Alright brethren, let's turn
to Ephesians chapter 3. I'm going to read one verse here.
Ephesians 3 verse 8. This is the Apostle Paul speaking. He's writing to believers at
Ephesus. And he says, 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 Apostle Paul dealt with so
much more than I know or have ever dealt with, but I do understand
how he felt. To preach Christ to sinners that
are bound for eternity is a weight, it's a responsibility that you
just cannot describe. You're on call 24 hours a day,
365 days out of the year. And what
I mean by that is you just never know, day or night, when God's
going to call you to the Scriptures to search out the message that
He has for you to deliver to His people. You constantly know
that your brethren need for you to seek a word from God for them. And you know that they need for
you to bring a word from God for their lost children. You
know, we have I counted at one time, I don't know how many now,
but it was close to 20 young people in this congregation.
And, you know, we're going to have them for a little while,
just a little while, and they're going to be grown and gone. And
that presses upon me the urgency of teaching them this gospel
while we can, while we can teach them. Most places where I know
of that the gospel is preached, they have a place in their building
where they can teach the young people, you know. And if we had
that, we'd do it here. But since we don't, that's the
reason that it was pressed upon me, the urgency of us having
something for the young people. And having a Fourth Friday where
we teach, you know, the young people. Because it just, the
time is short. The time is short. And then occasionally
there's somebody in the congregation that the Lord's working on. And
you know, as the scripture calls it, they oppose themselves. And
they let you know one way or another that they don't agree
with the gospel you're preaching. And they're just not going to
listen to it. They're just not going to hear it. And so your heart
aches for them. yearns for them to know the gospel.
And you're always asking God to give you a message that He's
going to use to break their stony heart and to give them a heart
of flesh to believe Christ. And then there's this. This is
something that I never realized until God put me in the ministry. is you work during the week and
you study and you labor and you have your brethren on your heart
and different ones come to mind as you're studying and you know
what each of your brethren are suffering and you've talked to
them and you've heard from them. So as you're studying and you
come across something in the scriptures you think, boy, this
will be great for them, this will help them. And then you
get here and they're not here. And that weighs on you. I never
knew how that weighs on a preacher before. I just never knew it,
that it weighs so heavy. Because you know you got a word
for them, you know, and they're not here. And then there's this,
that while you're ministering to God's family, studying the
Word, seeking a message from God, praying, and you're in your
study, you feel like you're neglecting your own family. And then when
you're ministering to your own family, you feel like you're
neglecting God's family. And that's always. You just feel
that way all the time. Simply put, what I'm saying is
you have a heart to be faithful to your Master. You have a heart
to want to serve His people. To just be a servant. To just
bring the Word to them. And give the Gospel to them.
And you know that time is short. You know that this time we have
is so short. And you'll face God, we'll face
God just in a short time. And in addition to all that is
my own sinfulness and my own complete and total inability.
I never saw my sinfulness, I never saw my utter inability till God
put me in the ministry. Not the way I see it now. I see
it the more that Christ gives me light to see Him. I see my
nothingness. I see my powerlessness. I see
it every time God brings another soul to join us in this congregation. I'm reminded of it. And every
time I see one leave and depart, I'm reminded of it. Ezekiel was
sent to a valley of dry bones and sent to preach to dry bones. And God said, can they live?
He said, Lord, you know. And that shows you your inability. It made Isaiah cry out and say,
Lord, who has believed our report? To whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed? Because you have no ability, you have no power to
make anybody hear what you're preaching. And you're just as
bad a sinner as everybody you're preaching to. You feel like an
utter hypocrite most of the time. I know what Paul meant when he
said, unto me who am less than the least of all saints. But
in addition to all of that, even though all those things are true,
this is true too. There's no greater privilege,
there's no greater honor that God could give than to put a
man in the ministry to preach the gospel. No greater privilege
and no greater honor. If a man leaves the pulpit to
become the president of the United States of America, it's a demotion. He's gone down. He's stepped
down. It's the greatest privilege.
It's a calling that God gives. And how could it be anything
but that? To get to spend every day searching the unsearchable? To get to spend every day mining
for precious jewels of Christ and then to get to bring them
to you and declare them to you and give them to you? That's
a great privilege. That's a great honor. My favorite
time of all. And I'm not joking about this. I'm very honest about this. My
favorite time of all is standing right here, right now, preaching
the gospel to you. It's my favorite time. So I know
just a little bit of what the apostle meant when he said, unto
me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace
given? That's what he called the preaching
of the gospel. He said, this is a grace given. That's what
a privilege it is. This is a grace given that I
should preach. To the Gentiles, the unsearchable
riches of Christ. That's the best subject. That's
our only subject. That's what we spend our lives
searching, is the unsearchable riches of Christ. That's a subject
worth preaching not just on the last Sunday of the year. That's
a subject worth preaching every time we gather together. The
unsearchable riches of Christ. And you know what it means when
it says unsearchable? It doesn't mean they can't be
discovered. It means that they can't be calculated. They can't be fathomed. You can't
measure the riches of Christ. You can't add them up. You can't
fully enter into how rich Christ is. And you can't measure these
things and they certainly can't be exhausted. They can't be comprehended
fully and they can't be exhausted. Unsearchable riches. Christ is
an inexhaustible treasure of riches. First there's the riches
of Christ's person. The riches of his person. And
then there's the riches of his work as a mediator between his
people and God. The riches of his work. And then
there's the riches of his grace that he gives to his people through
the preaching of the gospel. Those are the things we'll look
at this morning. First of all, I want you to see the riches
of Christ's person. See something of the riches of
Christ's person. Look at John chapter 1. John
chapter 1. In the beginning before time.
Now I'm saying before time. Before when there was nothing
but eternity. Look at verse 1. In the beginning
was the Word. And the Word was with God. And
the Word was God. You see the riches here of Christ?
Jesus Christ is the essential word. That's why I said Thursday
night. I didn't say it very well. I
was trying to express, you know, it's like shaking your fist at
God. It's like just flipping your
nose at God to have the gospel. to have the Scriptures and to
have the Word of God preached. And for us to, you know, some
will come and they just sleep and they just don't pay attention
and they don't, you know, that's, that's, He's the essential Word. He's the Word that this Word's
about and He's the life that breathes life into this Word
and makes it living in our hearts. So it's just a, it's just a,
It's just shameful to not pay attention and not look at these
words and seek out these words because He's the essential word.
And Christ was with God from eternity and He is God. Some
folks deny this by simply not declaring it. They deny that
Christ is God by not saying He's God. And then others out and
out deny it. If anybody ever comes to your
door claiming to be Jehovah's Witnesses, don't give them an
ear because they deny Christ is God. Look at this now, then
in the beginning when he made time, when he made time in that
beginning, it says verse 2, the same was in the beginning with
God. And all things were made by him. And without him was not
anything made that was made. When the heaven and the earth
and everything in it was made, Christ was the one who made it.
Christ Jesus made everything, everything that was made. You
see the unsearchable riches here in His person? Our Savior, our
Redeemer, is God, our Creator. He's God who created all things
by His Word. Here you had, in the beginning,
you had the Word speaking the Word, and that's why He created
everything. And this is the Word who upholds
all things by the Word of His power. It's by Christ that all
things consist, that everything is held in place. The wind obeyed
when He was walking this earth. He spoke and the wind obeyed
Him. The waves obeyed Him. Every law of nature is His law. It's Him upholding it. It's Him
making it exist. And this very one is our Savior,
this is our Redeemer. This is the one that men say
doesn't have power to bring the gospel to somebody. This is the
one that men say he can't stop the heart of a rebel against
him and break that heart and give him a new heart. Can he
not do what he will? This is God who made all things.
Now then look in the fullness of time. Look at verse 14. In the fullness of time, the
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld His glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth. The Word was made flesh. The
riches, just think of the riches of this. Jesus Christ is perfect
God and He is perfect man. in one person. United in one
person. He is the God-man. And it says,
the God of glory. He's the glory of the only begotten
of the Father. The glory of God. The very glory
of the God the Father dwelt among sinners like us. And then it says, and we beheld
His glory. John says, we beheld his glory.
You know, Moses asked to see the glory of God and he was put
in the cleft of the rock and he saw the glory of God from
behind. God said, you can't see my face.
But John and James and Peter, they were taken up into the Mount
of Transfiguration and Peter said, we're not following fables,
we saw his majesty. And we have men here telling
us first hand, eyewitness testimony, we beheld the glory of God in
the face of Christ Jesus. That's where you're going to
behold Him too if He opens up your heart. That's where we've
beheld Him, isn't it brethren? In the face of Christ Jesus.
And He says, full of grace and truth. You know that Christ Himself,
His person, Christ Himself is grace and truth. He is the fullness
of grace and truth. Christ himself is. The riches
of the blessings of grace. What are the blessings of grace?
Justification, pardon, adoption, sanctification, preservation,
glorification, all of this grace is in Christ's person. All of
this grace comes from the fullness of Christ, every bit of it. And
then you have the riches of the promises of His grace. He promises
life, He promises light, He promises faith, He promises strength,
He promises comfort, peace, joy, Every bit of that comes from
Christ's fullness. He is the fullness of every bit
of that. And it all comes from His fullness.
And it's the same of truth. Christ said, I am the truth. Christ is truth. He's truth personified
and grace personified. Christ Himself is the promise
of God. The scripture says, all the promises
of God in Him. All the promises of God in him
are yes and in him. Amen. Unto the glory of God.
He's the promise of God. Christ himself is the righteousness
of the law. You know, we get to thinking
about the law as these precepts. And the righteousness of the
law as being keeping those precepts. Christ is the righteousness of
the law. He is. The law was given to bring God's
elect to the end of the law. The law was given to bring God's
elect to the fullness of the law. The law was given to declare
us guilty and turn us away from any kind of vain righteousness
we think we have in ourselves and bring us to the One who is
Himself the fullness of the law. And that's Christ. He is the
end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. Christ
Himself is the gospel. He is himself the gospel. He
said, I am the truth and he is himself the gospel. The gospel
is not a system of doctrine. The gospel is a person. The gospel
is the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is himself the substance
of all the shadows and the types in the ceremonial law and he's
the substance of all the prophecies. He's the fullness of the law
and the prophets. Christ is. He said, search the
Scriptures. And that's a command, search
the Scriptures. We ought to search the Scriptures.
And he says, and they are they which testify of me. When you
search these Scriptures, look for Christ. You'll find Him.
I guarantee you if you search these Scriptures looking for
Christ, you'll find Christ. You'll find what you're looking
for in this book. If you come to this book looking for life
at your hand, you'll think you have found life at your hand.
We saw this morning those preachers that wouldn't preach the truth,
they preached lies and they said, the sword and famine won't come
on us. And God said, the sword and famine
is going to come on you. God has a way of doing that. And
it's just giving us what we want. Giving us the desire of our hearts.
And He does that. When He makes you willing to
want Christ and to see Christ and desire Christ, He's going
to give you Christ. And if He takes His hand off
you and gives you the lust of your flesh, He's going to give
you the lust of your flesh. That's right. So here are some
of the riches of His person. First of all, Christ Himself
in His very person is the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He's God and He's man. He's God
in a body. All the attributes of God, so
that we can receive them and understand them, is all seen
in Christ. And all the requirements of man,
for God to receive man, is in Christ. He's God and man in one
person. And secondly, Christ Himself
is, in His very person, the glory of the Father. He is God the
Father's delight. The one He's delighted with.
And then thirdly, Christ Himself in His very person is the fullness
of grace and truth. He's God and man, He's the glory
of the Father, and He is grace and truth. That's who He is.
And if you've been called by Him and saved by Him, you can
say this, Of His fullness have all we received grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses,
but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. He's grace and truth.
You know, that's just a light survey of these unsearchable
riches of Christ. That's just touching on things
just a little bit. You know, who can search them
out? We could search forever and we won't come to the end
of these things. You've heard me say often to you that salvation's
not in what you know. Salvation is in who you know.
Salvation is not a system of doctrine. Salvation is a person.
Don't come to doctrine. Don't come to a system of doctrine.
Don't try to learn a system. Come to Christ. Come to the person. Come to His feet. We won't ever,
ever exhaust the unsearchable riches of Christ. I was thinking
about this. The first message I ever preached
was, Behold the Lamb of God. The very first message I ever
preached, Behold the Lamb of God. That was 15 years ago. And every time I've preached
since then, my message has been, Behold the Lamb of God. And I
have not even begun to scratch the surface of the unsearchable
riches of Christ. And I could preach a whole lifetime
and I won't scratch the surface of the riches of Christ. Inexhaustible. Let's look now at some of the
riches as mediator, some of the riches of His work. First of
all, we have the riches of His surety ship. You know, before
the world began, Christ promised God the Father that He would
bring all God's elect to Him, righteous and holy. that he would
bring all of them to the Father. He did what Judah did when he
became surety for Benjamin. Whenever Joseph told Judah to
bring Benjamin back with you, I want to see Benjamin. And that
boy, that was Jacob's pride and joy. He didn't want to see anything
happen to Benjamin. He would just kill Jacob to see
something happen to Benjamin. And so Judah went to Jacob, his
father, and he said this, I will be surety for him. This is what
that means. He said, 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 forever. That's what Christ, that's the
covenant Christ entered into with the Father before the world
was made. He said, I'll be surety for all
All those you've chosen and given to me, I'll be surety for them.
I'll bring them to you, I'll bring them to you holy, I'll
bring them to you righteous, I'll bring them to you without
spot and without blemish. And if I do not bring them to
you, I'll take the blame forever. I'll bear the blame forever.
This is why, brethren, when we're reading Scripture, this is why
he's called the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
When He struck hands, as it were, with the Father and said, I'll
do this, He became the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
There was no getting out of that. He would go to the cross and
be slain. This is why the works were finished
from the foundation of the world. The works of salvation were finished
when He said, I will do it. They were good as done. This
is why he said, the kingdom was prepared for you from the foundation
of the world. In the end, when he'll say to
the sheep on his right hand, come, inherit the kingdom prepared
for you from the foundation of the world. When was that kingdom
prepared? When Christ entered into suretyship and said, I'll
bring them to you. I won't lose one. What priceless
love. What priceless love for him to
enter into surety ship for a people that could not save ourselves,
that would fall into sin, and to say, I will do everything
necessary. I'll lay down my life to bring
them to you. Do you see the riches in that?
And then you have the riches of his unchanging love. Look
at Romans 5. Romans chapter 5. Whenever Adam fell in the garden,
Christ beheld that. He beheld Adam fall in the garden.
He beheld all these elect that He promised to save. He beheld
them fall. He beheld them all fall. You
and I can hear that today, standing where we are. And it doesn't
really strike us very much. It doesn't really just rip open
our heart to know Adam sinned against God and plunged the whole
human race into sin. What do you think it did to Christ's
heart? When He knows He has entered into surety ship engagement to
do whatever it takes to bring God's elect to Him. And then
all of these that He's agreed to save are suddenly plunged
into sin. He knew they would be when He
entered into the agreement. But here they are in sin. And
the only way to redeem them is to shed His precious blood. And then He sees them all our
days, generation after generation after generation, hating Him. Hating Him. Not wanting Him to
save them. We didn't want Him to save us.
We hated God. Carlomine's enmity against God.
We hated God. And he knew that even after he
saved us, even after he called us and saved us, he knew that
at our best state we would still be altogether vanity. And still
he came. Look at this. When's the last
time you or I laid down our life for the enemy who hated us most?
When's the last time you gave your last dime, your last valuable
possession, everything you had right down to the last valuable
possession, and then just laid down your life to die for your
worst enemy? Look at this, Romans 5, 6. When
we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the
ungodly. for the ungodly. For scarcely
for a righteous man will one die, yet perventure for a good
man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward
us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
While we were sinners, while we were ungodly, Christ died
for us. That's rich, brethren. That's
riches of God's unchanging, unchangeable love. Nothing changed His mind,
nothing changed His heart from what He was determined to do
for His people even when we fell in sin and hated Him. Then there
are the riches of the condescension that He went through to save
His people. The infinite became incarnate.
The Lord came down. He came down, then He came down,
then He came down. He just kept going down, down,
down to be made a man, to be the last Adam, and then to live
as a representative of His people, and then to lay down His life
as the substitute of His people. He just kept going down, down,
down. Why did He do that? Look at Hebrews
2 verse 14. Hebrews 2 verse 14. I guarantee you, if one of our
children did something like this, something this noble, something
this honorable, something this glorious, and we sent somebody
to tell this good news about what our child did, we wouldn't
stand for anybody saying something else. We wouldn't stand for them
going forth and bragging about themselves and bragging about
those they were speaking to. We'd say, no, speak about my
son. And that's what God says to his
people. You go forth speaking about what my son has done. There's
nothing else worthy of talking about. Look here at Hebrews 2.14.
For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood,
he also himself likewise took part of the same. that through
death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that
is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were
all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not
on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of
Abraham." Turn over to 2 Corinthians 8. You see the amazing riches
of his grace? Look at 2 Corinthians and look
at chapter 8 and look at verse 9. For you know the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, He was rich. He thought it not robbery to
be equal to God. He's the eternal, immutable,
infinite, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent God who made all things
in heaven and in earth visible and invisible. He's God. He's
rich. Yet, for your sakes, he became
poor. For the sake of all God's elect,
the owner of heaven and earth, voluntarily became poor. For he whose spirit was made
flesh, he who could not be touched was touched with the feeling
of our infirmities. He who alone is worthy of all
praise made himself of no reputation. He who owned the foxes and the
birds said, the foxes have holes and the birds of the air have
nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. He who
was the Savior of men was despised and rejected of men. He who holds
the only joy there is became a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. Worst of all was the poverty,
the shame of the cross. He went to that cross to bear
the sin of His people. He went to that cross to be made
sin for His people. It was the only way God could
be just. It was the only way that He could
be the justifier. There's no other poverty that
involves the kind of agony that our Savior suffered. There's
nobody that's ever borne the wrath of God and satisfied the
wrath of God. Born it, the eternal wrath of
God, to the point that he satisfied the wrath of God. And he did
that for a people that did not even love him. There has never
been a step down so low that was at the same time the most
God-honoring, God-glorifying step of all time. And why did
he do it? Why did he do it? Look at verse
9. That you through his poverty
might be rich. You who he's called by his grace.
You who God elected before the foundation of the world. You
that he laid down his life for. You have been given full free
pardon. You've been given a full free
justification. Full free righteousness. You've
been fully freely made complete in the Lord Jesus Christ. Brethren,
can you put a price on these riches? Is there any way that
you could... Do you get tired of hearing about
this? You reckon a man that was on death row in prison, about
to be put to death, and somebody come along and laid down their
life for him, you reckon he'd ever stop talking about them?
Christ has done something for us, brethren. He's given us life
eternal. He's given us something better
than what Adam had in the garden. So that we can never again be
lost because of what He's done. Because of His blood. That makes
His blood precious blood, doesn't it? Precious means precious like
the rarest of jewels. Precious like a diamond that
you'd never even... It's just rare, precious blood. Precious because it was shed
just for his people. Precious because he got the job
done. Precious blood. Now behold something else. Behold
the riches of his resurrection. By becoming least, he exalted
God to the highest. And God exalted him to the highest.
Philippians 2 says, God also highly exalted him and gave him
a name which is above every name. above every name. Jesus Christ
is Lord. He's Lord. To the glory of God
the Father, He's Lord. He's Lord and Christ. He's King
of Kings and Lord of Lords, and He's the Savior of His people.
Though we didn't know it, brethren, look at Ephesians 2. You know
this, but I want you to see it again. Ephesians 2. We didn't
know it, but this is what He did for us by raising Him from
the dead. Look at Ephesians 2, 6. He raised us up together and
made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. He did
that when He raised Him. We weren't even born yet, and
yet we were raised in Christ Jesus and made to sit together
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And here's why, here's
the riches of His resurrection, that in the ages to come, He
might show, Christ Himself might show the exceeding riches of
His grace and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. that
He might show the exceeding riches of His grace to us. His being raised from the dead
secured life for all His people. His being raised from the dead
guarantees that our bodies shall be raised in the resurrection.
His being raised from the dead guarantees all His people are
going to be born again in this life. And that when we die, our
bodies are going to be raised from the dead and enter with
Him. He's the first fruit of them that slept. Because He raised,
He was risen, we're going to be risen. That's the guarantee
that it's going to come to pass. We could go on and on here and
look at just... I mean, there's just unsearchable
riches. But, you know, I think I've told you this before. Preaching
Christ is like preaching a diamond. You take a diamond, a whole diamond,
a cut diamond, and you can turn that diamond, and there's a face.
And you turn it again, there's another little face. And you've
got all these many faces. It's the same diamond, but you
just turn it, and there's another face. Turn it, there's another
face. Turn it, and you preach all these faces. That's how it
is with Christ. It doesn't matter what the subject
is. It doesn't matter where the text is, what the passage is,
this whole book is showing us the face of Christ. And it's
showing us another beautiful aspect of this rich treasure,
this pearl of great price. And you can preach Him, and preach
Him, and preach Him, and you'll never exhaust preaching Christ. We're going to be studying Christ,
brethren, for all eternity. And we still won't exhaust it.
These riches will go on and on and on. Let me show you this
last thing here now. The riches that he bestows through
the preaching of the gospel. As he ascended, he gave gifts
unto men. And what riches He gave some
apostles, some pastors, some teachers for the building up
of His church, for the calling out of His sheep, for the unity
until we all come, all of His elect come in the unity of the
faith. You can read that in Ephesians 4. We're going to get to it here
soon in our study of Ephesians. But how about these riches, brethren?
There He sits at the right hand of the Father. And He has all
this grace that He's purchased for His people. And he's advocating
for his people. Father, don't destroy that one. That's mine. I bought that one.
I'm bringing my gospel to him and I'm fixing to reveal the
gospel in that one's heart right there. And I'm fixing to robe
them in my garment of righteousness. I'm fixing to create them anew
in righteousness and true holiness. Father, look at these nail prints
in my hand and don't pour out judgment upon that one. I've
sealed that one. I've bought that one. That one's
mine. God, we can't put a price on His intercession. And so He
sends us the Gospel. And here we are. He finds us,
and you know what He finds us doing? He finds us heaping up
as much treasure of this world as we can get. Fool's gold, money,
gold, silver, diamonds, cars, houses, stuff, and stuff, and
more stuff. He finds us heaping up the treasures
that men can give us. He finds us heaping up the treasures
of power, and honor, and prestige, and applause for men. He finds
us heaping up the treasures of religion. He finds us heaping
up all this big savings account of good works that we've done,
and of past experiences that we have, and all of these things
that we think are riches that are going to buy us entrance
into God's presence. And with these earthly riches,
we have no need of Christ. We're like the man in the parable
that Christ gave. We say, ah, say to my soul, soul,
thou hast much goods laid up for many years. Take your ease. Eat, drink, be merry. Listen
to me, sinner that doesn't know God, that's what you're doing.
That's what you're doing. You're saying, I'm in no hurry
about this. I can eat, drink, be merry. I'm
at ease. But God said unto him, Thou fool,
this night thy soul shall be required of thee. Then who shall
those things be which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth
up treasure for himself, and he is not rich toward God. This
is why Christ said, It's easier for a camel to go through the
eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter into the
kingdom of God. Yet all the riches of this world,
you take all the riches of this world and heap them all up together
and add them all up together and they are utterly worthless. Utterly worthless. They'll do
your soul's eternal good no good whatsoever. And if you heap them
all up and add them all up, they're nothing compared to the riches
that are in Christ Jesus. die without Christ and everything
that you thought was gain, all the riches you thought was gain,
the Lord says, your gold and silver is cankered and the rest
of them shall be a witness against you and shall eat your flesh
as it were fire. Listen to Christ's words. Because
thou sayest I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of
nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable,
and poor, and blind, and naked, I counsel thee, this is Christ
speaking, I counsel thee, to buy of me gold tried in the fire,
that thou mayest be rich. This is what Christ says. The
very purpose for which Christ sends his preacher into this
world is to declare these unsearchable riches of Christ to tell poor,
bankrupt sinners in the poverty of sin, in the utter poverty
and hunger, famished and just dying and dead in sin, is so
that he can tell you that all of these riches that belong to
Christ can be yours. Freely. Freely. You take one of the richest men
in the world. Let's take... I don't know who the richest
man in the world is now, but Bill Gates is who I think of.
You take Bill Gates, for example. Say Bill Gates got a bunch of
fellas gathered up. And he said, go into the world.
Go all into the world. And I want you to find the poorest
of the poorest of the poorest that you can find. And I want
you to go forth and I want you to tell them. I was sent to tell
you. The man who sent me told me to
tell you this. If you will simply turn away
from trying to make a living by yourself. From working to
try to make a living. Some of y'all are sitting here
and you think working those 15, 16, 17 hour days. That sounds pretty good, don't
it? come to you and say, now you stop working to try to make
a living, turn away from what you call your riches, turn away
from what you call your savings account, and trust me to pay
your way the rest of your days. Trust me to pay for everything
you need for the rest of your days. All my riches are your
riches. Now, if Bill Gates did that,
I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd look at my little old piddly
savings account, and I'd look at his savings account, and I'd
say, I'd be a fool not to take that. Well, let me tell you something. Christ is more rich than all
the Bill Gates of this world combined. and he sent me forth
to tell you this good news. Turn from your self-enriching
works. Turn from trying to find eternal
life by the work of your hand. Turn from trying to save up in
your little piddly saving account all those false vain filthy rag
righteousnesses and turn to Christ and believe on Christ, repent
from you and believe on Christ and all these unsearchable riches
of Christ are freely yours." That's the gospel. And I'm declaring
this good news, and when my master speaks in power to your heart,
he starts purging the conscience of his child. You see, you'll
hear this news, and you'll be as foolish as... It's more foolish
to hear this from Christ than it would be to hear that message
from Bill Gates. You'd think a man that turned
that down would be an idiot. We'll see you keep turning this
down. You keep saying I don't have
any need for that. I don't have any use for that. Look at all
the riches I've got. And it takes God purging your
conscience and bringing you into your right mind to see, to make
you look at your savings account of righteousness. And look at
your savings account of vain holiness and everything you've
got saved up. And then to see Christ's riches
and to see, I've got nothing. And then you come into your right
mind and you say, I've been a madman all these years. I've been delusional
not to fall at His feet and ask for mercy from Him. And so He
brings you then to follow His feet, brethren. And that's why
I'm saying, I'm just sent to tell you this. And then what He does this
too, as I'm preaching it to you, you know what He's doing the
whole time He's working in this child, the Spirit's coming forth,
and Christ is going, put that righteousness on him. Put this
holiness in him. That gets used with this perfect
obedience to the law that I've worked out. Give Him these ears
right here so we can hear this gospel. Give Him this heart right
here so He can understand what I'm saying to Him. And He's just
decking you out with life, and light, and holiness, and righteousness,
and all these things, and faith, and repentance, and all these
riches. He's just loading you down with
all these things, the riches of free justification, and of
a perfect righteousness, and of a perfect holiness, and of
adoption, and sanctification, and of His sovereign power to
protect you and guide you all the days of your life. Riches
of strength, and comfort, and peace, and joy, and all these
lasting riches of bringing you then at last to glorifying grace. He's doing all of this to bring
you to Himself. And the Spirit itself bears witness
with our spirit and He says, you're a child of God. And if
a child, then an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ.
Christ makes you know everything He has is yours. Let me end with it. If there's
a sinner here, and you're hearing this and you think, I'm too lost,
I don't have enough power, I don't have enough, I don't have anything
in me to come to Christ and to believe on Him and to cast all
my care on Him, then you're perfectly qualified. You're perfectly qualified. The Lord said, they that are
whole have no need of a physician. He said, but they that are sick,
I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repent. Well preacher,
what do I need? Do I need to work up some tears? No, you don't need any fake tears.
Do I need to walk an aisle and give you my hand and confess
my sin to you? No, go to Christ and confess
your sin to Christ. Do I need to prepare myself?
What do I need to do? No, Christ has done all the preparation. And if you can come to Him, He's
already prepared you. The psalmist said, let not conscience
make you linger, nor fitness finally dream. All the fitness
he requires is to fill your need of him. This he gives you, tis
his spirit's rising beam. I'm saying to you, you need nothing
but Christ. That's what you need. And then,
He commands all who believe on Him to make it known publicly
in believers' baptism. If you believe Him and you trust
Christ and He's all your hope, let me know that you want to
confess Him in water baptism and we'll set a date. And then
secondly, if there's a sinner here who still lusts after the
riches of this world rather than Christ, let me just say how foolish
you are. For what is a man profited if
he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? I pray
God grants you a right mind. I pray, go home and download
this message and listen to it again and look over these notes
and I pray God will give you a right mind. And then believer,
for you sitting here that trust Him, is your life cluttered,
our lives get cluttered. We get all this stuff going on
that we think is important and is necessary and that we got
to be giving our time and attention to. Let me give you this word
and help simplify your life. Make Christ the one pursuit of
your life. That's it. Make Christ the one
pursuit of your life. All the unsearchable riches of
God are found in Christ Himself. And He says to you that believe
on Him, all things are yours. And Christ is God's. And you
are Christ, and Christ is God's. Set your affection on nothing
but the unsearchable riches of Christ Himself. We'll spend eternity
learning of these riches. We're going to be there a million
years and they're going to still be as unsearchable to us then
as they are the first day. They're going to be just as new.
We're going to see, we're going to get there and we're going
to see just how far and how wide and how high and how broad Christ's
grace really has been. We're going to get there and
we're going to see how large His kingdom is. We're going to
get there and we're going to see how much grace He has given
to us personally to call us, to redeem us, and call us, and
hold us up, and keep us all our day. We're going to see how much
grace He poured out upon us when we didn't even know it. Much
less than all His people, all His saints. We're going to be
amazed at how many people He saved by His grace. fullness
of grace, and all the honor and the glory that He's going to
bestow on us together with Him, we're going to be amazed at the
riches. Just amazed, brethren. Can you
just stop and just... Sometimes I just think about...
I just sit sometimes and I think about... Man, what would that
be like? What would it be like to wake
up, go from this body of death and this sin and all the mess
and wake up in His presence and behold the unsearchable riches
that He's freely given to us. The unsearchable riches that
He is. And just think on that sometime. That will settle your heart.
That will comfort you. That will make you look forward
to the day when you really start living. To that happy birthday. Man! We've been made unsearchably
rich in His unsearchable riches. I thank God for His unspeakable
gift. That's a good way to end this
year. You know how we're going to start
it next time? With the same message. Same message. By His grace. Amen.