975, you are also a child of the revival. What I'm saying is this, I'm not that old, but the Spirit of God moves nationally in revival, can move individually in revival in your heart and mind.

That's the glory of God. And he expects, he wants you and me to know it, and Paul prays for these people, that as God gives revelation of himself, they might know their hope, eager expectation, and they might know the reality of the glory of God among his people.

Knowing the Surpassing Greatness of God's Power

Thirdly, that they might know the surpassing power, greatness of his power. Do you serve a great God? I serve a great God. Nothing is impossible with the God I serve. There are times he holds his hands back for my benefit.

But Paul prays that you and I might know something of his power. We will one day. It's the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and the assurance that we have, the hope we have, hallelujah, I trust every one of you, is that we also will be raised.

But during this walk, during this life, he wants to reveal his power to you and to me. He wants you to know that he is concerned about you, that he's leading you, he's concerned about what he's doing in you, and this week you can experience something of his greatness as he leads you and does things for you.

That's Paul's prayer. It's a good prayer, isn't it? Let's make it our prayer this week, okay? Let me just go into chapter 3 to conclude our thoughts, because really chapter 3 follows on from what he said in chapter 1 in the prayer.

Paul's Prayer for Strength, Love, and God's Fullness

Verse 14, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives his name. I pray that he would grant to you, people in Cape and Ray, January 1995, according to the riches of his glory.

Is there a limit to his riches? No, there's not. No, there's no limit to his riches. That you might be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man. That will, that conscience, that mind, that God by his Spirit is transforming and renewing, that his power might be working in you, so that Christ may dwell in you through faith.

And that you then, being rooted and grounded in him, in love, might be able to understand something of the length, the breadth, the height, the depth, and to know the love of God which surpasses knowledge.

And then truly you will know what it is to be filled up with the very fullness of God. He starts off by commending them for their love for one another. He prays at the end that their love might be the fullness of God's love.

That's God's goal, to make us a people in whom he lives and through whom he loves. Amen? Do you want to be that? I pray that this week in all the teachings, not just my own, but the other teachings as well, might encourage us to be a people who desire to know God in a deeper, deeper, richer way.

God's Riches in Christ and the Meaning of Grace

He wants you to know the riches that are yours in Christ. Do you know grace, the word grace? I don't know if you've ever heard it defined this way, G-R-A-C-E, God's riches at Christ's expense. He died that you and I might know all the riches of God.

That you might know that hope, that you might know the glory of his presence, that you might know the power of his strength working in you. That you might comprehend the length, the breadth, the height, the depth, the love of God in Christ Jesus.

The Doxology of God's Abundant Power

I pray that God might reveal that to you and to me this week as we wait upon him. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us.

To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and forever. God's people said.