Ephesians 1 - Pauls Prayer - Part 5 — Gareth Evans

Knowing God as Savior and Provider

To know that I am his and he is mine. That was real. He was my saviour. I knew him. As I went on to university, I studied in university, I discovered that he was my provider, my guardian, who led me. He was the one who stepped and walked with me day by day.

I knew him more than simply a friend and a saviour. I knew him as one who cared for me and led me. Anne and I married. We had three children. I went to Hong Kong, taught with the British forces, then taught in Germany with the forces, the other way around.

Experiencing God as Healer

Then in 1975, emigrated to Canada. Anne, during her childhood, had a major goiter and we had to seek the Lord for healing. She had operation and the Lord did a miraculous, wonderful work. I got to know him as the Lord, my healer.

Jehovah Rapha, as he called himself in the scriptures, he revealed more of himself to me. Went to Canada. In the first two years in Canada, we really struggled. Our income was very little. I was the highest paid rank of teaching in Britain, but when I got to Canada, I was paid $9 ,000 Canadian dollars, $11 ,000 Canadian dollars a year, which I thought was good money compared to Britain, until I discovered that the average teacher's salary was about $25 ,000 Canadian dollars a year.

Discovering God as Provider

The first two years we were in Canada, we struggled very, very much. It was very difficult. Several times in the first year in particular, in the middle of the month, we had no money. We had no money.

And God stepped in through the kindness of fellow believers, under nothing of our circumstances, and miraculous things. The Canadian government gave me a check for $1 ,500, which two years later, they told me they'd made a mistake and they wanted the money back.

I paid it back in $30 a month for 50 months, or $50 a month for 30 months. In other words, I did interest free from the government for three years. That's a miracle. And God provided these things for us, and we got to know him as Jehovah Jireh, our provider.

He was revealing more and more of himself to me. And I could talk about the miracles we saw God do in our lives, but in 1988, I was pastor in a church in Victoria, British Columbia, and I run a little school and discipleship for people, not just from my church, but from the city.

Encountering God's Compassion in Mexico

And that Christmas, 1988, I took 15 people down to Mexico City, and God revealed himself in a very new and deeper way. See, all the time until then, the God I knew was a God who cared for me as a mother cares for her little children.

He loved me, he blessed me, he looked after me. I never realized he wanted me to bless him. But in Mexico City, he took me upon his lap, and I felt the burning tears that he was weeping for the hurting people of Mexico.

I've never been in such a situation before, in orphanages, seeing little children weeping and crying. And I began, as I sat upon his lap, to feel not just the hot tears, but to hear the broken heart of my Lord.

And he revealed something more of himself. He revealed some of his compassion and the pain he feels for this world. And I will never be the same after that. The following Christmas, I went and took another party, then I joined a mercy ship.

Feeling the Heartbeat of God for a Hurting World

I will never be happy going back into the pulpit of Canada, preaching to the regular congregation who listen on Sunday for an hour, and then go home and are unchanged. I'm sorry, friends, I cannot be the same.

I have felt the heartbeat of God. He has revealed something of himself to me, and I cannot be the same. And I pray this week that you will feel the heartbeat of God. Not just his compassion and his pain for this hurting world, for the abortion situation, and for the loneliness situation, for the broken marriages and the hurting children.

Not just for that, for Bosnia. Not just for that. Not just for Rwanda. But you'll feel his compassion and his love for you, and for me. I pray that is what you will understand, and I will understand something of the revelation of God as he makes himself known to us.

I have become convinced in the last five years there is so much more of him I need to know. There is so much more of him he wants to reveal to me. And I anticipate this week him revealing something more to me of what he wants to do in my life.

And I trust in your life too. Is that your desire? Some of you are not quite sure now. Maybe you don't want to feel the pain. I want to know what God wants me to know. I want to know him. I pray, as Paul prayed in his letter to the Ephesians, that he might reveal himself to you by giving to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation.

Paul's Prayer for Enlightened Hearts

Then Paul goes on and he prays three things, and they're very beautiful things. I pray that the eyes of your heart might be enlightened so that you might know.