JI Packer wrote a book titled “Knowing God.” I’ve borrowed the title for this message, and I’ll ask his permission when I meet him in heaven! He said that man’s supreme need is to know God. The reason the whole world is perishing under wrath, and the source of all the pain and evil in this world, is an ignorance of God. Romans 1:28 says, “And even as they did not see fit to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind,” which resulted in them worshiping creatures instead of the Creator and being filled with all kinds of sins like covetousness, lust, envy, and hate.
The primary reason a Christian or a church doesn’t grow and lives a pathetic, sad life is that although they start their Christian life with joyful first love, as soon as they stop growing in the knowledge of God, they lose their first love and backslide. Our personal, family, and church prayers and worship can become dull, ritualistically dead, and meaningless if we stop knowing God. So, the greatest need of our world, our families, our church, and us personally as Christians is to know God.
On the other hand, we must realize that even though this is our greatest need, we cannot know God by our own greatest efforts as fallen beings. So what is the solution to this problem? Paul tells us the solution in Ephesians 1:17 in a prayer.
We saw how he prayed and learned the seven traits of prayers God answers, which we can remember by the acronym RACE-SSS. If you forget those, you will never learn how to pray biblically. After seeing how to pray, today we come to the big section on what he prayed for. What do we typically pray for? “Lord, give me prosperity in my job, good health and healing in my body, bless my family and children, protect us, give us peace, joy, and bless us.” There is nothing wrong with such prayers, but they are shallow. If you really want to be blessed and joyful, you have to learn to pray Paul’s prayer from your heart unceasingly. “Lord, give me a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of You. Grant the same for my spouse, my children, and for all of the saints in our church.” That is a great prayer that God answers and brings the fullness of His blessings to us.
The Structure of Paul’s Prayer
Let’s understand the full structure of his prayer. The central burden of his prayer is found in verse 18, “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened.” He is praying, “Lord, open the Ephesians’ eyes by increasing their spiritual illumination.” Why open their eyes? So they can see three specific things:
- “What is the hope of His calling” – what it means to be saved now.
- “What are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” – what glorious blessings await me.
- “What is the exceeding greatness of His power” – the power that brought us to this state and will bring us to the final blessings of our inheritance.
He wants their eyes to be opened through spiritual illumination to see these three blessings. Why is it so important that God should open our eyes to these three things? If our eyes are not opened to see them, even though we are the richest, most blessed people in the universe, we will live pathetically like beggars. We will never be able to live out the truths he will tell us from chapter 4 onwards. We cannot be proper husbands loving our wives like Christ loved, wives submitting to husbands, children obeying parents, witnesses in our workplace, and live lives glorifying God. So, it was the great burden of Paul’s heart that the Ephesians’ eyes should be opened by spiritual illumination to grasp these three tremendous things that can transform our lives.
Now, before God opens our eyes, we need a gift of God for that to happen. That is what Paul prays for in verse 17. We will see that in three parts:
- The gift: the Spirit of wisdom and revelation.
- The sphere or extent in which the gift is given: in the knowledge of Him.
- The manner in which this gift is operative: “the eyes of your heart being enlightened.”
Today, we will cover the first two things.
First, Paul prays for the gift of the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation. Is he asking for the Holy Spirit to be given, but we have already been sealed with the Holy Spirit? So what is this? Sometimes the Holy Spirit is described not in terms of what He is but in terms of what He does. The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of truth and counsel. He gives wisdom and He gives revelation, so Paul is praying for the Holy Spirit’s ministry to grant the work of the spirit of wisdom and revelation in their spirit.
We already saw what wisdom is in verse 8, “grace overflowed in all wisdom and prudence.” We saw wisdom is a penetrating insight into divine realities. So, Paul prays that God would first grant a penetrating insight into divine realities and describes three specific realities: the hope of His calling, the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and the exceeding greatness of His power. Those are not just words or religious jargon. Those are tremendous spiritual realities. The Holy Spirit would function in such a way as to give the Ephesians a penetrating insight into those realities. We don’t know the magnitude of these blessings. The Holy Spirit knows the great glory of these blessings; He alone can give penetrating insight into those realities.
Next, the word “revelation.” What is that? The word means to unfold that which is otherwise hidden. Our Lord said to Peter, “Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father.” Revelation means the disclosure of something that cannot be known in any other way but by the divine disclosure of God. Some things you can know by the exercise of your natural faculties—by reading, efforts, and using your senses. You can gain enough Bible knowledge, but no matter how much you read or use all your senses, you cannot have divine revelation. It is only granted by God through His Spirit as divine revelation.
1 Corinthians says the Spirit of God knows the deep things of God. By nature, we do not know them, but we have received the Spirit that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God. “Those things that the human mind could not see nor hear, God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit.” Revelation comes by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not give us new revelation, but He illuminates us to understand the depth of truths already written in Scripture. So the Holy Spirit operates as the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation. Now put the two things together and you see the close connection: true wisdom comes by revelation and revelation produces true wisdom. Hence, Paul is praying for the Holy Spirit’s ministry of wisdom and revelation in the spirit of the Ephesians.
So, Paul prays for the gift of the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation. Yes, it is the Holy Spirit who always gives wisdom and revelation as an answer to prayer, but He always gives this gift in a specific sphere or extent: in the knowledge of Him. The word “in” talks about the scope, the circle in which this gift comes. It’s pointing to the nearest proper noun, which is “the God of Jesus Christ and the Father of glory.” The objective source of this knowledge is Scripture. This God has revealed Himself in the Bible.
What it Means to Know God
I want to talk about “knowing God” for a moment, which is why I titled this message this way. This is one of the most profound and most confused concepts in all of Holy Scripture. I want to explain what “knowing God” means. Let me give a word of caution. Someone said, “Pastor, I heard your sermon about prayer last week, and you made me realize I don’t know how to pray biblically at all.” But that is not the goal. I explain the Bible, and you feel that way. At least now you can pray properly according to the Bible. In the same way, maybe if I explain today what “knowing God” means according to the Bible, most of you may realize you don’t know God. That is good, but at least that realization should drive you to know God properly from now on. Our eternal destiny hinges on whether we know God or not. Christ will say to many who thought they knew God, “I never knew you.”
There is so much confusion and deception in “knowing God.” Knowing God is not knowing about God, not knowing some facts about God from the Bible. The word Paul uses here is Epignosis, differentiating it from mere knowledge about something. The word means an exact, certain, and experiential heart knowledge of God that comes with actual, true, direct personal contact or relationship. I can know about the Prime Minister—his age and all the knowledge from Wikipedia—but I don’t have an experiential knowledge through personal contact.
Galatians 4:8 says that a great common trait of all natural men is that they do not know God. That’s the state of every unregenerate man. Many nominal Christians claim to know Him, but they only know about Him. They don’t know God.
So what does it mean to biblically know God? There are two steps: initial knowing God and a growing step in knowing God. The first step of knowing is conversion. When you realize you are far from God, repent, and come to God and believe in Jesus Christ, your journey of knowing God starts. Galatians 4:9 says, “You have come to know God.” Knowing God is a synonym for being saved. Knowing God is defined by our Lord in John 17:3, “And this is life eternal, that they should know Thee, the only true God, and Him whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.” That is the first step of knowing God.
But you don’t stop with that. Now, you have to grow in knowing God. Knowing God is not a past event; it is a present, continuous, ever-growing experience. We may know God initially and be excited in our first love, but later we may stop knowing God, our first love grows cold, and this creates many problems in our Christian life. Again and again, Scripture points out that all spiritual blessings come to us through the knowledge of God. 2 Peter 1:2 says, “Grace to you, and peace be multiplied.” Oh, isn’t that what you long for? Peace to be multiplied? In what sphere? “In the knowledge of God.” So if you don’t grow in the knowledge of God, grace and peace will not grow in your life. I can go on and say peace beyond understanding, joy unspeakable, true rest, wisdom, guidance, strength, hope, power to serve, God’s presence, and even eternal life is promised in growing in the knowledge of God. That is why Paul, out of all he could pray, first prays for a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God. So the great question is, how do I grow in knowing God?
Knowing God involves your mind, your heart, and your will. If you remove any one of these, you are not growing in knowing God.
- Mind: God’s wisdom has divinely ordained to reveal His knowledge in the written word of the Bible, which our confession calls “special revelation.” If you want to grow in knowing God, you have to expose your mind to Scripture by reading and receive those truths into your mind through meditation. Exposure and reception of Scripture truths in the mind is the first step of knowing God. Exposure happens by direct contact with reading, and reception happens by meditation. It is not enough to just read, hear, and go. Just exposure will not work. Exposure and reception, both mental activities, are the first step. There is no way you can grow in knowing God without this first step of exposing and receiving the truth of God in your mind. Psalm 1 and Joshua 1 emphasize reading and meditating on God’s word.
- Heart: As your mind is exposed to and receives what is revealed about God, your heart responds in faith and love. This is an authentic, true sign that reveals whether you are truly knowing God or deceiving yourself. A person who knows God has a heart’s response to that revelation that is always faith and love. John 17 gives an excellent commentary on what it means to know God. Verse 8 says, “For I have given to them the words which You have given Me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came forth from You; and they have believed that You sent Me.” You see the progression? He gave them words; they heard it. What did they do? Not merely heard but received them in their understanding, and their heart responded by believing. You know they loved Him more than anything in life. When everyone else left, they said, “To whom else can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” That faith will be a tangible act. Daniel 11:32 says, “They that know their God shall be strong and do exploits.” What exploits? Faith exploits listed in Hebrews 11. So I say, to know God means not only hearing and reading but also the heart’s response of faith and love. 1 John 4:7-8 says, “Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” Though it talks about loving brothers, it is implied that it is impossible to know God and not love God. It is a great moral impossibility.
- Will: Not only does knowing God involve the mind’s exposure and the heart’s response, but the will also responds in obedience to God’s word. 1 John 2:3-4 says, “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” He’s saying it’s impossible for the knowledge of God to exist while living in continual disobedience. If you are living in disobedience to God’s word and say you know God, you are living in a lying dream world.
I hope I have given a clear biblical definition of knowing God. If someone asks you, “What does it mean to know God?” you can tell them that knowing God involves your mind, heart, and will. Your mind is regularly exposed to and receives what is revealed about God in Scripture. As a response, your heart always responds in believing and loving, and your will responds in obeying God’s word. If you find someone who is not believing, loving, and obeying God, it means that whatever they may say, they do not know God.
So how do I get this knowledge of God, which not only crosses intellectual and emotional boundaries but also transforms me ethically, practically, morally, and spiritually? It comes when God grants the Spirit of wisdom and revelation because He grants this insight into divine realities within the sphere of the knowledge of God. As your mind is exposed to Scripture and receives it with meditation, then the Holy Spirit grants this insight into divine realities. It impacts your heart, brings a response of faith and love, and bends your will to obey God in every area of life. Then you know God experientially, savingly, and sanctifyingly. It is such knowledge that has the power to renew our minds, transform our hearts, and bend our wills to obey God’s commands. All this hearsay, theoretical, and head-knowledge has no power to do that work. God’s goal of revelation doesn’t stop with the intellectual; it is an ethical, moral, and spiritual transformation.
As you grow in this knowledge of God, when you live with your spouse, you are becoming more and more Christ-like. You go to work, and people can see a Christ-like colleague or employee. This knowledge will make you more and more embody the likeness of Christ in all the details of your life. When anyone sees you, they will say, “That man knows God.” “That woman knows God.” This is an old phrase people have forgotten now. It means he lives with the reality of God in every area of practical life. Knowing God should impact where the rubber meets the road; otherwise, you don’t know God.
This knowledge of God doesn’t stop with the intellectual or end with an experience. No. We have to use our mind, heart, and will. If you leave anything out, you can have all kinds of false, deceiving Christian experiences. This knowledge always starts with the intellectual, moves to an experience, and the true test of that knowledge is ethical, moral, and spiritual transformation.
This truth exposes two extremes in Christianity. One group bypasses the mind, doesn’t use the mind, has no theology, no truth, and has direct experiences and feelings with God like charismatics, which welcomes demonic activities. The other extreme stops with the intellectual and doesn’t move to an experiential knowledge of God. And then there is a large group who are dissatisfied with these two extremes and move from charismatic to liberal, fundamentalist to Arminian, to being Calvinist to being hyper-Calvinist to low-Calvinist—their whole lives are wasted dabbling in different schools of ideas without actually truly knowing God. Then they face disappointment when Christ comes and they hear His judgment, “I never knew you, you never knew me.” You wasted your years just in superficial intellectual dabbling.
So I hope you see the great need of Paul’s prayer here. So from now on, our greatest prayer should be, “Lord, give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of You.” Think of all the functions of the Holy Spirit that Paul could have prayed for. Is not the Holy Spirit the Spirit of power, the Spirit of love, the Spirit of joy, the Spirit of peace, the Spirit of counsel? Out of all of these, why does Paul zero in on two functions of the Spirit? That He would give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Why? Because he understood that the primary means by which the Holy Spirit carries on His sanctifying work in believers is as the Spirit of truth. The health, joy, peace, and blessings of your Christian life all depend on you knowing God by the Holy Spirit’s wisdom and revelation.
Application
As an application, I want to bring a few lessons from this Paul’s prayer. You can only know God like this when God gives a spirit of wisdom and revelation, and the only sphere within which the spirit is given is in the knowledge of God revealed in Scripture. The knowledge of God begins with the mind’s exposure to and reception of what is revealed about God in Scripture. If this is so, oh, do you see our great need for two activities in our Christian life?
- Unceasing prayer: The knowledge of God comes through the work of the Holy Spirit as He works as the spirit of wisdom and revelation. He alone can give a penetrating insight into divine realities. How does the Holy Spirit give this spirit of wisdom and revelation? It is when we unceasingly pray for ourselves and others. That is why even as a Holy Spirit-inspired apostle, he is not satisfied just writing this letter revealing glorious truths. He doesn’t assume that reading this will open their eyes. He knows that they will not understand these things as truly knowing God unless God Himself performs an operation upon their spiritual eyes. So he says he unceasingly prays. “I do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that God may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.” A man so busy with all the concerns of planting churches, writing letters, and being a missionary and an apostle, and that too, imprisoned now, why does he discipline his life to pray specifically for each individual with this request? Why does he constantly emphasize his prayer for the people of God? Not because he was trying to appear spiritual, but because he knows the Holy Spirit always works in the atmosphere of prayer; flesh and blood, whatever their efforts, cannot achieve this. He knows he cannot accomplish anything for the kingdom without prayer. God gives this wisdom and revelation by the specific means of unceasing prayer. We don’t earn this by unceasing prayer; it is a blessing already purchased by Christ. But unceasing prayer creates a condition in our soul fit to receive and experience the spirit of wisdom and revelation. We don’t understand it fully, but amazing things are promised to a Christian and a church that learns to pray unceasingly. Most of the gifts Christ purchased are showered on people only through unceasing prayer. James says, “He hath not because ye ask not.” Jesus says, “If ye who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” Hence, the apostles’ prayer holds a profound lesson for us. It underscores the specific means by which Christians know increased measures of the Spirit’s work in their hearts and lives. It’s as they pray. The spirit of wisdom and revelation is poured on them. We have been seeing this in Psalm 119 again and again: “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” The measure of a church’s true spirituality as a general rule is not its Sunday morning attendance. Even unsaved people who are born into a Christian family may come on Sunday mornings out of habit, but it is the attendance and the spirit of prayer in a weekly prayer meeting that show the growth of a church. Someone said, “Don’t trust the spiritual health of people who only attend on Sundays. Only those who attend prayer meetings are truly growing.” The apostles in Acts 6:4 realized this, which is why they said, “we will give ourselves continually to prayer and the ministry of the word.” They realized prayer is just as important as sermon preaching and good preaching is no substitute for prayer. This should make many of you who neglect prayer meetings and think the church is all about preaching realize you are completely wrong. This is why you are not growing. Church is fellowship. Why do some people come in the evening? Not just to hear messages, but to get a relaxed time to joyfully fellowship and talk. We as a church should always strike a balance between preaching and prayer meetings. If this is the rule, as church members, may your conscience tell you if any of you are not attending church prayer meetings. Whatever truths you hear on Sunday, will God grant you a spirit of wisdom and revelation and enlighten you and bless you with these truths?
- Unceasing scripture reading and meditation: To pray for a spirit of wisdom and revelation and not use the means of written revelation is to mock God. This spirit of wisdom and revelation comes in the sphere of the knowledge of God found in Scripture. So believers must settle in Scripture. This is our book for life. “Ignorance of the Bible is ignorance of God. I never saw a growing, useful Christian who is not reading his Bible daily,” said D. L. Moody. “When you open your Bible, God opens His mouth.” The Bible will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from the Bible. “The vigor of our spiritual life will be in exact proportion to the place held by the Bible in our life and thoughts,” said George Muller. Whatever your busy life is like, if you don’t set aside time to read Scripture, you cannot have this spirit of wisdom and revelation. It all starts with the regular exposing of the mind to Scripture and receiving it through meditation. The sooner you learn that, the sooner you will stop living like a fool. Joshua 1:8 says, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”
- Get rid of laziness in Christian life: One Puritan says the great reason why Christians don’t grow in knowing God is laziness. Isn’t that true with most of us? Do you know laziness is a sin? Spiritual laziness is a terrible sin. Pure mental laziness—not reading the Bible, spiritual laziness—not praying unceasingly. It comes from terrible, false contentment in our Christian life. Once saved, we assume a state of salvation is a kind of easy chair in which we may just sit still, lie back, and be happy. “Once saved, always saved.” You are dead wrong; that route can take you to hell. The Christian life is a tireless and persevering journey for a deepened understanding and experience of salvation. Think about this: Paul stated in the first paragraph that the Ephesians were already blessed with every spiritual blessing—they were elected, predestined for sonship, redeemed, under administration, had an inheritance, and had the sealing of the Holy Spirit to experience all that. These are what we call the doctrines of grace. He said these things are all yours in your past experience. Moreover, you are continuing in faith and love as a sign that you are truly recipients of these blessings. There is a present spiritual reality in their lives. Does he say, “Relax and enjoy your blessings. You are blessed.” No. He says, “I unceasingly pray for God to give you more wisdom and revelation in His knowledge.” Why? The great lesson we learn is that no matter how great their past blessings, no matter how real their present expressions of life, Paul longs for a deepened experience of understanding and Christian grace. Why? Because God’s goal for our life is not to just relax in an easy chair and say, “I am saved.” No, God’s goal is stated in Ephesians 5, that the church might be presented to Him without spot or wrinkle. Romans 8 says, “Whom he foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” Hebrews 12 says we have to run the race perseveringly. We have to run so that not only our thoughts and feelings but every area of our life reflects the Lord Jesus Christ. God’s glory in our lives hinges on the realization of that goal in redemption. So Paul is expressing God’s great desire for you and me. Yes, you are blessed with amazing blessings, yet there is more to know, more to experience in Jesus Christ. We cannot rest short of anything other than a deepened understanding and experience. This is God’s ambition expressed through Apostle Paul to us. God wants us to make this our ambition. We see people with ambition so restless, pursuing it in studies, wanting to become a doctor, an engineer, a sports star, or to become rich. Oh, how their ambition drives them not to waste time but to achieve things. Shouldn’t they shame our Christian laziness?
This prayer is an answer to extremism. We always love going to extremes, either Arminianism or hyper-Calvinism, legalism or antinomianism. Some of you still don’t know what these are. Here also, we go to extremes. We have to deeply appreciate what God has already done for us in Christ—that we are “blessed with every spiritual blessing”—and with that motivation, long for a greater reality to experience these blessings. People don’t realize this balance. One side goes to the extreme like the charismatics, who minimize the great work of God already done in our lives, denying the first paragraph that we are “blessed with every spiritual blessing.” They say all that is nothing, we need a “second work of grace” or a “baptism of the Holy Spirit.”
The other extreme is when it stops with the intellectual and does not move to the experiential knowledge of God. Then there is a large group of people who are dissatisfied with these two extremes and move from being Pentecostals, liberals, or fundamentalists to Arminians, to being Calvinists, to being hyper-Calvinists, to low-Calvinists, or to four-point or five-point Calvinists. They waste their whole lives dabbling in different schools of ideas without actually truly knowing God, and then face disappointment when Christ comes and they hear his judgment: “I never knew you, you never knew me.” You wasted your years just in superficial intellectual dabbling.
So I hope you see the great need of Paul’s prayer here. From now on, our greatest prayer should be, “Lord, give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in knowing You.”
Think of all the functions of the Holy Spirit that Paul could have prayed for. Is not the Holy Spirit the Spirit of power, the Spirit of love, the Spirit of joy, the Spirit of peace, the Spirit of utterance, the Spirit of counsel? Out of all of these, why does Paul zero in on two functions of the Spirit? That he would give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him. Why? Because he understood that the primary means by which the Holy Spirit carries on his sanctifying work in believers is as the spirit of truth. Your Christian life, health, joy, peace, and blessing all depend on you knowing God by the Holy Spirit’s wisdom and revelation.
As an application, I want to bring a few lessons from this prayer of Paul’s.
You can only know God like this when God gives a spirit of wisdom and revelation, and the only sphere within which the spirit is given is in the knowledge of God revealed in Scripture. That is the only circle where this is given. The knowledge of God begins with the mind’s exposure to and reception of what is revealed about God in Scripture. If this is so, oh, do you see our great need for two activities in our Christian life? First: unceasingly praying for the Spirit of wisdom and revelation on one hand, and meditating on God’s word day and night on the other hand. That is why Scripture points to these two great activities as the primary activities of Christian life.
First: The great need for unceasing prayer. This knowledge of God comes through the work of the Holy Spirit as the spirit of wisdom and revelation. He alone can give penetrating insight into divine realities. How does the Holy Spirit give this spirit of wisdom and revelation? It is when we unceasingly pray for ourselves and others.
That is why even as a Holy Spirit-inspired apostle, he is not satisfied just with writing this epistle revealing glorious truths; he doesn’t assume that reading this will open their eyes. He knows that they will not understand these things as truly knowing God unless God himself performs an operation upon their spiritual eyes. So he says he unceasingly prays. “16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that God may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.”
Do you say you are too busy to pray unceasingly? Here is a man so busy with all the concerns of planting so many churches, writing epistles, being a missionary and an apostle, and now imprisoned. Why does he discipline his life to pray specifically for each individual with this request? Why does he constantly emphasize his prayer for the people of God? Not because he was trying to appear spiritual, but because he knows the Holy Spirit always works in the atmosphere of prayer. Flesh and blood and whatever efforts they make cannot achieve this. He knows he cannot accomplish anything for the kingdom without prayer.
God gives this wisdom and revelation by the specific means of unceasing prayer. We do not earn this by unceasing prayer; it is a blessing already purchased by Christ. But the means of unceasing prayer creates a condition in our soul that is fit to receive and experience the spirit of wisdom and revelation. We don’t understand it fully, but amazing things are promised to a Christian and a church who learn to pray unceasingly. Most of the gifts Christ purchased are showered on people only through unceasing prayer. James says, “He has not because you what? You ask not.” Jesus says, “If you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how shall you give the Spirit to those who ask him?”
Hence, the apostles’ prayer holds a profound lesson for us. It underscores the specific means by which Christians know increased measures of the Spirit’s work in their hearts and lives. It’s as they pray that the spirit of wisdom and revelation is poured on them. We have been seeing this again and again in Psalm 119: “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy love.”
So, the measure of a church’s true spirituality as a general rule is not its Sunday morning attendance, since even the unsaved who are born in a Christian family may come on Sunday morning as a practice. But it is the attendance and the spirit of prayer that comes in a weekly prayer meeting that shows the growth of a church. Someone said, “Don’t trust the spiritual health of people who only attend Sundays. Only those who attend prayer meetings are truly growing.”
In Acts 6:4, the apostles realized this, and that is why they said, “We will give ourselves continually to prayer and the ministry of the word.” They realized prayer is just as important as sermon preaching, and good preaching is no substitute for prayer. This should make many of you who neglect prayer meetings and think church is all about preaching feel that you are completely wrong. This is why you are not growing. Church is fellowship. Some people come in the evening not just to hear messages, but because we get a relaxed time to joyfully fellowship and talk. We gather on Fridays. I always pray and yearn to gather physically, to pray with one heart. We as a church should always strike a balance between preaching and prayer meetings. If this is the rule, as church members, may your conscience tell you if any of you are not attending church prayer meetings. Whatever truths you hear on Sunday, will God grant you a spirit of wisdom and revelation and enlighten you and bless you with these truths?
Second: The great need for Scripture reading and meditation. To pray for a spirit of wisdom and revelation and not use the means of written revelation is to mock God. This spirit of wisdom and revelation comes in the sphere of the knowledge of God found in Scripture. So believers should settle in Scripture. This is our book for life. D. L. Moody said, “Ignorance of the Bible is ignorance of God. I never saw a growing, useful Christian who is not reading his Bible daily.” Someone else said, “When you open your Bible, God opens His mouth.” The Bible will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from the Bible. George Müller said, “The vigor of our spiritual life will be in exact proportion to the place held by the Bible in our life and thoughts.”
Whatever state of busy your life is, if you don’t set aside time to read Scripture, you cannot have this spirit of wisdom and revelation. It all starts with the regular exposing of the mind to Scripture and receiving it through meditation. The sooner you learn that, the sooner you will stop living like a fool.
Joshua 1:8-9 says, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
Third: Get rid of laziness in the Christian life. One Puritan says a great reason why Christians don’t grow in knowing God is laziness. Isn’t that true for most of us? Do you know that laziness is a sin? Spiritual laziness is a terrible sin. Pure mental laziness—not reading the Bible—and spiritual laziness—not praying unceasingly—come from a terrible false contentment in Christian life. Once saved, we assume the state of salvation is a kind of easy chair in which they may just sit still, lie back, and be happy, thinking, “once saved, forever saved.” You are dead wrong; that route can take you to hell.
The Christian life is a tireless and persevering journey for a deepened understanding and experience of salvation. Think of this: Paul stated in the first paragraph that these Ephesians were already blessed with every spiritual blessing, with election, predestined sonship, redemption, inheritance, and the sealing of the Holy Spirit to experience all that. These are what we call the doctrines of grace. He said these things are all yours in your past experience. Moreover, you are continuing in faith and love as a sign that you are truly the recipients of these blessings; there is a present spiritual reality in their lives. Does he say, “Relax and enjoy your blessings. Blessed you are”? No, he says, “I unceasingly pray for God to give you more wisdom and revelation in his knowledge.” Why?
A great lesson we learn is that no matter how great their past blessings, no matter how real their present expressions of life, Paul longs for a deepened experience of understanding and Christian grace. Now, why? Because God’s goal for our life is not just to relax in an easy chair and say, “I am saved, once saved forever saved. So relax.” No. God’s goal is stated in Ephesians 5: that the church might be “presented to him without spot or wrinkle.” Romans 8: “Whom he foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” Hebrews 12: “We have to run the race perseveringly.” We have to run so not only our thoughts and feelings, but every area of our life, reflects the Lord Jesus Christ. God’s glory in our lives hinges on the realization of that goal in redemption. So Paul is expressing God’s great desire for you and me this morning: Yes, you are blessed with amazing blessings; yet there is more to know, more to experience in Jesus Christ. We cannot rest short of anything other than a deepened understanding and experience.
This is God’s ambition expressed through the apostle Paul to us. God wants us to make this our ambition. We see people with ambition so restless, pursuing it in studies; someone wants to become a doctor, an engineer, a sports star, or to earn money and become rich. Oh, how their ambition drives them not to waste time but to achieve things. Shouldn’t they shame our Christian laziness? It’s like, “Come Sunday, it’s over.”
If you are living in some relaxed, lazy world, you have to examine if these blessings are yours. Laziness is a great curse in our lives. I am appalled at the spiritual laziness in some of your lives. Some of you, I tell you, for years you should have gone somewhere. I didn’t even know how to speak English until I was 20; I went to a government school. All I learned was in church. I would attend a Tamil service word for word and then an English one. “Oh, learn words, read books.” It was a tireless effort and ambition: “I have to grow, grow.”
This prayer is the answer to extremism. We always love going to extremes, either Arminianism or hyper-Calvinism, legalism or Antinomianism. Some of you still don’t know what these are. Here also, we go to extremes. We have to deeply appreciate what God has done for us in Christ, and with that motivation, long for a more realistic experience of these blessings.
People don’t realize this balance. On one side, they go to the extreme, like Pentecostals, who minimize the great work of God already done in our lives, denying the first paragraph where it says we are “blessed with every spiritual blessing.” They say all that is nothing, that we need a second work of grace, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That is one extreme. The other extreme is the “positionalists.” They say, “Yes, I am blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing. I am elect, no worries. I will not trouble myself with earnest prayers for the spirit, so I will relax in an easy chair and enjoy life.” My friend, you are in a dream world.
How can you not minimize the salvation Christ has given, like the Pentecostals, and at the same time never become indifferent, lazy, or without earnestness, like the positionalists? Here is the biblical balance: Thanking God for all that we have in Christ, using that to motivate and stir us and to plead with God to open our eyes to experience more and more of these blessings he has already given us.
I’m not looking for some new experience that I didn’t get when I was saved, but I’m longing for an ever-increasing realization and experience of what Christ has already given me. I’m not content to say, “It is all mine in Him,” and sit lazy. No, I stir myself; I want to effectually experience more of what he has already blessed me with. That is the biblical balance.
Some of you sitting here think that the spirit of wisdom and knowing God is something unimportant. That actually shows how much the god of this world has blinded you. Because if there is something of the utmost importance for your life now and for eternity, it is knowing God. God takes it very seriously whether or not you know Him. Romans 1 says God’s anger from heaven is revealed on all those who “did not see fit to retain knowledge of God.” He gave them up to a depraved mind and the desires of their lusts, so they live like animals. It makes God angry every minute when you live not knowing God in this life. Because in his grace, he has revealed himself in his word and in his Son. And he sets the knowledge and calls you to know him.
It will not only impact your life, but all of eternity. Because the Scripture says in 2 Thessalonians 1:8 that Jesus Christ will “come in flaming fire taking vengeance on all those that know not God.” What do you need to do to go to hell and suffer eternal wrath? Just live ignorant of the knowledge of God. Keep your mind far from exposing yourself to the Bible. If you are forced to read a Bible calendar, just read and forget. Hear a sermon and forget it, don’t receive it by meditation, and don’t pray this prayer. You will go to hell because you will not know God, and your heart will not respond in faith, love, and obedience, like I explained. Hence, the tremendous importance of you knowing God.
The Bible calls all unregenerate people “those not knowing God.” How do you know God? First Step: Repent of your sins, turn to God believing in Jesus Christ’s blood and righteousness, and God will suddenly become real. You will realize there is a world you never knew and have lived so blindly. Then, grow in knowing God.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 