Ephesians chapter 3, because today I want to declare
to you the unsearchable riches of Christ. Every believer has
heard of these riches, otherwise they wouldn't be attending the
church where it is declared the unsearchable riches of Christ.
Now these riches that we're talking about, they're blessings, They
are rescue. They are protection. They're His faithfulness. They're
His care. They're His mercy. And they are
His love. And we desire to hear these riches
week after week, year after year. And we desire to enjoy these
riches. We desire to enjoy them. week
after week and year after year. They are all we want and nothing
further. The believer doesn't want anything
except what's found in the unsearchable riches. And I can tell you, if a member
of a gospel preaching church gets up and leaves and goes to
somewhere else, some other denomination, it is because they didn't hear
They did not hear these unsearchable riches of Christ. Now we want
more and more of these riches. We keep coming back, don't we?
We keep coming back. It's like a buffet. I don't know
what another analogy we can do that we keep going back to, but
it's like a buffet. And it's not just a buffet you've
gone to alone. Everybody's at the buffet. is
a believer, is at the buffet. You go to those tables and you
load up on whatever you see. It's all good. It's all good. It's not things you don't want,
like liver and onions. Everything there is good. And
you load up your plate and you sit down and you see everybody
there. There's fellowship and everybody's in agreement.
And then you eat You finish what's on your plate, but you're not
full, and you go back for more. You just get to keep going back.
Those are the unsearchable riches of Christ. We're just insatiable
for these things, as we should be. Now, these unsearchable riches,
they come in many forms. They come in many forms. The
verse I'm starting from is just verse 8, just verse 8 in Ephesians
3. It says, to me, says Paul, to
me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace
was given, right here, that I should preach among the Gentiles the
unsearchable riches of Christ. That was the grace given to Paul. He's not talking about receiving
these unsearchable riches. He's talking about preaching
them. He gets to declare them to all the Gentiles. That was His grace. So we're going to talk about
these riches, how they're manifested, and how they become reality,
so to speak, and what they do, what these riches do, and who
they're for. So we'll start in Exodus. Chapter
16, Exodus 16. Now many in false Christianity hear
the word riches and blessings in a church or worship setting. And they hear those words and
their thoughts, they'll turn to like jewelry and nice clothes
and high-end cars. But think about it this way. What if they're starving? What
if they're in church and they need food? What if they're starving?
Now, if you're someone who needs food, like you're on your last
day, you can't go another day without food. What is that jewelry
going to do for you? What is that high-end car? You
can't eat those things. But God's never promised earthly
riches for his people in general. Some are rich. It says some who
are saved are rich. There's also many poor. There's
also many poor. But let's read how one Let's
read one way that His riches are manifested. We'll read verse
6 and 7 here of Exodus 16. It says, Then Moses and Aaron
said to all the children of Israel, At evening you shall know that
the Lord has brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in
the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, for He hears
your complaints against the Lord. But what are we that you complain
against us. Now, so first, we can't skip
the reason for all this. What did God hear from all the
people that he had rescued from slavery out of the land of Egypt?
It wasn't praise. It wasn't thanks. It was complaining. In verse 3, they said, Oh, that
we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when
we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full. They would rather be in bondage
with full stomachs than made free and in the company of the
Lord. They were listening to the flesh.
They were pathetic, ungrateful, miserable, utterly joyless people. Just like you and I, by nature. We can't help ourselves. God
could give us everything that we materially desire and we'd
still find reason to complain. So what did God do when the Israelites
complained? Well, he let them wander in the
wilderness until all the men, women, and children starved to
death. No, he didn't. We think that's what he should
have done to those complainers, but he didn't. Even though karma is not a scriptural
doctrine, you won't find it in there. We sure enjoy seeing a
line cutter get sent to the back of the line. And we would sure
enjoy God getting His karma against some of these people who have
said nasty things about Him. But He doesn't do that. Because if He did, we wouldn't
be here. We wouldn't be here. No, He does things I'm sorry, I skipped ahead. God is not the God of karma. He does things according to His
good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself. That's Ephesians
1.9. He does things according to His good pleasure, which He
purposed in Himself. He didn't ask us. He doesn't
consult with anyone before He makes a decision. I'll consult
with my wife. before I make lots of decisions.
Why? We all know why. Because I can
make wrong ones. I can get in trouble. God doesn't
need to ask anybody else. He doesn't wait for the Pope's
answer. The Pope has said so many things. God hasn't listened. He doesn't
wait for the deacon or the priests or the widows or the childs, but God showed the Israelites
more of his riches, riches they had not seen before. This was
all new. Verse 12, he tells Moses, speak
to them, the Israelites saying, at twilight, you shall eat meat
and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. and you
shall know that I am the Lord your God." God sent quail at
dusk and then bread in the morning for some of the Israelites? No, all of the Israelites. That's riches. You can imagine how big of a
farm it would take to produce that just one time for all the
Israelites. God did it every day. And those Israelites didn't even
need to work for it. It was just there for the taking,
provided every morning and every night, every evening. Not only that, there was another
blessing for the Israelites. God showed how rich he was in
verse 23, when he said, tomorrow is a Sabbath rest. a holy Sabbath
to the Lord. Bake what you will bake today
and boil what you will boil, and lay up for yourselves all
that remains to be kept until morning." This is the blessing. For the
Sabbath, God provided for them double, two days worth. And he did that all in one day, so that they would not have to
work for it on the Sabbath. In other words, he could give
them one day's worth of all this as easily as he could give two
days worth of all this. But if two, why not three? And
if three, why not a week? What's him to stop him from giving
enough food for their whole lives? He could, and he'd still have
riches. He'd still have it. He'd still
have storehouses of this. When God gives out these blessings,
it's not like pieces of a pie. You know, if all of us here wanted
the same pie, that slice would be very, very tiny. But if we
had a pie that never ended, we'd get fat. but we'd have enough
pie for everybody. And that's the way it is with
God. He doesn't run out. He can keep giving and giving
and giving. And I wanna make one note of
something here in the Sabbath that Moses talks about in verse
25 and 26. He says, eat that today, for
today is a Sabbath to the Lord. Today you will not find, you
will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it,
but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none." Now that
Sabbath, of course, is Christ. He is our rest. The Israelites
were told to rest. Don't go looking for food on
the Sabbath. Don't work for it. I've already
given it. And we're not to work for what
Christ has already accomplished and perfected. That's an insult
to what Christ did if we try to do what He has already done. Now, there are other ways these
blessings are manifested, and there's healings. People have
been healed by Christ, by the apostles, by God. There's been healing. Or like when the Israelites were
wandering around there, there was water given where there was
none before, There's sight for the blind,
there's faith. It's another riches, another
part of His riches that was manifested. But what are they for? That seems
a bit of a silly question. If you remember that God's ways
are not our ways. I mean, can we even know them?
They're so different from us. There are some we know because
He's revealed His purpose. He's revealed his purpose for
some of these, not every time. And it's not our right to know
everything. Even the most learned man in Israel, this is Paul,
if he were to boast, the most learned man, he had
to say this about God and his ways. He says, how unsearchable
are his judgments? and his ways past finding out. The man who had studied the Bible
cover to cover and knew it says, I don't know. I can't figure
this out. Turn to Isaiah 43. I told Matt I couldn't. When
we were back there, I told him I couldn't seem to get out of
this chapter. Isaiah 43. And here we are again. Now these
riches that the Lord gives us cannot be disregarded. They can't
be disregarded. We have to acknowledge what they
are. Revealed or hidden, their intentions are tied up in ribbons
of love. They're gifts. God reveals many of His purposes
in this one chapter. In verse one, he says that he
has called us by our names and has declared that we are his. For what purpose did he do this? Why? Did he do it to convince
us to choose him as our personal savior? No. So that we would
be his friends? No. If anyone tells you that God
wants you to do something to gain his favor, just stop listening. That's not the way God works. They're not telling the truth.
God declares that he has called us by name so that we fear not. Right there in verse one, fear
not. And we fear so much because we
forget that we can unload our fears on Him. Matt said earlier that he would
probably sin as soon as he got out that door. Same thing, we
fear. As soon as we take one step,
we fear. I was I don't know how long ago
this was but I suffer from just generalized anxiety and there
was one time many weeks in a row I was just all messed up for
something. I don't even remember what it
was but it lasted for weeks and every moment I was anxious that
I was awake and it bothered even bothered me in my sleep. I couldn't
even get a good night's rest. And I can't, like I said, I don't
know what made me feel this way, but I do remember what caused
it to all stop. The Lord entered my thoughts.
The Lord entered my thoughts, and he took those fears away. And in times like that, the things
that keep you calm and grounded, it can be a hymn, It can be just
a Bible verse, anything that comes to mind. This, for example,
this sermon came because suddenly I was humming The Unsearchable
Riches of Christ, that hymn. That is such a good one. I wanted
to actually borrow all those phrases, and they're good. They're good phrases, and I wanted
to use them as the basis of an outline, but thought better than that. But
those things, they just kind of bubble up in your mind. And
it's at God's time. I don't regret being anxious
for that long. Because it was probably something
I did to cause some fear, of course. I'm glad He brought me out of
it. But if you've ever been afraid
of what tomorrow will bring and then, you know, one of those
passages just swims up to your mind and it replaces the fear
with peace, then you know what I mean. But one of the unsearchable
riches of Christ is the comfort that His Word brings. And it's
His promises. It's His promises. Look at verse 13 of Isaiah 43. Indeed, before the day was, I
am He. And there is no one who can deliver
out of My hand, I work. And who will reverse it?" If you are one of the Lord's
children, if you are one of God's children, and if Jesus Christ
died for you, then that's where you are right now. Your soul
is that safe. There's no stronger foundation.
There's no higher wall and no mightier guardsmen surrounding
you than where God has put you at
this very moment. And because God does everything
forever, Ecclesiastes 3.14, then you are in God's hand forever. More words of comfort. And finally, let's see who his
unsearchable riches are for. Now, I realize that what we just
saw, God's riches, and what they do, and it really sounds the
same as answering the question, who they're for. His unsearchable
riches are gifts for his elect, for the ones he calls my people. He will not spend his riches
on the lost, or the goats, or the wicked. Now sometimes when
we say that someone is rich in something, we mean that they
have an abundance of it. A great quantity. And if that's
what rich is, then God is rich in many things. He's rich in
righteousness. He's rich in mercy. And He's rich in love or compassion. He has those things in abundance.
We always hear John 3, 16, but check out the first two verses
before it. And as Moses lifted up the serpents in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. He's talking about
Himself. That whoever believes in Him should not perish, but
have eternal life. Whoever believes in Him. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him
should not perish but have everlasting life. Now God is righteous. I
don't know if I can call that his first, second, or third quality,
but it's up there. God is righteous. He will by
no means clear the guilty. And so to save his people, they
must be made righteous. They must be made righteous by
the death of Christ. And God is merciful. As it says in Nehemiah 9.31,
nevertheless in your great mercy you did not utterly consume them
nor forsake them for you are God, gracious and merciful. And God is abundant in compassion,
in love, If it were not so, David would have no reason to cry out,
oh, turn to me and have mercy on me. If it were not also true when
David said, but you, oh Lord, are a God full of compassion
and gracious. Can we find out how much God
loves his people? Can we know the height of his
compassion for them? Has the full extent of His mercy
been revealed to us? All of it. I believe the answer is yes.
Because look and see who was lifted up on the cross for the
person that God loved. Look who was given His life for
yours and mine. Look who was given for your sins
to be put away forever. Now we might not know all of
it, And I don't know if we'll ever know all of it. But we know this, it is enough. It is enough. It is sufficient
for the salvation of God's people and it is sufficient for the
understanding of God's love. It's all we need. We don't need to know how rich
God is. You can say he's infinitely rich.
We can't fathom infinite. We only need to know that he's
rich enough. He's rich enough. And have you ever noticed how
our definition of rich changes as we grow? I'll give you a story. I was in fifth grade or thereabouts,
and for my birthday, I got a birthday card from Granny. We called her
Granny. Dad's mother, sweet lady, and
she gave me $10, not in a check, cold hard cash. I could spend
that any way I want. I didn't have to go to the bank
first. I had it. And I felt like I could buy just
a whole store's worth of candy with that $10. I said, Dad, we're going to the
store and I got in that truck and I was just buzzing the whole
way there and I remember he couldn't even get it in park, I was out
the door. I was getting into that store and I was just, I was looking at that shelf of
candy like I owned it. Like I could buy the whole thing.
I was young, I didn't know what I was looking at. I did something at that time
that I had never done in school, and I double-checked my math
because I wanted to convert every cent of that $10 into candy. And I did it. And I rode home,
I had that candy, and I feasted on $10 worth of candy. And then,
fast forward, I'm a teenager. And it's my birthday again and
I get another card from sweet old granny and it's $10 again. I didn't get excited that time.
I didn't. What am I going to buy with this? $10, granny? Don't you love me
anymore, granny? Why not $100? That would do something. My sweet granny hadn't changed,
but I had. It wasn't my granny's fault that
I felt that way, it was mine. Granny didn't love me any less
than the first time she sent it. She gave me the exact same
amount as before, I just didn't care as much. Now I feel that
our attitude towards the Lord's blessings, they change in that
way, but the opposite, and I'll try to explain that. When we're
young in grace, we believe that we know a few things. And one of those things that
we tell ourselves is that once we have heard that the Lord is good, once we've
heard this, everything from here on out is going to be okay. Everything
from here on out is like a starting line. We're going to be fine. Because we're the Lord's and
He'll take care of us. Now that's true. but it's not
all of it. Whatever okay means when we say
it, it doesn't matter. God has already said that his
people are saved forever, and that's a promise. He has taken
care of you in that regard. Yet as we grow in grace, we begin
to change our attitude of what constitutes a blessing of God
and what okay means. Does a blessing still mean good
health like we thought in the beginning? Does it still mean
that we have good health? Is that okay? God is going to keep
me in good health? What if I get sick? Is that still
okay? Are His unsearchable riches meant
to keep us out of debt or at least financially comfortable? What if we get way in over our
heads? Is that still okay? Can we still be content to be
in God's hand, but owe the bank our very lives if we could put
a value on it? I don't know what stage I'm at
in that journey I just described, but I know this. What I used
to think of the unsearchable riches of Christ has changed. What I used to think. The unsearchable
riches of Christ hasn't changed one bit. And I can tell you, I don't necessarily
need financial stability to feel content. It's nice. It would be nice. We've had our
ups and downs. But I am more content now than
I was back then. And I don't necessarily need
good health or peace with everyone. You might say that's just the
old codger coming out at me. You know, grow older, you gotta
be that way. But no, you just don't care about
that stuff anymore. Not as much. What I found that I wanted can
only be found in Jesus Christ. That's what I've discovered.
That's the only thing I want. And I don't know what everything
is in God's storehouse of riches. But I know that it's good and
that it's for His people. And that's enough. I am content. Now, how do I know that? Because for all these riches,
God the Father spent something precious. For all these riches
to be made available to us, to be given, He spent something
very precious. His Son's blood. His Son's blood. Now it's not precious because
there's little of it, like that pie that we have to slice up
for everybody. That's not the reason it's precious.
It's because of whose blood it is. Now that's some unsearchable
riches. Now I don't know about you, but I want to find out more
about those unsearchable riches of Christ. And that's all I've
got. Matt, would you close us please?