Ephesians chapter 3. Paul says in verse 7, I was made
a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given unto
me by the effectual working of His power unto me. who am less than the least of
all saints is this grace given, that I should preach among the
Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. and to make all see
what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning
of the world has been hid in God, who created all things by
Jesus Christ, to the intent that now and to the principalities
and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church
the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which
he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness,
and access with confidence by the faith of Christ. Paul said unto me, who am less
than the least of all saints, is this grace given that I should
preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ? The subject is riches to the
least, riches to the least. Paul was being grown in grace
by our Lord At first, he said, I'm the least of the apostles.
He said, I'm not meet to be called an apostle because I persecuted
the church of God. I'm the least of the apostles.
And a little while later, having seen the riches of Christ more,
he said of himself, I'm less than the least of all the saints. And then at the end of his life,
having seen the riches are all in Christ and all access and
boldness is in him alone, Paul said, this is a faithful saying
and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners of whom I am chief. That's growing in
the knowledge of the Lord. Listen to the words of Edgar.
He's most likely Solomon, most likely after the Lord recovered
him and restored him. And he saw himself to be vanity,
as well as everything in the world to be vanity. Proverbs
30 verse 1, the words of Agur, it means gathered, and this is
most likely when the Lord had gathered him after falling and
fumbling around through his life, and he gathered him, made him
know he was the gathered. He's the son of Jacob, which
means blameless, and truly God's children are the son of Christ
Jesus, the blameless. This was his prophecy. He spoke
to Ithiel and Uchal. Ithiel means God is with me.
Uchal means devoured. Christ said, God is with me.
And on the cross, Jesus was marred more than any man. He is speaking
to two young disciples, two young students of the gospel. And he
says this. This is what Edgar said about
himself. Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the
understanding of a man. This is where the riches of God's
grace brings you. I'm more brutish than any man,
I don't even have the understanding of a man. I neither learned wisdom,
I didn't teach myself, I didn't learn wisdom, nor have I the
knowledge of the holy. Who is that wisdom and who is
the holy who has knowledge? I don't have the knowledge, he
has. Who is he? He answered it with some questions.
He said, who hath ascended into heaven or descended? That's Christ
alone. He's wisdom. He said, who gathered
the wind in his fists? Who hath bound the waters in
a garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What's
his name? And what is his son's name? If
thou canst tell, every word of God is pure. He's saying, there's my riches. Every word of God is pure. He's
a shield unto them that put their trust in Him. Add not to His
words, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. Don't
add anything to His gospel. Don't add anything to salvation.
Christ alone. Now listen to what he asked of
the Lord. Two things I've asked of Thee,
Lord. Deny me not them before I die. This is where wisdom brought
him. This is all he wanted right here.
Remove from me vanity and lies. And you can tell by what he just
said about himself. He's talking about himself. His
own sinful flesh. And this world and everything
in it. Give me neither poverty nor riches. That is, poverty
of this world or riches of this world. Feed me with food convenient
for me. Give me grace. Give me your gospel. Lest I be
fooled and deny thee. That is, if I'm made rich in
this world, I'll be full and deny thee and say, who is the
Lord? Or lest I be poor and still and
take the name of my God in vain. Well, that's exactly what Christ
gives to them who are His. And He starts out making you
say, I'm the least of this group. But then he teaches you over
a little while, I'm the least of all the saints. And then he
keeps teaching until finally you get to the end and say, I'm
more brutish than any man. I've not learned wisdom. His words are pure. He's the
gatherer. I'm the chief of sinners. And
Paul speaks here that the way God does this is He gave him
the riches of Christ, that he might preach these unsearchable
riches of Christ. The one way for you and me to
see we're poor in our flesh is for the Lord to make us see His
riches. his riches. You know, you might
get to a point where you kind of think you have some understanding
and then the Lord shows you something of yourself and how unlearned
you are. But he shows you that by showing
you how wise Christ is. And that makes you say, I'm not
wise. And then you may, you know, if
you thought you were rich in this world or whatever, and even
if you just looked at some man as super wealthy, you'd realize,
I'm not rich in this world. Well, he shows you himself and
makes you know. He's the richest. Everything's
of him. So I want to talk about the riches
of his person, the riches of his work, and the riches he gives
us beginning to end. the riches of His person. It
is the Lord Jesus Himself. who is our salvation. He is the
riches. He is the riches. He's the Word
who is pure. That's what Edgar said. His Word
is pure. He's the Word that's pure. In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not
anything made that was made. That's what Paul said. Christ
Jesus made everything. He is God, our Savior, brethren. Our Savior is God. Our Savior
is God. That man, Christ Jesus, is God. He's the Word. And He's the Creator
who made all things and He's the Word who spoke it all into
existence out of nothing. He didn't use anything when He
created a new man and you. Just like He didn't use anything
when He created the world. It's called a creation. He created
something that was not there. That's what He does. That's what
He does. He upholds all things by the
Word of His power. The wind, and the sea obey His
command. Why is it colder this morning?
We walked out and the first thing Kristen said, it's cold. I said,
it's a lot colder than I expected it to be. Why? He controls everything. It does His bidding. He says,
let there be snow. There's snow. He says, let it
be dry. There's going to be a drought.
He controls everything by the word of His power. This is our
sovereign Savior. I have a dear sister I was talking
to yesterday and she's got some trouble. She's got a son that's
real sick. And she told me, she said, I wouldn't have any comfort
if I didn't know my God is sovereign. And He's doing this. He's doing
this. Our Savior is sovereign. He came
and He dwelt among us and revealed Himself to us. Talk about riches. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us and we beheld His glory. The glory is of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth. He's the glory who
is the only begotten of the Father. He's the glory of God, our Savior
Christ Jesus. And He's full of grace and truth.
The riches He gives us is Himself. He's the treasure. He's the pearl
of great price. That's who He is. His grace It's
not just something outside of Himself. His grace is His fullness. It's of Him. It's Him giving
Himself to you. He's our wisdom. He's our light.
He's our strength. He's our comfort. He's our peace.
He's our joy. My joy I give to you, He said.
He's that joy. He's that joy. The Lord is the
truth. He's the promise of God. He is
the gospel. He is the covenant. He is salvation. He is salvation. Search the scriptures,
he said. They are they which testify of
me. They are they which testify of
me. What do you search the scriptures for? They are they which testify
Christ. and of His fullness have all
we received grace for grace." We've been made rich. You that
know Him, you've been made rich. You are the richest people on
this earth. Unsearchable riches that Christ
has given you. What about the riches of His
work? That's the riches of His person. He said, I'll never leave
you, I'll never forsake you. We're going to see in the second
hour, His presence is with us and we don't even know it. He
said, I'll never leave you, I'll never forsake you. That's Him.
That's the rich pearl of great price. And then what about His
works? The riches of Christ being our surety from before the world
was made. You know, Judah became surety
for Benjamin. This is what he said. He said,
I will be surety for Him. Of my hand shalt thou require
him. If I bring him not unto thee,
and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame for ever.
That's what Christ did for everyone of God's elect before this world
was made. Christ Jesus said, I'll go into
that world, I'll make them righteous, I'll put away the sin, I'll call
them, I'll keep them, and I will bring them to you, and you can
require of me if I don't. That's why He's the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world. That's why the works were finished
from the foundation of the world. That's how God your Father prepared
a kingdom for you from before the foundation of the world.
He gave you to Christ and Christ became your surety. That's rich,
brethren. That's riches. That's riches. So you have the riches of His
unchanging love in Christ. Adam's fall and our fall did
not change God's love for us. We fell in Adam. We became guilty
in Adam. We died in Adam. That did not
change God's love for us because His love was in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
the same yesterday, today, and forever. I'll tell you something. If we can get a hold of what
that means, of how, what a rich, rich blessing that is, that will
help you in every season of darkness to know God's love did not change
even when we fell in Adam. Then when we were conceived in
sin and came forth ruined sinners, God's love never changed, never
wavered. And brethren, here's the good
news. Now that he's called us, at our
very best state, we are altogether vanity. At our very best state,
all our very best works are just filthy rags. We don't see that
comparing them to one another. Compare them to Christ. Compare
Him to Christ. Look to that darkness and see
His perfect faithfulness. The pure word He promised the
Father. He'd believe Him and trust Him
and never waver. And see Him never wavering. And
you'll see whether your faith wavers. And you'll see where
your true riches are. They're in the Lord Jesus Christ.
They're in the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, I am the Lord, I change
not, and therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. nor depth,
nor height, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God, because it's in Christ Jesus our Lord."
What about the riches of His work of redemption? 2 Corinthians 8, 9 says, you know
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. I love to read that, the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is His grace. This is His
grace. that though he was rich, yet
for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might
be rich. He was rich. I mean, we can't
even, it's never entered our mind how rich. He created all
things and he owned all things, seen and unseen. We just see
the seen things and we don't see all of that. He owns everything,
created all things, seen and unseen. He said, if I were hungry,
I wouldn't tell you, for the world is mine and the fullness
thereof. That's rich. And yet, for our sake, for the
sake of his people, he became poor. He's worthy of all praise. He's worthy of all praise. And he made himself with no reputation. He created all things and He
said, the foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests,
but the Son of Man has not where to lay His head. He made man and then He came
forth and was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows acquainted
with grief. You think of the poverty of the
cross. He was made what he hated. This holy one who knew no sin
was made the sin he hated. He took all the sin of all his
people, not just Adam's sin, all our iniquities, every thought,
every word, every deed. He became what we are and took
all our sin that he hated. I can't even imagine it. I cannot
even comprehend the unsearchable riches of that. How poor he made
himself. Agony of soul. Bearing the wrath
of God that you and I would have had to bear. Poor. Poor. But he did that for us. He became poor for us who hated
Him, who sinned against Him, who did not love Him, who did
not want Him to save us, who never have ever really served
Him as He ought to be served. And He did it that you through
His poverty might be made rich. How rich? rich with the full, free righteousness
that He is, that will never change. No matter what we do, that will
never change. He's your righteousness. Every
dot of this law and every T of this law, He has crossed it and
dotted it. He has fulfilled it. So that
God looks upon you in Christ and says, Well done. You've done it perfectly. You've
done it absolutely perfectly. Rich with full free redemption. He purchased you from the curse. He purchased His people from
the curse. He bought us from the curse because
He bore the curse in our place. You won't bear the curse. You
won't bear the curse. He will not let you bear the
curse. He bore it. His justice, His glory is at
stake. You cannot bear the curse. He
promised the fathers, our surety, I'll bring Him to you. And so
He did what was necessary. Rich with an eternal inheritance
that is prepared and it is reserved in heaven for you He redeemed. prepared and reserved. And you're
being kept by His power because He will see to it you have that
inheritance. Brethren, that's rich. That's
rich. It's unsearchable. Ephesians
2.6 said, this is why He raised us up together. When He raised
Christ, He raised us up together. He made us sit together in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. Here's why He did it. That in
the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace
in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. Half hadn't been
told. Half hadn't been told. We can
turn the face of this diamond all our life. And that's all
the preaching of the gospel is, is you just keep looking at a
different face of the diamond. And we won't exhaust it. We will
not exhaust it. We won't even touch the surface. And we're going to be eternity
learning what exceeding riches He's shown us in His grace and
kindness to us. Well, what about the riches He
keeps on giving us? Well, He called us. That's riches
right there. We would have never known Him
if He didn't call us to begin with. We had nothing to do with
that. He quickened us. He gave us the riches of this
grace. That's how we come into an understanding of it. But here's
the blessing, brethren. Here's the riches. We have His
ongoing, continual, constant intercession for us at God the
Father's right hand. That's the only reason we're
not consumed. His constant, continual intercession for us at God's
right hand. He said, God said, I will divide
him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil
with the strong. He's referring to you and me
as the strong and we're anything but that in ourselves. He has
taken his inheritance and he's made us join heirs with him and
he's going to divide that spoil with us and he's our strength. He poured out His soul unto death.
He was numbered with the transgressors. He bare the sin of many and He
made intercession for the transgressors. That's why He's sitting there.
He made intercession. He already did it. He's sitting
there at God's right hand and His very presence, His very wounds
speak to God and say, I've done it. I've made intercession. And that's the intercession He
makes for us. When we're cast down, sin, or you get puffed
up, or you act like you didn't even know Him, like you never
even known God, you act like you're a beast and not a man,
and you don't have even the wisdom of a man, and you see it. The Spirit of God helps our utter
weakness, because we don't even know what we should pray for
as we ought. But the Spirit himself makes
intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered, and
he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit,
because he makes intercession for the saints according to the
will of God. He's all your strength. That's
what he's saying. I'm your strength. That's why
you're the strong. You can't even pray. It's my
spirit making you pray. That's what he said. You know,
it's bad to be condemned by others, but that's not the worst condemnation
by far, at all. The worst condemnation is when
we condemn ourselves. The worst condemnation is when
you don't have any faith and you're condemning yourself and
you're convinced in your heart, I'm not a child of God. That's
the worst condemnation. You know, you start looking at
your sin, and really what you're doing when you're looking at
your sin is you're saying, if I was more righteous, I'd be
okay. And it's just the same sin. Sin is self-righteousness,
and self-righteousness is sin. It's what we eat, sleep, and
breathe. But when you're in that place, and you cannot lift up
your head, and you don't know what to pray, and can't pray,
And the Spirit Himself makes intercession for you, and He
makes you start groaning. Here's the one thing, this is
the light, here's the great pearl that comes into the heart right
here. This is what the Lord says to you, child of God. He comes and says to you, who
is He that condemneth? Who are you to condemn? You want
to be chastened? Really chastened? People talk
about, oh, I need to, you know, do whatever to try to, you know,
and most of it's just more self-righteousness. It's God coming to you and saying,
who are you to condemn? Who are you to condemn yourself,
God says. Who are you to condemn yourself? Well, that's when the clouds
roll back. God says, it's Christ that died,
yea rather that's risen again, who's at my right hand making
intercession for you. That's when you got some riches
then. My little children, these things
write unto you, that you sin not. I would to God, I wouldn't sin
again, and I would, you wouldn't either. There's something about sin,
brethren, I can't really explain this, but the more we try not
to sin, it seems like the more we sin. The freeness of grace is when
God's got you affectionately looking to Him and you're not
even regarding yourself. That's when you're really worshiping
Him. That's when you're really walking
and trusting Him. But when we're trying to put
it away and this and that, we just get more wrapped up and
more wrapped up and more wrapped up. But here's where He keeps
bringing you. When we sin, we have an advocate
with the Father. Jesus Christ the righteous and
He is the propitiation for our sins. It's the soul of His people
everywhere all over this world. Don't forget that, brethren.
Remember when Peter said he's accomplishing the same
affliction in your brethren. He afflicts them just like he's
afflicted you. And the same thing he's working
in you, he's working in your brethren. He's the advocate with
the Father, a propitiation for our sins for the brethren everywhere. Everyone in this room and everyone
in this world, remember that. He's able. He can work it. He
can save you, brother, just like he's saving you. And it's His
riches, it's His person, it's works that makes us see ourselves
as the least. It's all this rich, rich, richness
of our Lord that keeps us seeing ourselves as the least. And more
and more seeing ourselves making us more and more the least, making
us less than the least, and then eventually making us to be the
chief of sinners. You know, earthly riches puff
men up in pride. But so does pride of grace. So does the revelation of Christ
and the things He's teaching us. You know, when Paul was taken
to the third heaven, the reason God made him suffer like he did
was lest he be exalted because of the revelation. We want wisdom,
we want instruction, we want knowledge, and the more He gives
you that, the more He's going to afflict you. Because if He
didn't, knowledge puffs up. Thankfully, our Lord is going
to keep us not seeing ourselves as wise and He's going to keep
you seeing yourself as the fool. That you might be wise because
then you see all your wisdom in Christ. That's what he's working. You know, David, we're looking
through Psalm 119, and David, I mean, you just see a man that
you think, what a wise man. Us looking at him, we say, what
a wise man. How the Lord instructed him and
taught him and gave him good judgment and gave him knowledge.
And what do you hear David saying constantly? Lord, teach me. Give me understanding. Give me
knowledge. Don't let me fall away. Don't
let me behold vanity. Keep me looking at you. Keep
me, Lord. Teach me." See, he didn't see himself as wise. That's
true wisdom. The more he gives it, the less
you see yourself as having it. Because the more you see, he's
it. He is the wisdom. Rejoice, brethren, that God keeps
us in that place between riches and poverty, between pride and
despair. He keeps you in that place where
you need to be, knowing Christ alone is your riches. He's your
pearl of great price. He's the treasure hidden afield.
And He's going to make these riches in this world, in our
flesh, in our sins, in our self-righteousnesses, even in our graces, in everything
about us. He keeps you seeing anything
that's of you or of this world as being fool's gold. including our money and our stuff
and what we like to call, and they are blessings, the things
He temporarily gives you. He gives you all things richly
to enjoy. But don't set your heart on those
things and don't think that's your blessing and that's your
riches, because when He takes them away, you will be in utter
despair. He's your riches. If He took
all of it away, you still got Him, and that can't ever be taken
from you. There's your riches. You think
of every carnal thing you possess right this minute. Think of every
carnal thing you possess right this minute. He said, take heed,
beware of covetousness, for a man's life consists not in the abundance
of things which he possesseth. You take everything you own,
everything you possess, and I'm talking about even the grace
he's given you, all these things. Take everything you've ever done
right now, everything. If you die tonight, what is the one thing that's
going to be your salvation? Of everything you have, the one
thing that's going to be your salvation is Christ. When that
moment comes and you know you're about to stand before God, God's not going to let His child
look at anything we've ever done or said or accumulated or any
of that because that won't be any comfort to you. That'd be
like a drowning man latching on to a stone. He's going to
make you see Christ and see He is your salvation and Him only. I wish we could see that. I pray
God make us see that. What has a man profited if he
shall gain the whole world and lose his soul? What shall a man
give in exchange for his soul? If you have Christ, Scripture
says you're complete. If you have Christ, Scripture
says you're complete. You're accepted of God, and through
faith in Him, you shall enter into an eternal inheritance with
Him, and He is the inheritance. And so our Lord keeps speaking
to us anytime we're looking anywhere else and we're looking at something
else and we set our covetous, sinful heart on something and
think that's our riches. Whether it's something really
good that we've done and think that's godliness and boy, we're
really pleasing God now. Or whether it's something really
sinful and we think, oh, we can't be God's child now. Whatever the case, riches or
poverty. He comes to you and He says,
I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire that thou mayest
be rich. You know what that gold tried
in the fire is? The fire is the cross and the
gold is the one hanging on it. And that fire did not consume
Him, He consumed the fire. The reason your faith is called
more precious than gold is not because of your faith, it's because
of who your faith is trusted. That's him. That's him. Every time he does that, he makes
you see you're a poor bankrupt sinner in yourself. But he makes
you see the reason that the king's daughter is all glorious within
and her clothing is of worked out gold is because it's Christ
in you, the hope of glory. That's it. That's it. You know, if the wealthiest man
in this world came to you today and he said, I will make you
rich and I'll provide for you the rest of your days, The only thing I require of you
is this. Come to me and tell me every single debt you have
that you owe and stop trying to pay them yourself and trust
me to pay them. You would have to be out of your
mind not to take that, wouldn't you? I bet you'd go to your account
and you'd start seeing everything you owe, everything, you'd look
at all and see everything you owe and you'd go to it and you'd
say, here, let me see, wait, let me go look, let me see if
I can find something else. Here's something else I owe. And you'd just not
stop until you told him everything you owe. That's what examining yourself
is. It's seeing you don't have anything but debts in you. nothing
but debt in you. And it's going to Christ and
confessing every single debt you owe, every single sin you
know of, and then to make sure you confess it all to Him, you
tell Him, and Lord, I'm just conceived in sin, that's all
I am. There's secret debts I don't
even know I've incurred, would you pay those for me? And the
riches is, He makes you know, I have paid them. And I'm providing
you with everything you need, every step you take, every breath
you take. That's why the psalmist said,
when he does that, this is what the psalmist was saying, he restoreth
my soul. When he does that for you, that's
what he does, he restores your soul. And He leads me in the
paths of righteousness for His name's sake. He makes you see
He's the way. And He leads you after Him. It's
the soul. It's a union with Him. Union
with Him. My God shall supply all your
need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. And
in the end, you are heir of God and a joint heir with Christ. Go through the Scriptures sometime.
I've got a lot more here, but I'm not going to go through it. But you go through the Scriptures
and just look at how much Scripture talks about the riches of His
grace, the riches of His grace, the riches, the riches, the riches.
He says, I count to you, come by of me wine and oil and without
money and without price. Your soul will be rich. Your
soul will be rich. Amen. Our gracious Father, we thank
you for this good news and we're thankful, Lord, for your unspeakable
gift. Lord, thank you for keeping us
looking to you. Thank you for us finding all our treasure in
you alone. Lord, would you please be willing
to work this And would You make us wise, make
us have true understanding, make Christ our wisdom, make us find
all our riches in Him alone. Forgive us, Lord, for panning
for gold in His flesh and the works we do in the world. Dry it up, Lord, and make us
find it all in Christ only. In His name we ask it. Amen.