Well let us turn once again to
the epistle of Paul to the Ephesians chapter 1 and this evening we'll
read from verse 15 to verse 17. Ephesians chapter 1 reading from
verse 15 to 17. Wherefore I also after I heard
of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the saints
Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in
my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father
of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation
in the knowledge of him. So clearly the apostle was very
pleased to hear about the Ephesians and he said, I also after I heard
of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and love unto all the
saints. Cease not to give thanks for
you. How wonderful therefore it is if we are also blessed
with living faith and love unto all the saints. Faith is the
gift of God. It's not something that you and
I can produce ourselves, but we're very thankful to know that
God does give us faith. Faith to believe the Word of
God. Faith to believe the truth of
God. Faith to believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy
Spirit. And faith to believe all the
Word of God is true, and therefore to believe With this living faith,
the Lord has come. He has come into this world to
save sinners. What a blessing if we know he's
come to save us from all our sins. And he says, wherefore
I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love
unto all the saints, It's a very important word, that really.
Love unto all the saints. That means that God's people,
taught by his spirit, are not choosy. They don't think, I like
that person, and I don't like that person. The great blessing
is, here we're told, as the apostle says, these Ephesians, they were
blessed with love, unto all the saints. Surely that should be
our constant desire and our constant concern that all the people of
God we love. Even if there are those things
perhaps which may have been against us, may perhaps aggravate us,
and may perhaps make it sometimes difficult, But nonetheless, here
we have a very gracious and important example, and love unto all the
saints. If we just ponder this for a
moment, to think that we have a most wonderful example of this
in the Lord Jesus Christ, who also loves all the saints. If he did not love us, there
would be no hope for us. How bad we may be, how sinful
we may feel to be, how far off perhaps we may seem to be, and
yet to know that God has loved us. It's a most essential truth,
a most essential doctrine, the love of Christ. And how wonderful
it is when our hearts are touched with that love. Now if we are
to be amongst those who are privileged to enjoy this wonderful blessing,
the result will be shown in our lives so that we love all the
saints without exception, and not to turn away from any, and
not to try and avoid those who perhaps we don't like very much.
We need to pray that God will enable us to love every one of
them. We're told indeed the great commandment
is to love our neighbour as ourselves. Love is a tremendous blessing. What a favour when the Holy Spirit
gives us that so that we do come alongside what the Apostle Paul
here speaks to the Ephesians and are able to confirm that
we have the same blessed faith and the same love unto all the
saints. And because of this, he says,
he ceases not to give thanks for you, making mention of you
in my prayers. So he's giving thanks for the
Ephesians who are blessed with his spirit, blessed with his
faith, blessed with his love and therefore he thanks God for
them and he mentions them in his prayers to God. Again that's
a very wonderful illustration because if we love the saints
we should pray for the saints. We shouldn't, again, just pray
for some and then ignore others purposely. We obviously can't
remember every one of the saints by name. But nonetheless, if
we can pray for them collectively, and meaning it to be collective,
so that there are none that we desire to not pray for. And so
the Apostle tells us here, he says, he ceases not to give thanks. In another place in the Ephesians
we read, to pray without ceasing. Quite clearly, the life of prayer
to Paul was very important. And it's a good thing for us
today if the life of prayer to us is indeed very important. And so cease not to give thanks
for you, all the Ephesians, good and bad, all those who were saints,
making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit
of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him." How important is a word like
this? how necessary it is that we do
receive from God the spirit of wisdom and the revelation in
the knowledge of Him. It is only through revelation
that we receive the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ. And I mean by that in a spiritual
sense, in a saving sense, Many of course know, historically,
of the figure of the Lord Jesus Christ. But here we have this
spoken to us, that the God, God Almighty, none less, of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, we must always try and have right
views of our God. He may, in our estimation, be
very glorious, very high and very lifted up, that the God
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, may give unto
you how we need the Lord to give us this wonderful blessing of
the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. That
means that the Holy Spirit gives us that wisdom to understand
the mystery of godliness Understand the truth of the scripture. Understand the deep that couches
beneath. It's not just things which are
superficial. They're things which concern
our eternal soul. Things that concern our eternal
salvation. And therefore, to be led by this
Spirit into this great and glorious knowledge of our Saviour, the
Lord Jesus Christ, and have the personal evidence in our own
hearts. That's really what it comes down
to. You see, this, give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and
revelation in the knowledge of Him in our hearts, so that we
can rejoice in what Christ has done, rejoice in His finished
work, and rejoice to know that work was done on our behalf,
so that we have a personal interest in these great truths. And of course the knowledge of
the Saviour is so wonderful. It's a deep that really has no
bottom. It's exhaustless. And yet here
we have the need to have it revealed to us, something we should always
desire to pray for, and to pray for, that Christ may be revealed
to us, that as we often say that we may grow in grace and in the
knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The more we know
of Christ, the more blessed it will be, the greater influence
it will be in our lives, and therefore to be concerned that
we find ourselves earnestly seeking for this spirit of wisdom and
revelation which is given by our God, who is the God of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the
spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him." Well,
these are really very beautiful three verses to ponder and to
think upon. And may we ponder and think upon
them. And may we bless them with faith
and love. We read these few verses in the
Colossians, really, which confirmed these words as we read together. The apostle, he tells us in the
beginning, his second verse is, to the saints and faithful brethren
in Christ, which are at Colossae, grace be unto you and peace,
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, we give thanks
to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always
for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the
love which ye have to all the saints. You see, it wasn't just
to the Ephesians. it is really to the whole Church
of God. So may we be continually concerned
that we walk in this path and desire these blessings which
bring honour and glory to our God and will be an encouragement
to us and to the Church of God. Amen.