AP

How God Works in Our Hearts (Ephesians 2.1-10; 3.14-20)

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no-one can boast.For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2.8-10).

Introduction:

GOD works in many ways to bring His people to Himself. Sometimes He works over a long period of time, such as with those people who grow up in a Christian home, where ‘Christ is the Head of the house, the unseen guest at every meal, the silent listener at every conversation’. They’ve been dedicated to God as covenant children and day by day, year by year, they grow into Christ.

     Sometimes God brings people to Himself with a sudden flash of enlightenment, as with Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus.

     Sometimes God brings people to Himself by bringing them to their senses in the far country, as with the Prodigal Son who went through a troubled and strugglesome journey.

     Often He brings them to Himself after ongoing prayer for them by His people.

     But all these ways have much in common, as Paul sets before us in Ephesians 3.14-20.

1. God calls His people to pray

We are to pray humbly and in awe of God as our gracious God (Eph 3.14,15). Here we see the Apostle Paul engaging in fervent, ongoing prayer both for the saved and the not-yet-saved, and outlining a lengthy process by which God works in peoples’ hearts.

    Who are you praying for? It has been said that not everyone can be as gifted as Peter or Paul, but that everyone can be like Andrew: praying and bringing others to Jesus.

     Is there someone near and dear to you who is far from the Lord? A mother? A father? A brother? A sister? A son? A daughter? A dear friend? A sworn enemy?

     Pray for them. Throughout my ministry, of all the burdens that people have shared with me, the one which occurs most often is a burden for their unsaved loved ones.

     I know that burden myself, having prayed over and over again through the years for my father. In the end, sitting by his bed as he was dying, I asked if I could pray for him. He said yes, so I prayed, as putting myself in his shoes. At the end he said, ‘That was nice, son’, and slipped away. I hope I’ll see him in heaven.

     Augustine, Bishop of Hippo long ago, wasn’t always a saint. ‘Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future’ as they say, and to the praise of God’s glorious grace, Augustine had a believing, praying mother named Monica.

     Although Augustine had moved far away from her (to Rome, on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea) and even further from God, Monica never stopped praying for him.

     One day he heard a child saying ‘Take and read! Take and read!’ He took up a copy of Paul’s epistles, and was both convicted and comforted.

     In later years he confessed: ‘You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in You.’

     So, we must pray for the salvation of souls, rejoicing when God answers our prayers positively, content in His wisdom when He answers them negatively.

2. God reaches down deeply to His people, working from the inside out (Eph 3.16)

Sin has reached into the very core of our being and we’re thoroughly within its grasp. We were well and truly ‘lost and dead in our trespasses and sins’. We were infected with worldly things, worldly ways and worldly thoughts. Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, has just one word as its motto: ‘Worldly’. That says it all, really, about the times we live in.

     Indeed we’re ‘lost and dead in our trespasses and sins’ (Eph 2.1), but God breathes life into the dead; we are poor in spirit, but He is rich in mercy; we are weak, but He is strong.

3. God takes up residence in our hearts (Eph 3.17a)

Faith is planted by God and then it blooms and grows. Of course, true, biblical faith doesn’t wither and die; it keeps on growing and growing through prayer, worship and the study of Scripture until the Lord calls us home. God’s wonderful Word powerfully preached from the pulpit and read day by day in our quiet time warms our hearts, leads our feet, and guides us in His way.

4. God’s love takes hold of our hearts (Eph 3.17b)

‘But God shows His love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5.8). When we first believe our faith and our knowledge of God  will be small, even tentative, but it will grow and be nourished as we take in the milk of God’s Word and go on to greater and greater knowledge of God as He builds us up and we come to know more and more of His love (Eph 3.18). Eventually when we look back we will confess with the hymn-writer-theologian Theodore Monod that our experience of God has been: ‘All of self, and none of Thee … Some of self, and some of Thee … Less of self, and more of Thee …  None of self, and all of Thee.’

5. God draws us into the fellowship of the saints (Eph 3.18b)

The church is at its finest and most effective when it is ‘the pillar and bulwark of the truth, the family and household of faith’. Christians need each other to build ourselves up in our most holy faith, to encourage one another and to care for one another.

6. God fills us with His fullness (Eph 3.19)

The Rev Dr Leonard Small, who was minister for many years at Saint Cuthbert’s Church in Edinburgh, Scotland was once asked: ‘How could you ever be a minister for such a long period of ministry in one place?’ Dr Small replied: ‘Because I preach the unsearchable riches of Christ!’

     Christ’s riches really are great and more than we can ever know in a lifetime and we find that ‘the longer we serve Him the sweeter He grows’.

7. God does far more with us than we ever thought possible (Eph 3.20)

For example, there might be someone reading this who feels the Lord calling him to the ministry, but he keeps on putting it off. He might be thinking: ‘I’m not a very good scholar’ or ‘I don’t have the personality for it’ or ‘I’m too old to start now’ or ‘I’m too young to start yet’.

     Dear brother, when the Lord calls us into His service, he makes us able to serve Him. ‘Ask the Saviour to help you, comfort, strengthen and keep you; He is willing to aid you, He will carry you through.’

     Moreover He might challenge us to take on a difficult task, perhaps sharing the gospel with the person in the street, perhaps a ministry of encouragement to our fellow Christians, perhaps overseas or inland mission. Perhaps our stock response is, ‘Oh I could never do that.’ Don’t you believe it. In the end, if we answer His call, it will surprise us what the Lord has done.

8. God fills us with wonder, love and praise as He brings us to see Him in all His glory (Eph 3.21)

     So, dear friends, where do we find ourselves on this spectrum of grace? Have we come to a conscious faith in and knowledge of Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Lord? Are we growing in Him? Is He preparing us more and more for abundant, eternal life? Do we know that, having begun a good work in us, He will keep us and guard us all the way to glory, until ‘we cast our crowns before Him, lost in wonder, love and praise’?

Let us pray:

O Lord our gracious God and loving Heavenly Father, draw us to Yourself by Your saving power and because Your Dear Son loved us and gave Himself for us on Calvary’s Cross. There on the cross, ‘He who knew no sin became sin for us’ and paid the penalty that was due to us so that we would not die but live forever with You in glory.

     Forgive us all our sin for His sake, we pray, and raise us up from the death of sin to the life of righteousness – His righteousness – and continually build us up in our most holy faith until You call us Home to be with You forever.

In Jesus’ mighty name we pray.

AMEN

– Bob Thomas