Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: “The Riches of Christ” (Part 2)

Today’s sermon is on the riches of Christ. This is part two. We began with an understanding of the context of that phrase in Ephesians 3 by looking at chapter 1 and the whole of the epistle to some degree. I might just mention at the start, let’s get the application out of the way right now. You can easily take home your liturgies today. Look at the first song we sang. Note the immeasurable riches of Christ.

There are specific elements of Christ’s love for us that we sang in the first song. And if you go through there maybe with your children, you can teach them the inestimable riches of Christ that we get taught to us every Lord’s day through the songs that we sing and the readings from the scriptures that we do. The last song we just sang, it’s all about instress. We don’t reach out for comfort to the doctrine of justification by faith as if it’s some kind of abstract doctrine.

We reach out to Jesus. We reach out for the person of God. Not just the doctrines that reflect him or not even primarily those things, but for the person of God. So try that this afternoon or this week. Some in your family devotions. Go through some of these songs and try to count with your children the immeasurable riches of Christ.

The text is Ephesians 3:8. Please stand for the reading of that verse.

“To me who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.”

Let’s pray. Father God, we thank you for this text and the other texts we’ll look at. We thank you for the inestimable riches of Christ that cannot be fully comprehended, cannot be fully numbered, that are immeasurable because of the grace of our savior and you the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the riches that are found in your person. Bless us, Lord God, with an understanding of this text and its particular context and the other verses we’ll look at that describe the riches of who you are. Bless us, Lord God, with relationship with you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Please be seated.

You know, those of you who are—just to repeat what I just said—those of you that are this week suffering, and we all do to some extent, but if you have particular difficulties, go back and read that song we just sang, go back and read the psalm that it’s based upon and look at the inestimable riches of God and understand that is the source of comfort. One of the great riches of Jesus is comfort. And that psalm reminds us of that. And comfort isn’t found in a recitation of doctrine as comforting as that may be and it is and it’s important to preach to ourselves that aspect of the gospel but what Psalm 42 is about is the finding of all of our comfort in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Today what I want to do is first talk about—what we’ll eventually get to—is to look at this word “riches” as it’s used in the New Testament that particular Greek word and that’ll help us see what some of these riches of Jesus Christ and the triune God are. So we’ll articulate it directly from those texts. But first, I want to talk about two aspects that we began to mention last week, but I wanted to flesh out a little more: the context of this verse, or this verse itself teaches us that he preaches the gospel of the immeasurable riches of Christ. And we could look at the whole of the epistle as we sort of did last week to some extent and say this is the gospel that’s being preached by Paul.

Right? So this is what he’s doing. He’s preaching the gospel of Christ particularly to Gentiles and it is the great riches of Christ that are contained in that gospel. And the context in Ephesians tells us that the particular thing he’s focusing on—and maybe we could even say maybe it’s ultimately the great riches of Christ for us—is the unity of humanity in the church through the blood of Jesus Christ bringing together in this context Jew and Gentile.

This is the repeated theme of much of the epistles: this idea that Gentile and Jew are being melded together into one person, right? Into one body. That’s a personal term, the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, the church. I think that I have not really appreciated, particularly in my early days, this great truth that is the context for much of the epistles. And taking that further, it’s not just Jew and Gentile. I believe there are representation of the brokenness of all things that occurred with sin. And speaking of sin, the brokenness that inhabits our marriages and our cultural distinctions between male and female. No doubt there is a distinction. They were made separate. But no doubt that distinction became quite mean-spirited and combative and enmity with one another as a result of the fall.

We see it right in the nature of the first opening chapters of Genesis. We see man and woman, husband and wife that had such perfect unity completely divided. You know, in our papers, we always see this. We saw in the accounts of what went on in Baltimore, division, polarization, right? Conflict, that’s the nature of the fallen human race.

So the first great riches of Christ that I want to talk about—as I did last week—is the fact that he has brought humanity together in the church. Okay.

Now in Ephesians 2, which we didn’t look at last week, but this is really again this is the theme of Ephesians 2. It sets the context what we read in Ephesians 3:8 about the riches of Jesus, right? So, and this isn’t abstract—the person we’re talking about, the Christ, the Messiah. You know, ultimately, as I say, our satisfaction, our comfort, our message is not a set of abstract doctrines. Doctrines don’t save us. A correct understanding of justification by faith is good and proper. But what saves us is the work of the Messiah and our coming close to the Father through the work of the savior as applied to us by the Holy Spirit.

It’s a very personal message that is behind all the great doctrines that we delight in, but they all point us—they’re the suit, they’re the kind of outward manifestation of the great treasures that are found in the three persons of the Holy Trinity. And Ephesians 2 talks about this unifying of the human race in the church. It’s a new world, right? In Ephesians 2, really what we have here is a new world. Let me read for instance from verse 11:

“Therefore remember that you once Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision by what is called a circumcision made in the flesh by hands. That at that time you were without Christ, being alien from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, not in an abstraction, but in Christ Jesus, in the body of Christ, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

And we talked last week about the temple imagery. The Gentiles couldn’t come near to the presence of God manifested in the temple or in the tabernacle, right? They were outside. But now in Christ, they’re brought near—as near as the Jews and even nearer than the Jews were allowed to draw near because now everyone has access to the Holy of Holies, to the very throne room of God.

That’s where, you know, from an important perspective, that’s where we are when we go to worship is in the throne room of God. And so now Jew and Gentile are both brought nearer than humanity has been brought before. And that’s through the Lord Jesus Christ. So it’s a new world. It’s a world that’s united now with open access to the throne room of God, having been thrown out of the throne room of God in Adam and Eve having to leave the garden.

“For he himself is our peace, who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of separation.”

Okay, so peace—the culmination of the great offerings of the Old Testament worship system. Peace is the goal. Peace is unity together in the presence of God because our unity is based upon our relationship with Christ. Okay? We have unity with Christ and because of that we have unity with all who are in Christ. And so Paul is preaching this gospel to the Gentiles here. This is the great riches of Christ and maybe we could say the first of all those riches.

He has made one new man. Dropping down a few verses from there: “Thus making peace. He’s made one new man.”

Man represented by Adam fell. Sinful man. Now one new man, Jesus, who fulfills faithfulness to God the Father and the Holy Spirit. We’re one new man because he is the new creation. He is the new humanity. He has changed everything by his death on the cross. And now we’re united. All of humanity in Christ. All those outside of Christ remain divisive as we see perpetually in our country. The political and other differences, polarizations are happening because there’s no unity outside of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So all those in Christ, in the body, and we’ll make the case in a couple of minutes, in the church, are one together. Unity has happened because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And why? Because he’s put to death the enmity. Through him, down in verse 18, we have access by the spirit to the Father.

So again this repeated message of Paul. And he says, because Jesus Christ has put to death the enmity, right? The enmity has been—the enmity is spoken of as the commandments. The commandments that were necessary to keep a united or to keep a disunited people in some form of proximity and closeness, but not fully so until the coming of Messiah to deal with our sin, that he might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.

So the law, the scriptures tell us, was nailed to the cross. The law is a representation of the character of God himself. And that law was nailed to the cross and was done away with the aspects of it that kept Jew and Gentiles separate, for instance, and that even kept men and women separate in terms of the Mosaic law. That’s been done away with. The old creation has gone away with its necessary law and the new creation has come and the law has become new as well in the new situation, in the new humanity, in the new world to us united in Christ.

The law is not thrown away. Paul tells us throughout the epistles, but it is renewed. It has an application that looks somewhat different in the new world. It informs our conduct and our ethics, but it is to some degree different.

I cannot overstress—and I probably for some of you have done that already—but I do not believe you can overstress the realities of the significance that the riches of Christ, at least in one grand aspect, is the bringing together, the healing of humanity, the creation of a new humanity. Right. John 17 talks about the unity of the church and that God has created this unity. It’s very significant. It’s very important. And in the church this has happened.

I’m going to read a minute from a quote from Timothy Keller because the message is that in verse 10 of Ephesians 3—rather, verse 8 following—two verses later when he talks about preaching the inestimable riches of Christ, he says this: “That now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.”

Okay. So one of the riches of Christ is his knowledge, his wisdom, the manifold wisdom of God. But I want to note here is that it’s to be preached by the church. The church. That’s what it says in verse 10. If you don’t believe me, I’ll read it again:

“Made known by the church to the principalities and powers.”

Now, why am I stressing that? You say, “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we understand that by Christians.” But it doesn’t say by Christians. What it says is by the church. So the gospel will be preached. Kings will come and praise the Lord God when they hear the word of the gospel. And the word and the implications and manifestations of the gospel are to be proclaimed, preached to the principalities and powers including the kings and the rulers of the earth by the church.

Now, I’m going to read a quote here from Timothy Keller because if I say it, you’re going to tend to—those of you that are sort of not liking this message about the church—you’re not going to like it from me. But listen to Tim Keller, okay? He’s not known as a guy who’s ecclesiocentric, right? He’s known as Mr. Missionality, empowering people for the transformation of the city. But let me read from Keller’s comment on this text, verse 10 of Ephesians 3.

Eighty-one percent of all Americans say to pollsters, “You can be a good Christian and not be part of the church.” Now, this was a few years back. I suppose even more would say that now. The church as an institution is rapidly evaporating in the context of the culture in America in our day and age. Now, people still think they’re Christians. The transformation, the city transformation movements, you know, people are still like that stuff, but they think it really is just sort of a collection of individuals that you don’t work through the church. And so people no longer see themselves as members of a particular church. They’re just sort of random Christians and somehow connected to the mystery of the universal church. Or maybe they think of themselves in the context of a regional church throughout Clackamas County. But really there’s no connection to the church, the manifestations of the body of Christ that meets in a particular place and is manifested by a particular local church.

And that’s what Keller is talking about here. He said, “Paul has no idea what in the world they’re talking about by saying you can be a good Christian without being attached to a local church.” Paul would have no idea of what they’re talking about. Paul is saying it is indispensable for the world to understand the brilliance of the gospel, the riches of Christ, right? To have churches.

Paul is not unrealistic. Paul knows what a mess all churches are to some degree. And just look around us, right? We see churches. We see divisions within churches. We have problems within churches. You know, we understand the nature of the church is a difficult place to live, a local church. Don’t think that any church has got it all perfect or worked out because we’re dealing with sinful people still who are in a process of sanctification and that includes the leadership of the church, right? So Keller acknowledges that, you know, there are all these difficulties.

But in spite of that, Paul still says that the church is indispensable to the very mission of the Lord Jesus Christ—the mission of the gospel to essentially create a unified humanity throughout the globe to sing the praises of Jesus Christ.

Keller goes on to say, “There are hundred ways in which it’s true, but let me just give you one. Don’t you think the gospel should change your life? Sure. Let me ask you, How did you get the life you have right now? How did you become the person you are right now? Through individual decisions of yours? Is that how you got to be who you are right now? Probably not. To some degree, of course. But in general, no.”

Keller goes on to say, “It’s because of who your family was. You know that. It’s because of your culture. It’s because of your community. It’s because of the relationships around you. That’s what formed you and most of your personal decisions were a response to those things. If you want the gospel to come into your life and to change your life now, do you think that’s going to happen just by you going off and making individual decisions?”

So, you see the point he’s making is that your life is a community life. Always is. And your community life, your relationships, those are the things that have brought you to the place you are. And to really apply the gospel into your life and to appropriate it happens in the same way. It happens through the people you commune with, the people you worship with. It happens through the particular local body of Christ that you’re part of.

Keller goes on to say, “No, you need a new family. You need a new culture. You need a new community. That’s how the gospel works. That’s how human beings work. Do you see the brilliance of the church?”

The word manifold means brilliant, multicolored and multifaceted. It might be referring to the racial diversity of the church of God, but it’s probably talking about even more than that. So the brilliance, the manifold wisdom, the brilliance of God is the church because it takes diverse elements, backgrounds, orientations, et cetera, and brings them together and forms them into the one body of Christ.

So these inestimable riches of Christ surely include and maybe even primarily are meant by Paul in this epistle to be the unification of sinful humanity in the gospel and in the re-entry into the church. The body of Christ, the person of Jesus Christ is manifested in the particular local church. Now I can’t overestimate that. That’s huge in our day and age.

Please pray with me for a meeting this Wednesday. It’ll be here at RCC. So, you know that we’ve referred to the church in Oregon City. And this is what we’re trying to do: is take those teachings that we just talked about from Ephesians 3:8 and 10. To take those teachings and the rest of the section in the credenda part of Ephesians—chapters 1 through 3—and you know when we read chapters 4-6 we have to read them in that context, right? Everybody knows Ephesians: credenda, agenda. At least most people do. Maybe if you’re young, you don’t know that yet. But that’s where the term “credenda” and “agenda”—for instance was the magazine published by Christ Church in Moscow. That’s what that word is talking about: is that God teaches us things to believe, to have as part of our creed, our credenda, that then tells us the implications of those doctrines in our agenda, what we do, right? What we believe, what we do.

And when you get around to what we do in an epistle, it’s preceded by teachings and doctrines that are significant. So here Ephesians 1-3 is primarily about the riches of Christ. That is the bringing together of diverse peoples, Jew and Gentile, as the particular focus here, but to bring them together in one body. Now then you get to Ephesians 4 and it talks about there’s one spirit, one body, et cetera. That makes sense. That’s what he’s been teaching.

And then he says that we’ve got officers or called people to build that body. He says we’re sanctifying through being involved in the body of Christ, the local church. He tells us rules about how we’re supposed to interact with one another. He tells us an agenda of singing psalms and hymns, for instance, being filled with the spirit and what that means, putting off the old man, putting on the new man. Those aren’t a bunch of individual instructions to each of us in isolation from the unity of the body of Christ. That has been his entire message leading up to those instructions.

We have to interpret the agenda portion of Ephesians on the basis of the main thing he’s talking about: the great riches of Christ found in the reunification of Jew and Gentile into one body and the access we have now through that one body through Jesus to the heavenly throne room. And just to pique your curiosity, I think we have to think about that in relationship to Ephesians 5 when we start to discuss the relationships in the family.

Paul is clearly basing the agenda on the structures of the things he’s taught us to understand in terms of unity and equality, those kind of things. And then he begins to talk about relationships in the family, relationships in the workplace, right? And so he’s telling us, well, what do you do about that new truth that we’re one in Christ in terms of these particular relationships that we have? You get messed up otherwise. You bring alien presuppositions to some of those verses if you don’t keep it in its proper context.

Now, today’s sermon is not about all that, but it is about making sure that you know that when Paul writes about the unfathomable riches of Christ, he is setting it directly almost in the middle of an epistle that’s all about the unification of diverse elements of mankind and a new brilliance of humanity in the context of the church of Jesus Christ.

So those are important. And I ask you to pray for me. So we have church in Oregon City. Why? Because what’s happened from the Reformation on—and kind of the delta effect of churches that come out of the Protestant tradition—is that we’ve broken up and broken up and broken up, and we’ve kind of given a hand to the unity we have in Christ. But really, churches have stressed their distinctions from other churches, right? The differences, why we’re better than the next church, instead of saying how what is the church in Ephesus? What is it?

It seems like there’s a manifestation of the local church in the unification and cooperative work of churches throughout a particular region, you know. So, for instance, another group that works against abortion is Students for Life. And when we started to get involved at the Northwest, Representative Students for Life, Tyler started getting a club established at Clackamas Community College. I brought the representative to a church in Oregon City meeting because it’s not—it shouldn’t just be a ministry of RCC. The work to fight abortion should be a ministry of the church in Oregon City. And the church in Oregon City should find itself united in opposing and trying to do something about the murder of pre-born infants, right?

And now we’re hoping the church will do something other than just individual local churches in terms of the persecution of the Christian community. This Wednesday, most of the meeting will be taken up by a presentation from Aaron and Melissa Klein from Sweet Cakes. And as you know, a couple weeks ago, big judgment—you know, there’s a law that was passed in 2007, I think, and we all knew what was going to happen. We all knew that Christians would be persecuted if they tried to apply their religious beliefs in the context of their vocations.

And so now we have it. Now we have it in spades. Okay? And soon it will be at the door of this church. We’re going to have to rework our budget. You know, because the Obama administration declared during the arguments at the Supreme Court last week on homosexual marriage, they actually said that if homosexual marriage is affirmed for all the country by the courts, then the tax exempt status of churches that will not perform homosexual marriages will have to be investigated and probably go away.

Now, that’s more than just you being able to write off your tithe contributions, right? That means the church will become a taxable entity. And the reason for the tax exempt status of church is because in some memory of our development as a nation, the church was seen as an embassy from heaven, God’s land. You can’t tax somebody that’s greater than you. And now that’s exactly what the state will move toward depending on how the Supreme Court rules.

Well, in any event, so we’re going to have Aaron and Melissa Klein, and I’ll tell you, it’s going to be difficult. There will likely be pastors there who are very much supportive of homosexual marriages. They’re part of the church of Jesus Christ. They’re part of the church in Oregon City. We don’t decide or vote on who—if they’re trinitarian believers of the Lord Jesus Christ, then that means that’s part of the church in Oregon City and its environments. That’s who they are. Okay? They’re part of that.

Just like a member who is sinning in some way is still part of the church of Jesus Christ at RCC, the local manifestations of it. You know, even who know excommunication, maybe it’s a different deal. But you see, that’s what’s happening. And some of these affirming churches, right, in this issue will come and likely oppose what Aaron and Melissa do. Even some that agree that homosexual marriage is wrong, but who have an idea of what Christianity is to be like—which is always turning the other cheek instead of trying to understand what Jesus meant by that in a particular context—they’re going to oppose them, too.

So please pray. Really, the riches of Christ is what we’re trying to proclaim, delight in, and manifest as we work in the context of the church in Oregon City and bringing the unity again. It’s the central message of the Ephesians epistle. If that church had one section of their church for Jews and a lower section for Gentiles, it would have been a denial, a denial of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And when we take that kind of attitude, we’re really moving in the same way—church against church. “I don’t like you” or “You don’t like me” or whatever it is. Well, we’ll just decide that the six of us that have the shared understanding of Calvinistic soteriology is the Church of Oregon City. When you do that stuff, you’re moving in opposition to the riches of Christ that Paul primarily focuses on in this particular epistle.

I hope that’s clear. If it isn’t, we have the Q&A time and we can talk more about that then.

Now, moving on. This term “riches”—I promised you at least to some degree a working through these words, right? And I’m going to—this may be all we’re going to do. I’m going to put you off again as to what you came for. But here’s the first set of verses that I want to look at. And these verses, what they have in common is that we as fallen humanity are sinful nature. We think of what riches are as opposed to what they really are. Okay. So to prepare us, and you know already, right? Just read the first song that we sang today. Okay. What are the riches of Christ? Or you read through the liturgy?

The comfort of Christ to those who suffer. That’s another major theme in Paul. Comfort of Christ to those who suffer. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Right? I mean, prior to our, you know, your conversion to Christ, the Bible says that in your fallen state, apart from the grace of Christ—which is the love of Christ, the indispensable, immeasurable riches of Christ—you can’t imagine, you can’t plumb the depths of the love of Christ manifested by his grace in going to the cross for you.

But you can get deeper by thinking about who you were prior to the grace and love of Christ bringing you into himself, into his body. I mean, what does the Bible say? It says we were walking dead men, right? We were dead in trespasses and sins. It says we were blind. We couldn’t see anything, right? And by the implications from blindness, we were stupid. We were, you know, non-wise. We were foolish, right?

Apart from Christ, fallen humanity is blind. Can’t see a thing, right? Apart from the grace and mercy of Christ, walking dead men. I mean, how much stronger of an image could you have? Stupid, right? Think of the state in our fallen nature. And then think of the riches, the immeasurable riches of Christ that’s manifested in our personal conversion. We’ve talked about corporate entity coming together, but just in your personal salvation, right? Think about the immeasurable riches of Christ.

Now you can’t think about that, right, if you don’t think about your blindness, your deadness, your active rebellion in your deadness. You were like a zombie. You are actively while dead seeking to destroy the image of God and humanity, right? That’s who we are. In our fallen state, if you don’t understand the depths of our rebellion against our creator in the fall and then in our practical working out in our everyday life, you will not understand the heights, the depths, right?

We think far too little of our sinful state and that makes us think far too little of the immeasurable riches of Christ. So a meditation upon our rejection of God and who we were—how who the Bible tells us we were and who our own experience tells us and continues to tell us who we are apart from him—right? So that’s one way to begin to fathom, get meditating on the lyrics of the songs and the text we’ve read today shows us the riches of Christ.

But then the application of that is it’s a readjustment of our value systems. Right? “I’m poor. Why are you poor? Because I don’t have any money.” Well, that means that you’ve placed an estimation of riches as the determining factor in whether you’re rich or poor, right? I mean, that’s what it means. We should never say we’re poor. For now, we’re having an economic conversation. Yeah, some of us are poor, some of us are not poor, some of us are rich.

But the point here is that we’re warned over and over again in the Bible to not go after that as the definition of riches. Let me read you a few verses. And they’re using the same word that’s used in Ephesians 3 of the riches of Christ.

Matthew 13:22: “Now, he who receives seed among the thorns is he who hears the word and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and he becomes unfruitful.”

He goes to deadness. The riches of this world and the deceitfulness of this world—the riches of the world and its deceitfulness—choke out true riches. So false riches, an estimation that our material state is all right, the cares of the world and thinking we can get past and be comforted by an increasing amount of wealth. The Bible says don’t be like that. Think of the riches of Christ, not the riches of this world and its estimations.

Because if you put at the top of the chain, or if you focus in your practical life on the riches that this world claims to be riches, you die. You may show a little evidence that first been hearing the gospel. But the riches of this world destroy the riches of Christ that are yours in the context of relationship with him. It’s a warning, right? What riches? What do you call riches?

Luke 8:14: “Now the ones that fell among the thorns are those whom, when they have heard, go out and are cloaked with cares, riches and pleasures of life and bring no fruit to maturity.”

Cares, riches, possessions of life, right? Those are the things that will drive out—those who are opposed—making those ultimate—those who are opposed to the riches of Christ. You know, how do we seek comfort? Do we seek comfort in things around us or do we seek comfort ultimately from the profound riches of Christ who comforts us when we are suffering, as we sang about earlier?

1 Timothy 6:17: “Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, not to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God who gives us richly all things to enjoy.”

Okay. So it’s not as if the riches that we enjoy are bad things, but they have to be subordinated to the riches of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not subordinated—even seen as reflections of the riches of Christ. You know, idolatry is taking something that displays the riches of Christ and it’s good, right? All kinds of things—you know, money, gold, you know, physicality—all those things are good manifestations of the riches of Christ. But to make those our sense of riches and to make those at the height, at the center of our value system, brings us apart from, denies the inestimable riches of Christ.

So you have to ask yourself. You should ask yourself this week, this afternoon, some quiet time this week, what am I valuing most? What am I valuing most? The inestimable riches of Christ or these things that I’ve made into an idol, the good gifts of God to manifest the riches of Christ, but themselves being the end point or ultimate determination?

Hebrews 11:26: “Esteeming the reproaches of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he looked to his reward.”

Okay. So this is, you know, talking about Moses. And so if you’re like most people in the country these days, you’re looking to the riches of Egypt for your value system. But Moses—and we should be the ones who esteem, you know, the persecution even that comes upon us, right? That the reproaches of Christ are greater riches. The riches of Christ to us is meaning that our commitment to him, our being united to him in what we do, those things are reflected in even the suffering of the Christian for the faith. Those are greater riches by far than the riches that our culture can produce around us.

James 5:2: “Your riches are corrupted. Your garments are moth-eaten.”

So if you put ultimate values in the things like clothing, money, gold, it becomes corrupted. It’s an image because gold doesn’t really get rusty. But the image is anything that you make as these ultimate sources of value apart from the inestimable riches of Jesus Christ. God will destroy them. Your idols will be destroyed and you with them. That’s what he’s saying in James 5.

I believe Romans 2:4: “You despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering.”

So there we have some of the inestimable riches of God in Christ, right? So there’s goodness, the goodness of Christ, forbearance, longsuffering toward our sinfulness. Forbearance and longsuffering. These are the riches of God. And he says, if you despise these things, knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance, then of course you’ve put your value system in the wrong thing. Your very nature of sanctification, repentance for sin is part of the goodness, the inestimable riches of Christ. And if you ignore those things, then sanctification is not yours.

So a warning against false riches.

Finally, Revelation 18:17: “For in one hour such great riches came to nothing in the judgment. Every shipmaster, all who travel by sea, sailors, and as many as trade on the sea stood at a distance.”

So the point there is the same word “riches” is being used. Riches reflect the riches of commerce, the value system that we’re using to determine commerce. All that stuff is susceptible to being destroyed in a moment, in an hour. And think of that in terms of our particular life today and the dependency upon electronic commerce. You could see how things could just come crashing to the ground.

The inestimable riches of Christ, on the other hand, are riches found in his person, in the eternal and infinite God. When we place that as our value system, it can’t be taken away. Ever. Right? And so the first issue that many of the verses where the same Greek word is used are being described to us is to make sure you don’t make the wrong thing your riches, but rather that you cleave to the unsearchable riches of the Lord Jesus Christ, right?

All right, we’ll talk more about this next week in the third sermon on the riches of Christ. But now take what we just said and line it up with what we said earlier: that these inestimable riches are proclaimed by churches, by the church, by bodies of Jesus Christ. Our unity, our receiving the inestimable riches of Christ, are related to the church, right? Not outside of the church.

And what that means is that the inestimable riches of Christ, we don’t want to do things that diminish our sense of the value of the church. The church is the body of Christ. Oh, we know that we can’t make gold and silver our value system. We understand that. But what about our personal relationship with Christ? If that somehow causes us never to connect with, minister in the context of building a community, have our lives changed in sanctification through commitment and involvement in a local church, the very wonderful gift of personal relationship supposedly with Christ can then become an idol in our own hands.

Now the church can become an idol too. No doubt about it. We’re bound to take any particular aspect of the riches of Christ and make them an idol. But the text reminds us that the inestimable riches of Christ are seen ultimately in the unity of those who are connected to the body of Christ. And then the texts we looked at after that tell us: don’t let anything distract you from the true riches of the Lord Jesus Christ.

May the Lord God cause us to consider this week our value systems. What do we think are valuable? What are riches? And how do those things compare with the inestimable riches of the Lord Jesus Christ?

One more mention of the Church of God here in Oregon City. This Friday night, there’ll be a meeting at Oregon City Evangelical Church (OCE), not too far from here, for people who are interested in volunteering for Compassion Connect. So on Wednesday we’ll have this meeting to try to hash out to some degree religious freedom. How does that work out? What should we do in response to the persecution of the Kleins in their bakery? And on Friday we’ll do a Compassion Connect clinic with free medical and dental care in the name of Jesus Christ.

I would encourage as many of you as can to come to the meeting Friday night. Make your Friday night date tonight this week, maybe going to that meeting, hearing about what it means to volunteer. It’s a lot easier than you think it is. The various teams that put on the Compassion Connect event will be there to make it easy for you to understand where you might want to plug in. So if you pray for the meeting this Wednesday, and by the way, if some of you would like to attend that, it starts at 11:30. We’ll have the pastors in the front of the fellowship hall with Aaron and Melissa, but you could come and observe as well.

So you can go to that and certainly I would encourage you to go and think about volunteering in the context of the Compassion Connect clinic. Just show up. You’ll hear what it’s about. You’ll have an opportunity to volunteer, and we’ll do it in the context of building the unity of the church in Jesus Christ, in our particular area, demonstrating this unity that Paul focuses on in the epistle to the Ephesians.

So we have those opportunities this week to be part of the work of the church in Oregon City and to flesh out that we find of great value the churches of God in this particular region and see that as part of the ultimate value, the gift that God has given to us, part of the immeasurable riches of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for our savior. We thank you for a topic that can never be exhausted, an understanding of the riches of Christ, our savior. Thank you, Lord God, for calling us to re-evaluate our own particular value systems and to place Christ at the top of every list that we have. At the top of the list of where we look for comfort, where we look for opportunities to minister, where we look for deep solace, where we look, Lord God, for how we conduct all the decisions of our life.

Thank you for the emphasis on the church and being part of a community of people who help us mature in appreciating and then proclaiming the inestimable riches of Jesus our savior. In his name we pray. Amen.