Love of Christ — Gareth Evans

Paul's Prayers for the Ephesians

So where do we start? Well, I guess the best place to start in anything we look at is to start with prayer. I think the best way to start in prayer is to look at what Paul actually prayed when he wrote his letter to the Ephesians.

So if you take your Bibles and turn to the book of Ephesians with me, what we're going to do tonight is simply look at Paul's prayer. Now each night I'm going to be giving you notes, but I'm going to give them at the end of the session because I know if you're anything like me, you'll spend your time reading the notes instead of concentrating on what we're talking about.

And I'd like you to maybe write your own notes, but also at the end I will be giving you notes. In the six chapters of the book of Ephesians, Paul records for us two prayers. If you like, one prayer, but it's separated by a chapter and a half, and I'd like to read those prayers for you and make them our prayers for this week.

I trust they will be your prayers. It's certainly my prayer for this week. In chapter 1 of the book of Ephesians, Paul starts his thinking at verse 15. He says, I do not cease to make mention of you in my prayers.

And this is my prayer, verse 17. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of himself. I pray that the eyes of your hearts may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe.

Is that your prayer, to know him? Paul's prayer for the Ephesians, as he wrote this letter, or to the group of people that he wrote this letter to, the initial mind was that they might know God, they might have a revelation and know him.

Then he continues the prayer in a real sense in chapter 3, verse 14, I bow my knees before God, and really he's continuing the same prayer. That he would grant to you, according to the riches of his glory, that you might be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man.

So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, the length, the height, the depth.

And to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. How many of you want to be filled with God and the knowledge of God? That's why you've come here, I assume.

You didn't come here for a holiday, though I trust it's going to be a good time here. You didn't come here just for fellowship, though Christian fellowship is so sweet. I trust you came because you want to know God in a deeper way.

Is that right? I want to know God deeper. I've known him now since I was 16 years of age. I trusted him as my saviour when I was 16, came from a non-Christian background. I've never been in a backslidden state.

By that I mean I've never had my back turned towards God. There have been times when I've gone through dryness, but I've always wanted to know him more. I prayed that prayer, Lord I want to know you more.

I prayed in many different forms, Lord I need to know your will, Father I need to know your purpose in this. Lord I have a hunger to serve you, I want to serve you more. I remember as a young person singing a song which I would not dare sing nowadays, I want to burn out for thee, dear Lord, burn and wear out for thee.

Don't let me rust, or my life be a failure, my God, to thee. I wouldn't say that now because I see so many people in full-time service burning out. It's not a pleasant experience to burn out. So I don't use that song, but it expresses the burden that my heart always has.

I want to know God and I want to know him more. I trust you do too. And I pray that that might be our experience this week, that when we leave here at the end of the week, we can truly say that we've come to know him more, just as Paul prayed.

Faith and Love as Conditions for Knowing God

What are the conditions for knowing God? Are there conditions? Are there preconditions? Yes, I believe there are. And I believe we have a hint of them here in Paul right into the Ephesians. There is something about the man or woman, there's something about you and me that needs to be there before God is willing to reveal more of himself to us.

And it's to do with our name. Now I don't mean the name Gareth, I don't mean the name Peter, I don't mean the name Dan. I mean name in the sense that the Bible speaks of name. Are you aware that in the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament days, the name spoke very much about the character of the person?

In fact, if you look through the Old Testament, if you take something like Strong's Concordance and look up the meaning of the names, you'll be struck how often the name really speaks much about the character of the person.

You remember Jacob's wife actually named some of her sons according to the sorrow that she experienced and some of the hopes that she experienced. You shall call his name, said the angel, Jesus, which means Saviour, because he shall save his people from their sin.

The character of the person, the name of the person, is so important. And as Paul writes to the Ephesians, he speaks about the character, and this is what he says about the people for whom he is praying.

I thank God for you, verse 16, because of the faith that you have in the Lord Jesus, verse 15, I'm sorry. I've heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you, and I've also heard of your love for one another.

Chapter 1, verse 15. The people for whom he is praying have this characteristic, that they're known for their faith in God and their love for one another. If there was a soapbox that I as a pastor stand on, if there was a message which is most prominent in my teaching, it is the need today for the people of God to love one another.

The priority in the heart of Jesus, one of the sessions we shall teach, is for the unity of the body of Christ. It is one of the greatest tragedies in the church today, is the lack of love that Christians often display for one another.

And if you want to know God in a deeper way, I want to suggest to you that the same conditions are necessary in you and in me tonight, for God to reveal something more of himself to us, and that is that we have to be a people of faith, a people who are walking the walk of faith with God, and a people of love.

Love for one another. John in his epistles made this statement, he said, it's impossible for you to say you love God if you do not love one another. Indeed you are a liar, that's the word he uses. Are you a people tonight here at Cape and Ray, who can truly say that when God looks at you, a character, he sees a man, a woman, with whom he is pleased because he knows of your desire to walk in faith with him, and he knows of your love for one another.

It is those people, I believe, that Paul thanks God for, but then it's those people that he is willing to pray for, that God will make himself known to them. We do not often find people today who love their fellow men, and yet do not love God, and yet there are some.

I suppose you probably heard of the television news, which came out yesterday of this man in Boston who went into an abortion clinic and shot two women and injured five others because of his love, quote, for mankind and for the unborn.

So he displays that love by killing people. Tragic. What a misplaced love, a misunderstanding. It is very possible, however, to be the other way around within the Christian church, and that is to say I love God and I serve God without ever displaying true love for one another.

In fact, it is a terrible indictment on the church that very often the higher up in the hierarchy of the church you go, the less approachable you are to people. Isn't it amazing, in your denomination and in mine and in probably most parachurch organizations, very, very seldom, if ever, will you find in the job description of those who reach the top of the ladder that they must love their fellow man.

And yet that is what I believe Christ calls us to be as foundational to a Christian walk, and it is those people to whom he is willing to reveal himself. The parish priest of Austerity climbed up in a high church steeple to be nearer God, so that he might pass his word down to his people.

And in sermon script he daily wrote what he thought was sent from heaven, and he dropped it down on his people's heads two times, one day and seven. In his age, God said, come down and die. And he cried out from the steeple, he said, where are you God?

And the Lord replied, I am here among my people. It is so possible to be so wrapped up in the things of God that we fail to be a people who love his people. I speak as a pastor, I know many pastors who fit that criteria.

But you and me this evening, the character that God desires us to have as a foundation before he is willing to reveal himself to us is that we must be a people who not only desire to walk in his walk in faith with him, but a people also of whom it is known that we love one another.

I thank God because everyone around knows of your faith in God, faith in the Lord, and your love for all the saints. I do not cease to give thanks for you. Therefore I pray for you that he might grant to you, according to the riches of his glory, chapter one, that he might make himself known to you, and given to you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in knowing him.

Wisdom and Revelation Through the Inner Person

That's my prayer for you, that's my prayer for me, that God might grant to us a special spirit of wisdom and revelation. If you look back in verse eight, Paul speaks about wisdom and insight. He draws a distinction between the two.

Insight, phrenosis, Greek word, is that which is common sense. That sort of thing where we should know the right from the wrong, things we learn from experience. But wisdom is not the knowing of the mind, it is the knowing of the heart.

He says, I pray that the eyes of your heart might be enlightened, that the eyes of your heart might be opened to see and to know God. This is something for the inner man, it's not something for the outer man.

Christian wisdom is not something you gain by reading books, not even per se by reading scriptures and being knowledgeable in their teaching. It is something deeper than that, it is something that has become by direct revelation of God.

And he only gives that revelation to those whose character he recognizes as people of faith and people of love. I think of Peter. You remember the story of Peter, the wonderful story, how Peter is walking with the Lord.

Matthew chapter 11, we read it there. I'm sorry, I gave you the wrong reference. Somebody can find it as I look in my notes. Matthew 16, I'm sorry. Jesus had been with his disciples. He had seen them feed the five thousand.

They had heard him teach. They had seen him perform many miracles. For up to this time he had never spent any time alone with his disciples. And we read that he took his disciples and journeyed with them a day and a half's journey to the north of the country, to the regions of Caesarea Philippi.

And they walk in on the slopes of Mount Hermon. And Jesus turns to his disciples and says, Tell me, and I paraphrase, you've now been with me three years. What have you learned about me? What do you really know about me?

Tell me, who do people say that I am? The disciples said, well, some say you're Elias the prophet. Others say that you're John the Baptist, come back to life. Then Jesus said, now tell me, you who have been with me so long a time, whom do you say that I am?

And Peter said, you are the Christ. You are the Messiah. You are the one we are longing for. You are God himself. And Jesus said, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah. Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you.

The natural has not revealed this to you. But my Father has revealed this to you. This is the spirit of wisdom and revelation. It has not come by the natural process of intellect. Peter did not display great intellect most of his time.

This has come by direct revelation of God. Blessed are you because my Father has revealed it to you. Blessed are you men and women in Cape and Ray. I trust in January 1995 that when you leave here you can truly say, the Father has revealed himself to me.

I find it striking that Jesus then goes on immediately and says, I say to you that you have, though you've been called Simon, your name shall be Peter. Because the character that is there, Peter, is that of the rock.

The name, the character is associated with the revelation. It's striking, isn't it, how Peter, this rock, just six months later in Pilate's kitchen, crumbled at the words of a little girl. It wasn't a very strong rock, more like dried clay.

And as he was squeezed by the comments of the little girl and the servant, in Pilate's kitchen, the clay crumbled. Yet God knew something about this man. This man with a foot-shaped mouth. You know, he always put his foot in his mouth, this man did.

Of the disciples, he was the last one that I would have trusted with the revelation. Yet this was the man who was willing to be in Pilate's kitchen when all the others had fled. This was the one who later turned the world upside down when he had been infilled with the power of the Holy Spirit.

This was the one who tradition teaches was crucified upside down. God knew this man, and it was to this man that he revealed himself. Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah. Flesh and blood did not reveal this.

Moses and the Revelation of God's Character

I think of Moses. The children of Israel had turned away from God. They had made themselves an idol, and they had worshipped this idol in Exodus chapter 33. And Moses comes down from meeting with God, and he breaks the tablets of stone, and he sees the people worshipping the golden calf.

And God says to Moses in chapter 33 of Exodus, I will not go with you because these people have turned away from me. They are stiff-necked people. And Moses cries unto God and says, Oh God, please do not forsake us.

Please go with us. And he removed the tent of the tabernacle from out of the area where the children of Israel were so that it was outside the camp, and he used to go there daily with young Joshua to meet his God.

And he pleaded with God that God would go with him. In verse 13 of chapter 33, this is his prayer. Now therefore I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way that I may know thee.

I want to know you, God. And the Lord said, My presence shall go with you. I will give you rest. Verse 17. And the Lord said to Moses, I will do this thing also that you have spoken, for you have found grace in my sight, and I know you by name.

Moses, I know what's deep inside you. I know you better than you know yourself. I know your character. And therefore, Moses, I'm going to reveal myself to you. And Moses said, Lord, I beseech thee, show me thy glory.

And he said, Moses, I will do that. I will let my goodness pass before thee. And I will proclaim my name to you. I'm going to reveal to you who I am because I know, Moses, who you are. I won't spend a lot of time, but we go into chapter 34.

And Moses is hidden in the cleft of the rock, and God passes by. And then the Lord descended in the clouds, chapter 34, verse 5. And he stood with him there, with Moses. And he proclaimed his name. And this is what God revealed to himself.

And this is something, I pray, that you and I will understand of God this week. Listen how God describes God. This is how he reveals himself to Moses. Verse 6, chapter 34 of Exodus. And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed the Lord.

The Lord God. I want to know if this is the God you know. It's the God I know. It's the God I know and impart, getting to know better day by day. This is the God who reveals himself to Moses. A God who is merciful and gracious.

Long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth. Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression of sin. But that will not by any means clear the guilty. He's a God who is just. But a God of compassion.

A God of mercy and goodness and truth. He said, Moses, I know your name. I'm going to reveal myself to you. This is who I am. This is my name, Moses. And Paul, in writing to the Ephesians, as we start in this book tonight, says to them, I pray for you, people of faith and of love, that you might know the spirit of wisdom and revelation of him.

Just as he revealed himself to Moses, that the risen, exotic Christ might reveal himself and all his nature to you and me this week. Is that your desire? That's my desire. I came to the Lord when I was 16.

Testimony of Salvation, Healing, and Provision

I had a radical conversion. It was very real to me. I knew the Lord as my saviour, my personal saviour. He was, to use a biblical name, he was Jehovah's kid of my righteousness. I knew my sins were forgiven.

I knew I had peace with God. I experienced the joy. Trust the Lord. Heaven above was soft. The blue earth around was sweet agreement. Something lived in every hill that Christless eyes had never seen.

All this full and perfect peace. All this rapture, all divine, 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.

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

Jehovah Rasha, 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.

And the first two years we were in Canada, we struggled very, very much. It was very difficult. And 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 who knew 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.

Experiencing God's Compassion and Heart for the Hurting

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'd 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. Following Christmas, I went and took another party.

Then I joined the mercy ship. 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.

Christian Hope as Eager Expectation

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 what is the hope of his calling, the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and the surpassing greatness of his power to us.

Now are you a people of hope? It strikes me that that's one of those characteristics of the Christian that we don't speak very much about. I think it's because we have such a false understanding of what hope is.

Paul speaks, you know, in that wonderful chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians about now abides these three, faith, hope, and love. He ties those three together very often. In the first chapter of his letter to the Thessalonians he ties them together.

And here in this prayer he ties them together. I thank God for you, he says, because of your faith and because of your love. And I pray for you that you might know the hope of his calling. What is hope?

I hope it doesn't rain all the time we are here this week. That's the worst kind of hope. I hope the English cricket team can perform better tomorrow. I hope I don't get sunburned too badly. I hope I pass my exams.

That's the way the world speaks about hope, and the trouble is that that kind of thinking has gotten to our Christian minds as well. Because every one of those hopes that the world expresses has by its very definition a negative possibility.

England have collapsed already today, they're going to collapse even more tomorrow, and Australia is going to score 500 runs in the first inning. You may fail your exams. You may get sunburned. When we express hope in the sense that this world, we are always expressing something that has a possibility of a negative result.

The Greek word elpis, which is what we translate as hope, has no such connotation. There is no negative involved with Christian hope. It means literally, the best way it's been interpreted is eager expectation.

Because it's a sure thing. Peter says it's like an anchor placed within a veil, it cannot be shaken. So I ask you, what's your hope? Paul says, I pray that you might know the hope of your calling, which is solid, cannot be shaken, it's real, it's unchanging, it's absolute, it's going to happen.

I want you to know that I utterly and absolutely convince, as much as a scientist can possibly be and more, that I know, that I know, that I know that my sins are forgiven, brothers and sisters. That's my hope.

I don't say I hope my sins are forgiven, with a possibility they may not be. I say that I know, that I know, that I know. That's Christian hope. Amen? Eager expectation. I know that my Savior is coming back for me.

I know that He's prepared a place for me. I know I shall live with Him for eternity. I know He's conquered death and hell. I know Satan is defeated. Why? Because the Word of God declares it. I believe it.

It's God's Word. It's true. It's my hope. I'm hoping I'm not wasting and missing out on life by being a Christian. I hope when I die that I don't discover all that I believed really was not worthwhile.

I tell you, this is the most exciting life there is, is being a Christian, because we've got hope. Eager expectation. Hope has got far more to do with believing than faith has. And we've mixed the two up.

Faith has got to do with obeying. Hope has got to do with believing. The Word of God says it. I believe it. That's hope. And that hope is an anchor in the veil. And Paul says, and I pray for you here in Cape Henry this week, that when you leave here this week, you'll be able to say, I know that I know that I know.

That's hope. Paul says, I pray that God might reveal Himself to you so that you might have hope. Amen? That's my hope. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. It's an anchor within the veil.

It cannot be shaken. And however old you are, however long you've been in the Christian walk, you can cling on to Jesus with absolute certainty because He gives you hope. Listen, not the hope that says, maybe you'll fail.

The hope that says, He cannot, for He is God. That's hope. And I pray that this week your hope and my hope will be increased. Paul prays for them that they might have hope. He says, I pray also that you might know what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.

The Glory of God's Presence Among His People

You are the saints, you are His inheritance. What is the riches of His glory among us? That's another word, isn't it, that's strange. Not really understood by believers. That word, glory. What is glory?

What does glory mean to you? A shining light. When you say something's glorious, what does it mean? Praise that you and I might know the riches of His glory among us. For we are the inheritance among the saints.

I'd like to define glory this way. I believe glory is everything that God is. The prophets of the Old Testament described, tried to describe what they saw when they saw the glory of God. You read Ezekiel, it's a wonderful, wonderful description he gives when he tries to describe and the glory of the Lord came into the temple or into the tabernacle.

And he says something like this, and I saw and it was like, you read yourself, this is how he's describing it. It was like a glass sea was there. And there was like a throne above the water, above the sea.

And there was one sitting upon the throne and he was like, oh, it is beyond describing. He said there was like a rainbow flashing through it and all these wonderful colours and this cloud, this glorious, wonderful, he's trying to describe God.

And he can't. How can a mortal man describe the immortal in terms of mortality? You cannot do it. He's trying to describe the glory of God. And Paul prays to you and me that we might know something about the riches of His glory among us.

Abundant riches, surpassing riches. I would suggest to you that the glory of God is His presence, all that He is amongst His people. I described to you just now the ongoing revelation of God that I have experienced in my own limited experience of knowing Him as my friend and my saviour.

And beyond that, He became my healer and my supplier. And beyond that, I began to know more and more of Him. I began to know more and more of the glory of God. But He is so much more. There have been those days when walking out, particularly I enjoy praying when I walk.

I'm one of those who loves to walk when I pray. I don't know if you like that, particularly out in the country. I like singing and I start singing and I'm talking and I feel as though my heart would burst within me.

What am I experiencing? I'm experiencing something of the infinite who dwells within. Paul writes this way to the Colossians, Christ in you, the hope of Hallelujah. He wants to reveal His glory among us, brothers and sisters.

He doesn't want us to stand afar off looking like Moses at the burning bush or like John who looked into heaven and saw the great revelation. He said, I want you to know it among you. I want you to know the riches of His presence, His glory among you.

See, in the Old Testament days, the Spirit of God came down upon the people and they uttered words of prophecy and they moved according to the Spirit of God. But on the day of Pentecost, He came to dwell among you and in you.

And Jesus said, when He, the Spirit of truth has come, He will not speak in Himself, He will reveal Me in you. He will lead you into truth. He will be glory in you. That is why the Scriptures teach us that He wants to lead us on from glory to glory.

More and more revelation of Himself. And that comes from God as He gives revelation to you and to me. 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 is what He wants you to know. On the day of Pentecost, when the men and women came out of the Dapper Room, they said they were drunk because they were changed men and women. Why? Peter said, we are not drunken men.

This is that which was spoken of the Prophet Joel, for glory has come upon us. 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 inheritors.

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

But it is a little illustration that is 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 2 ,500 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 call 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 2 ,500 people. There were 25 people in the congregation that night. I prayed, preached there and scattered through the building. At the end of the service, a man comes up to me.

He had been seated about eight rows back, he and his wife. His wife said to me, Mr. Evans, I need to apologize for my husband, not knowing he was standing right behind her. He said to her, it is all right, my dear.

He said, I can apologize myself. She 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.