Ephesians chapter three and verse
one. For this cause I, Paul, the prisoner
of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if ye have heard of the dispensation
of the grace of God which is given me to you, word, how that by revelation he made
known unto me the mystery, as I wrote of four in few words,
whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the
mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known unto
the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles
and prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles should be fellow
heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise
in Christ by the gospel. whereof 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 men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the
beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things
by Jesus Christ, to the intent that now unto 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 him. Whereof, wherefore
I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which
is your glory. My verse Today is verse 8 from
this third chapter of Ephesians, where the Apostle Paul speaks
of the unsearchable riches of Christ. The Apostle Paul was
a man highly used of God in spreading the Gospel. We've been reflecting
upon that in recent days, whether it's through the references that
we're making in the Acts of the Apostles or seeing him as he
laboured on behalf of the church at Rome or the church at at Colossae with the Colossians
being in prison in one place and writing the Gospel message
to others in another place. He was motivated and he was dedicated
to the preaching of the Gospel and he was highly used of God
in that work. And the evidence that we glean
from Acts and in many of the epistles that he wrote reveal
a man who gloried in the Gospel and devoted himself, committed
himself to that gospel message. And he suffered for the gospel. Yet we find here in his writing
to the Ephesians that he viewed himself as less than the least
of all saints. he considered himself the chief
of sinners, and he counted it all grace that he should be employed
by his Saviour for the gathering in of the Gentile Church. Again, we see this great theme
coming across as to how it seemed so amazing in these days that
the Gentiles had been brought into this family of God. And it does appear to have been
quite a revolutionary thought, even for that young church, that
this was the intended purpose of God all along. And the Apostle
Paul is that one who seems to carry the power of that message,
at least in the written testimony that has been left to us, of
the change and the wonder that was being realised at this time
as the Gentile Church began to form. little congregations were
established throughout the Middle East at that time and beyond
because although of course we know about Paul, And to a certain
extent, Peter and John and James and Barnabas and some of these
other men who were preachers at this time, remember that the
other apostles, we know little, we know nothing, in fact, of,
certainly in Scripture, of the way in which they fulfilled the
gospel commission of the Lord Jesus Christ and took the gospel
to the ends of the earth, how they went into other areas and
began preaching the gospel also. But it's interesting when we
reflect upon Paul and this reference here in verse 8 to him being
the least or less than the least of all saints. I don't believe
that this humility is false or exaggerated. Because it is the
meekness and the modesty of a person who has been changed by the Gospel. A person who understands what
the Gospel really means. Someone who has seen the alteration. and the effect, the transformation,
and the change. Someone who has been converted
by grace to move into the experience of God's grace, having imagined
himself righteous and holy and proudly standing before God as
one acceptable in his sight, and to see that all of that was
a complete and utter condemnation to his own soul. and yet to find
mercy at the hand of God and in the person of Jesus Christ. So when Paul says that he is
less than the least of the saints, let us not accuse him of false
exaggeration, but let us recognise in this transformation by having
met the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's the self-effacement
of one who would rather that you would turn your eyes upon
Jesus than spend a moment longer looking at the messenger. And
this is a lovely aspect of Paul's attitude. He wanted the Ephesians
here in this book, and the Colossians when he wrote to them, and the
Romans when he wrote to them, or those of the Galatian churches,
or whoever it was that he ministered to, and Iconium, and Derbe, and
Laodicea. Everywhere he went to preach,
he wanted those who heard him, who read him, to look beyond
the minister, who is in his own estimation, less than the least
of all saints. and see the Lord Jesus Christ
in whom is all the loveliness and the splendour of God revealed. I believe that that is an attitude
of all who have been touched by the Gospel. I believe that
those who truly have seen themselves as being sinners saved by grace
must have this sense of self-effacement in their attitude. Because why
would we want to be promoting ourselves when we know ourselves
to be sinners in our nature, sinners in our heart? When we
could point others rather to the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul
could preach and reason and debate, even argue with the best of them.
but he rather professed himself to be less than the least. And
I admire the humility of a man and I believe we should respect
him for it when we see that he takes the experience of his own
spiritual life as a cue. to point us away from himself
and to attend rather that one who is his Saviour and his Lord,
the Lord Jesus Christ. The great apostle testifies here
that it was his calling to preach the Lord Jesus Christ and he
desired to do that constantly. He didn't want to speak about
anything else and whether it was to the Romans that he desired
to know, nothing amongst them said Jesus Christ and him crucified. Today we discover when we look
at preachers that many don't preach the Lord Jesus Christ
in the way in which Paul did. Paul would say that he was the
chief of sinners and the least, less than the least of the saints. And yet, very often men are promoting
themselves. They preach themselves. They
preach others, they preach man, they preach what man could do,
what man should do, what man must do. Or they rail against
what men are not doing. But Paul had a better subject,
and he had a better hope, and he had a better promise, and
he had a better sacrifice to speak about. And he spoke faithfully
about the Lord Jesus Christ. He preached Christ in all his
wonder and glory, in all his mystery and majesty. He preached
the unsearchable riches of Christ and we can do no better. As we
gather together week by week, as we think about our services,
as we anticipate the fellowship of the saints, as we look forward
to thinking about our own study times and our fellowship one
with the other, wherever those opportunities arise, what better
can we do? than consider and reflect upon
the unsearchable riches of Christ. And today I want to emulate Paul
a little bit and say, we preach Jesus Christ. We preach Jesus
Christ in all of his glory and wonder and power. In all of his
unsearchable riches, we preach Jesus Christ. The riches that
are spoken of here is the is the wonder, the glory, the brilliance,
the splendour, the majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ. And of
course, when we reflect upon that, we realise that when the
Lord walked upon this earth, there was very little looking
upon him, as it were, from the outside that we would have found
desirable about him. Isaiah says as much in chapter
53 that there was nothing of him that was desirable to us
and we turned away from him. But as we have come to learn
by the power of the Holy Spirit, all that the Lord Jesus Christ
has accomplished for us, all that he has done, all of his
accomplishments and achievements, all of his successes and his
triumphs, we begin to see that our first view of Christ was
incorrect. That as we look more closely,
as we understand more perceptively, as we are given eyes to see and
ears to hear, this is one in whom there are great riches,
great wonders to be discovered. And when we look at these verses
that are before us in Ephesians 8, I think what the Apostle Paul
has done here is he has led the Ephesians to whom he is writing,
to look at this one, the Lord Jesus Christ, and as it were,
he has begun to research the unsearchable riches of Christ.
He has begun to open doors for us to see that these unsearchable
riches are there to be discovered. And while we might say it's difficult
to plumb the depths of Christ. It's difficult for us to gaze
and see the fullness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet Paul has opened,
and I'm going to suggest to us, four treasure chests right here
for us to gaze upon and for us to wonder at. I think the first
one that we can see is in verse nine, where he speaks about the
riches of Christ as the creator of all things. And in verse 10,
he speaks of the riches of Christ as the revealer of God's wisdom. And in verse 11, he speaks of
the riches of Christ as the fulfiller of God's eternal covenant. And in verse 12, he speaks of
the riches of Christ as the way of salvation, or to be discovered
in the way of salvation. And I just want to say that as
we begin to look at these four riches and just sketch them out
in a few paragraphs, perhaps before us this morning, that
we need to be aware of being too presumptuous when we come
to the unsearchable riches of Christ. Because the reality is
that they are too wonderful to be able to be fully comprehended. They're too glorious to be able
to grasp in their height and their depth and their length
and their breadth. It's a little bit like when the In the old pirate movies, when
they went to find the pirate treasure and they opened the
great big lid and there was all the gold and the cups and the
diamonds and the tiaras and the crowns and the doubloons. And
the idea was just, it was overwhelming, the riches that were there in
those chests. There is a sense in which, as
we come to Scripture and as we come to consider the Lord Jesus
Christ, that we have to be, in a sense, humble, even before
the glories of our Saviour, and not to be presumptuous, because
these are, as the Apostle says, unsearchable riches. Riches beyond
our comprehension. The riches of the Lord Jesus
Christ, they comprise His achievements and His accomplishments. And
we will spend eternity savouring. and never ceasing to discover
the new layers and dimensions and magnitudes of the person
and work of the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ. Psalm 147
and verse 5 says, Great is our Lord and of great power. His understanding is infinite. And we could understand that
as being that the Lord God understands to infinity, there's nothing
hidden from Him. But it is also for us to realise
that our understanding of Him is impossible because He is infinite
and we will never plumb the depths of infinity. we might snorkel
across the surface of the ocean. but we will never plumb the depths
of its magnitude. And this being understood, our
limitations being acknowledged, Paul gives us these four headings,
these four summaries with which we can begin, as it were, our
searches. So let's just read verse nine
to begin. So he's talking about these unsearchable
riches of Christ. And he says, and to make all
men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, the fellowship
of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been
hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ. This is making
a reference to the riches of Christ as the creator of all
things. And that mystery that has been
revealed now by Him who is the creator of all things. He is
the Alpha and He is the Omega. He is the beginning and He is
the end. There's nothing before Christ and there's nothing after
Christ. And this is the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ in the things that have been revealed. So when we
consider the riches of Christ, we have to see that there is
a scope, there is a dimension here, which is in its origins
in the very beginning and has an ending that is, again, eternal. Paul often speaks about the creation
when he is presenting the Lord Jesus Christ to Gentiles. And he's doing so, I think, in
order to establish the preeminence of the Lord Jesus Christ over
all things. He speaks about the fact that
the Lord Jesus Christ created these things by his hand, by
the word of his power. in order to reveal to the Gentiles
the person and the magnitude, the scale and the scope of the
one who is under Paul's gaze and in Paul's attention and is
to be in the attention of these Gentiles also. Let us remember
the Gentiles were not irreligious. By no means, they were the most
religious people. That's a feature of the natural
man is that he cannot forget that he is made in the image
of God. And that is why even today in our scientific space
age society, there is still so much religion in the world because
man is a religious being, but he is showing the preeminence
of Christ over all things, and therefore over all religion also,
and over all the pantheon of gods that the Gentiles adhered
to. One might say, I worship Zeus
or Jupiter, the god of the sky. Right, says Paul. Jesus Christ
made the sky. Another might say, well, I worship
Artemis or Diana, goddess of the moon. Right, says Paul. Jesus Christ made the moon. Another might say, I worship
Apollo, god of the sun, or Venus, goddess of love and beauty. Well,
you can see where I'm going, right? Christ is God to rule
all gods. Now I imagine that when the Apostle
Paul started by talking about the Lord Jesus Christ as the
creator of all things and the God of all things and the creator
of everything that the Gentile idolatrous worshippers held as
being the domain of their God, Zeus of the sky, well, my God
created the sky. Apollo of the sun, well my God
created the sun. I imagine at the very least it
got him an audience when he started to speak and perhaps for that
reason the Apostle was always ready to go to the creation of
the Lord Jesus Christ or the creation of the world, the creation
of the universe, the creation of all things by the Lord Jesus
Christ. But there's more for us too here, I think. Because
we have to remember that this is our God. This Jesus Christ
who created all things is our God. Every star in that universe
which stretches as far as we know infinitely out there. And every atom was made by the
Lord Jesus Christ. And when we look at a beautiful
scene, when we look at a mountain lake and we say, wow, Christ
created that. When we look at a NASA photograph
and we say, wow, Christ created that. When we look at a newborn
baby, when we look at a dinosaur fossil, when we listen to every
song, when we think about every scientific discovery, when we
contemplate every hope and fear of mankind, nothing exists outside
of Christ. Everything derives from the Lord
Jesus Christ and everything traces back to Him. This is our God. And we fellowship in the mystery
that this God, this great God, this unique God, this preeminent
God, we fellowship in the mystery that He has revealed. the mystery
of union between man and God, the mystery of a union between
flesh and spirit in the person of Jesus Christ as he came to
accomplish the purpose of the eternal God in the salvation
of a people with whom the eternal God chose to spend eternity with. This is the gospel
message, a message of acceptance and reconciliation and redemption
accomplished and achieved by this our God, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And this is meaning and it's
important because this is the gospel. This is the mystery revealed
of the preeminent Christ, the Alpha and Omega. There's nowhere
else to go than this. Just as the worshipper of Zeus
could think about the sky, but then Christ is beyond the sky.
Just as the worshipper of Apollo could think about the sun or
the moon or whatever it might be. He has to go beyond that. And so do all men. And you can
think what you will, and men do in their imaginations. You
can do as you want. You can say and behave exactly
as you choose. But ultimately, you will all,
we will all be answerable to this one, the judge of all the
earth, the Lord Jesus Christ. And when we contemplate him,
we are contemplating that one who is preeminent above and beyond
all things. Even the very angels in heaven
have to drop their heads and hide their eyes from the glory
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so these are the riches. the unsearchable riches of Christ. And then there's another one
that the Apostle Paul directs us to hear as well. And he says,
I'm sorry. No, that's right, might be known
by the church the manifold wisdom of God. And here's another aspect
of the unsearchable riches of Christ. For not only did he create
all things, and not only are all men answerable to him as
the creator of all things, but the Lord Jesus Christ is the
revealer of God's wisdom. Now that's not what we call the
essential wisdom of God because we've just remarked from the
Psalms that God in his infinity is unsearchable and therefore
we're not suggesting here that the fullness of the infinite
wisdom of God has been revealed to us. But what we are saying
is this, that in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily. We read that from Colossians
the other night. And this wisdom is the wisdom
of God's purpose in salvation and the wisdom of God in the
election of certain men and women to be his people that he has
chosen to save out of this fallen world and to set, as it were,
up upon the glory on high, to sit them on a throne together
with him, to unite them to the Lord Jesus Christ and to bring
them into his presence for all eternity. This is God's choice
of sinners that he will save. And you know, the world is full
of men's ideas, the vagaries and vain imaginations of fallen
creatures. And we imagine that there is
evolution in order to explain the world around about us. And
we perhaps speculate that maybe there's multiple universes because
we can't come to terms with the physics of the reality that we
see around about us. And we've got philosophies and
theories. And these exclude God because man says, I will dominate
and I will rule. But the Bible tells us that God
is unfolding his plan of salvation by Christ Jesus. And this is
part of the unsearchable riches of the Lord Jesus Christ, that
the plan of salvation, which is the very wisdom of God, is
being unfolded by the Lord Jesus Christ in all of his deeds and
all of his accomplishments. Before the gaze of heaven and
earth, before the gaze of angels and men, God's wisdom is revealed
in Christ in the salvation of the church and in the gathering
in of his elect people. Would you know the truth? Do
you want to know the truth about what is happening in this world?
What is going on in this world? What is life about? What is this
burden that I feel in my soul? What is this aspiration that
I have that there must be something bigger and better than me? Well, then it's Christ who reveals
the truth to men. Do you want to find meaning in
your life? Then it is Christ that reveals
the meaning of God's will. and of salvation. And you can
search your whole life. You can dig as deep as you can.
You can cast as wide as you like. Only in the Lord Jesus Christ
is the richness of divine purpose, the wisdom of God, the riches
of grace, the true meaning of life to be discovered. And this
is the unsearchable riches of Christ. You will not Get to the
bottom of this. You will not reach the end of
this, but you will find the true wisdom of God revealed in the
unsearchable riches of the Lord Jesus Christ in salvation, if
the Lord is merciful to your soul. There's a third thing that
I want to point out to you. He says in verse 11, according
to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our
Lord. And so here is another aspect
of the riches of Christ. The riches of Christ are revealed
as he is revealed to be the fulfiller of God's eternal covenant of
grace. That's what we have before us
here. The eternal purpose is the eternal covenant which he
purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. This purpose of God, the
eternal God, is seen in Christ. These are the riches of Christ.
Not only are Christ's riches seen in revealing God's wisdom,
he is also the fulfiller and accomplisher of that plan of
salvation. No man can do what Christ has
done. No angel could do what Christ
has done. But the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Beginning and the End, the Alpha and Omega, the Builder and Creator,
the Bringer and Revealer of the Wise Purpose of God, He is also
the One who has secured that purpose. by going to the cross,
by laying down his life, by taking upon himself the sins of his
people, by bearing in his own body that curse of the law, that
curse which came by the breached law, the broken law, the transgressed
law, the sin of his people laid upon his shoulders and he became
sin for us. This is our Christ and these
are the riches of our Saviour. That work of salvation conceived
in the eternal mind of the triune God and the counsels of heavenly
glory have been brought to fruition,
worked out in time by this God, Man, Jesus Christ. And when we
look at His coming, the little baby in the manger, when we look
at His maturing in life, when we look at His ministry, when
we hear His words, when we see the demonstration of His power
and the miracles that He performed, when we hear Him declaring the
great I AMs of the Gospel of John and taking to Himself that
authority and that power and that preeminence, when we see
him in the garden, when we see him stooped under the weight
of sin, when we see him swearing, as it were, great drops of blood,
when we hear him crying out, nevertheless not my will but
thy will be done. when we see him descending into
that morass of punishment and pain and suffering under the
sword of justice. These are the unsearchable riches
of our Christ. And then he comes in glory, rising
from the dead. Then he ascends into his father's
presence. Then he is seated at the right
hand of God. Now he rules forevermore. These
are the unsearchable riches of Christ. And we will never come
to an end of them. The great accomplisher and fulfiller
of the purpose of God. This is the plan of salvation.
This is God's covenant purpose, to bring a people to himself,
it's not doubtful, it's not dubious, it's not merely a possibility,
it is definite and it is certain. God's will to do something is
the certain accomplishment of that will. And the end is certain
because the means is certain. and the means of accomplishment
was the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ for
the salvation of his people. God from the beginning had chosen
a people to salvation by the blood of Jesus Christ, and the
Lord Jesus Christ came into this world in order to fulfil God's
purpose in supplying all the needed requirements of a fallen,
guilty people. before the almighty holiness
of the eternal God, Jesus Christ came to fulfill every need, enabling thereby the holy God
to be both just and the justifier, the maker righteous of a helpless,
sinful, dead, rebellious people. The Son of God united with our
humanity to represent us. He took our flesh to mediate
for us. He became our surety, answerable
for our debts. He stood forth as our substitute
to bear our sin. He answered as the one who was made guilty
with his blood, the unbending justice of God and out of love,
For mercy's sake, he died in our place and he set us free. And this is richness indeed.
Who's going to gauge the richness of the Lord Jesus Christ in all
of his accomplishments? Who will plumb the depths of
almighty grace and the sovereign free grace of God that flows
from the sacrifice of the precious Son of God for sinners like us? Unsearchable riches indeed. And finally, Paul points us to
faith. Faith in Christ as the appropriating
means of this grace. We haven't done anything. in
order to achieve or accomplish the standing that we have in
the Lord Jesus Christ before the Holy God. It is the Lord
Jesus Christ who has done everything. He has secured everything. He
is the great creator. He is the revealer of God's will
and purpose. He is the accomplisher of God's
will and purpose. And now the Apostle Paul shows
us, as it were, he lifts up the lid of this fourth great chest
of treasure that he has for us today. And he says, look at the
riches of Christ as the way of salvation to all who believe. And this is lovely because he
says there, in whom, verse 12, we have boldness. and access
with confidence by the faith of Him. Boldness and access with
confidence into the presence of the Holy God. Imagine that,
imagine that. Forgiveness from all our sin
now, and eternal happiness with Christ
in heaven. Imagine that, imagine peace of
heart and conscience despite that felt unworthiness of this
flesh and nature and the remembrances of the paths that we have trodden
and the times that we have fallen. Imagine that. Friend, we don't need to imagine
it when we can experience it. And that's what Paul is telling
us here about the unsearchable riches of Christ. It's not to
be imagined, it's to be experienced. Grace is for sinners. And if
you're a sinner, grace is suitable for you. Mercy is for sinners. And if you are a sinner, mercy
is suitable for you. And grace and mercy is found
in Jesus Christ. Salvation is for people like
us. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
a suitable savior for a sensitive sinner. Are you weary for rest? Are you
thirsty for grace? Are you hungry for a justifying
righteousness? Then come to Jesus Christ in
faith. Come to Jesus Christ believing. What is that you say? You don't
have faith? Well, of course you don't. But the beauty of the unsearchable
riches of Christ is that he has a suitable, all-supplying provision
of grace and faith for you and for me. He has, in his own person, sufficient
faith for us. He is the all-supplying Saviour. He is the provide all your needs
Saviour and he has plenty to give. Just look at verse 12 with
me again. And wonder and rejoice and be
amazed at what the Apostle Paul says here. In whom we have boldness,
that is in Christ, we have boldness and access with confidence by
the faith of him. Now if Paul had said there, in
whom we have boldness and access with confidence by faith, then
we might well have grounds to worry Have I got faith? Have I got sufficient faith?
Have I got enough faith? Where am I going to get that
faith? How can I create that faith? Where can I get that faith?
But that's not what Paul says. He says that we have boldness
and access with confidence by the faith of him, by the faith
of Christ. Christ is not only the Alpha
and the Omega, Christ is not only the Creator of all things,
but that includes our faith also. He is the beginning and end of
our faith. He is the source as well as the
object of our faith. And when we say that Christ supplies
all our need, we mean all our need, even to the very faith
that we need to enter in with boldness and confidence to the
rich blessings of His grace. The unsearchable riches of Christ
are the deep oceans of Christ's person and work for the redemption
and salvation of his people. And he, as the originator of
all things and the creator of all things, as the revealer,
come to earth of the eternal purpose of God as the fulfiller
of every demand and requirement of the Holy God for the sake
of the people for whom he died. The Lord Jesus Christ gives us
everything, even down to the very faith that we need to believe
in Him and to receive all of the grace and goodness of Almighty
God. That is the only ground of access
and boldness that we can have. We shall spend eternal ages wondering
and celebrating the riches of our God, the riches of our Saviour. They are unsearchable, but it
is our delight to begin meditating upon them now. May the Lord bless
these thoughts to us and encourage our hearts in them. Amen.