Dennis Tuuri

in earth or heaven above. Who is there that I love compared with thee? We turn today for our sermon text back to Ephesians 3:8. I’ll read verses 8-12. However, I think we’ll have 10 on the stream, but I’m going to read through verse 12 to put 8 in context for the third time. Our message is the immeasurable riches of Christ. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Ephesians 3:8-12.

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.

And to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things through Jesus Christ, to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places according to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in him.

Let’s pray. In that boldness and confidence, Lord God, to approach you through the merits of Jesus Christ alone, we ask for your blessing upon us. Pour out more of your riches upon us, Lord God, as we consider these words of the Apostle Paul that are so important through the ages, the centrality of the message, the immeasurable riches of Christ in his proclamation of the gospel. Bless us, Father, in Jesus’ name we ask it.

Amen. Please be seated.

We have here Paul’s statement of the message of his gospel. We could say it kind of simply. He’s been appointed as the least of all sinners with humility. By the grace of God, he comes to an awareness of his own sinful character. And he’s been appointed through that to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. And what is the content of that gospel? It is the immeasurable riches of Christ and the revelation of the mystery long hidden in a world created by Christ Jesus.

Creation is part of that message. Now, I’ve been mentioning for a while this apologetics conference that the church in Oregon City, primarily working through Bruce Martin of First Evangelical Presbyterian Church here in Oregon City, is going to have an apologetics conference this October. There’ll be a Friday evening event and then a Saturday event. Friday evening and Saturday morning will be presentations of how to evangelize people, how to talk conversationally in a way that gets to the gospel, that kind of stuff.

Three very practical messages from him for us. And then Saturday evening, there’ll be a message time in a non-church venue. The first three events will be at First Presbyterian Church. The Saturday evening venue will be at Clackamas Community College, and this will be where we can bring people that we’re witnessing to or praying about to hear the message of Christ. I bring this up because if we’re going to enter into apologetics to the end of looking at evangelism, then really, you know, as we approach that kind of event, this verse is incredibly important to us, these verses, because they tell us that the centrality of whatever we do in evangelism as the church, which Paul went on to say, proclaims these mysteries and the gospel of Christ, that’s you and I, as we speak to our neighbors and friends, we must have in our heart, in our mind, and our goal that the central message is the immeasurable riches of Christ.

The immeasurable riches of Christ. So we return to this for a third time today. We want to talk about Jesus. Talk about Jesus Christ. And the point here is that Paul’s message to us, to the world, the Bible’s message is a proclamation of the person of Jesus Christ and all the immeasurable riches hidden in him. It is a person. It’s not a set of doctrines. It’s not a set of abstract beliefs. People come to church and they want to hear sermons about marriage.

They want to hear sermons about what they should do with their money. They want to hear sermons about politics, whatever it might be. Now, Paul will get to those very topics as Ephesians moves forward. The Bible has things to say about that. But, you know, you can have a good marriage, learn good marriage principles and raise good kids and make lots of money and engage in political action successfully and go to hell when you die.

That’s not the centrality of our message. The effects on those things is not the centrality of our message. The centrality of our message is the person of Christ who only and alone can really build your marriage on him as the foundation and your finances on him as the foundation. Who is ultimate in our lives. Who do we love or what do we love beyond the Lord Jesus Christ? Those are idols that we need to have destroyed by the preaching of the gospel.

We can raise great kids and maybe them and us are going to hell because the centrality of Jesus is left out of the message. We have changed over the years from the pulpit to the table. I’m not sure it’s what we want to do eventually. It seems like more than ever we’re experiencing barriers between you and us. So that’s the downside. The good side is that these things represent the body and blood of our savior.

And so the preaching of the word is supposed to be connected to the body and blood of our savior. The immeasurable riches found in him. Through that, then, to talk about things like marriage and children and politics and money and all that stuff. That’s one of the purposes of me being here: the centrality of Jesus Christ, that his word is connected to him and he is represented here before us in the sacraments. So the centrality of Jesus Christ is absolutely intended by this verse 8 that we just read, that the content of the gospel that Paul preaches are the immeasurable, incomprehensible—you can’t walk around that lake, that’s the word in the Greek—too far to walk, never ending, infinite mercies, riches rather, of Christ the Messiah.

So that’s the content of the gospel. That’s what we want to focus on. And as a reminder to you and to me, we had the body and blood of our savior presented before us. And the word comes forth from that reminding us that if we’re going to talk about money or kids or our work or whatever problems we’re having in our life, we’re going to do it based upon the centrality and through the understanding of the immeasurable riches of Jesus Christ our savior.

Jesus has to be at the center. Jesus has to be at the center. Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you. The kingdom of God is where the king is. So really it’s another way of saying seek the king and then marriage, children, money, politics, all the stuff that you want to hear me talk about and you listen to sermons by other people about—all good and proper in their place.

But their place must be second to the preeminence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul is telling us in this verse he was Christocentric. Jesus was the center of everything that he was and everything that he preached. I want to look at three specific aspects where this riches word is used in the New Testament to begin to unfold just a little bit of the immeasurable riches of Christ. What’s the content of that message?

And we’ll look at three specific things. We’ll look at grace and spend a good amount of time there and then we’ll look at knowledge and then we’ll look at glory. These are aspects of the riches of Christ where this word rich is specifically attached to. Here’s what I mean. So first, grace. Ephesians 1:7. So if we take this word riches in verse 8 of chapter 3 and then do a concordance study, what other things are described as riches?

Well in chapter 1 verse 7, in him, in Jesus, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. So Paul has already told us part of the content of what Christ’s immeasurable riches are. They’re the riches of his grace. Grace is tied here immediately to the redemption by his blood for the forgiveness of sins. Now that’s a riches of Jesus Christ unpacked to us.

That’s the topic of God’s grace to us. You know, it’s very important we don’t forget what sinners we are and what sinners maybe some of you were before you had a self-conscious conversion. If we forget who we are, then we don’t appreciate the grace of redemption through the blood of Jesus Christ. By the way, when he mentions the blood of Jesus, what is he telling us? That the riches of grace are founded upon the riches by implication of his love.

Because other texts of scripture tell us that the reason he went and bled and died on the cross for us and suffered separation from his heavenly father—hell. The reason why he did that was because he loved us. The immeasurable riches of Christ are his grace being motivated by his love and being effected by the work he accomplished on the cross of redemption for us. Ephesians 2:7, that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

What are the riches of Christ? God is revealing them. When we talk to people, we want to ultimately reveal to them the riches of Christ. But specifically here, the riches of his grace. That’s one component element of the immeasurable riches of Christ. The riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Kindness is another way to say love. It’s really the same basic idea: that God’s love for us means that rather than destroy us for our rebellion against him every day, he is kind toward us. The riches of his grace point us to the riches of his love and it points us to the practical application of that love and his riches in kindness toward us.

Again, where is Christ Jesus the center of the message, you lose Christ Jesus, you lose kindness, you lose love, you lose redemption through his blood and you lose the forgiveness of our sins. God says this is the riches of immeasurable grace.

Now, this next reference I mentioned it last week. I’m going to read it. It doesn’t have this word riches in it, but it builds on this concept of grace and it puts it in the same context of Paul declaring him to be the least of all sinners. 1 Corinthians 15:8-10. Last of all, he was revealed to me. He was seen by me also as by one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles who am not worthy to be called an apostle. Remember I said last week that he’s the least of the apostles and he’s going to go on to talk about the mercies of Christ. And in our text in Ephesians, what does he say? I’m the least of the least. Not just the least, the least of the least.

And not just of the apostles, of all saints. Okay? The least of the least of all saints. The humility of Paul here. The least of the apostles. And he says, “But I persecuted the church of God.” That’s why he’s saying it. You can’t be somewhere in the middle between Jesus loving him or hating him. You go either way. You go one way or the other. And Paul persecuted the church of God. But he goes on to say, “But by the grace of God, I am what I am.

And his grace toward me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than all they, yet not I, but the grace of God which was within me.” So the grace of God is connected up to what Paul is talking about in this proclamation of his gospel. That’s part of the immeasurable riches of Christ. But notice that the grace of God is not a dis-empowering, okay, I’m saved, sort of thing. The grace of God is what motivates Paul to go to the apologetics conference, to seek out somebody to pray for and talk to about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

He works harder because of the grace of God because he recognized that he was the least of the least of all saints, the least of all apostles, that apart from Christ, he persecuted Christ. He comes to the recognition of that. And that’s what grace is: that God saved him out of that rebellion against Christ. And he’s appointed Paul with power. But Paul works hard to proclaim the grace of Jesus Christ.

The grace of Jesus Christ. Remember we said last week we referenced this. So let me read the verses. You have to remember what you were, what you are apart from Christ. You’re blind. 2 Corinthians 4:4-6. Whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. For we do not preach ourselves, but we preach, we proclaim Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake.

For it is the God who commands light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So what’s he saying? You were blinded by the gods of your age. This world right now in America has so many blindnesses out there to blind you from true light. We are blind apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul says that when you bring Jesus, when the centrality of your message is Jesus Christ, then you’re bringing light out of darkness, you’re bringing recreation.

So know that the people you talk to about the gospel of Christ, and when you talk to yourself, that apart from God, they’re blind. They’re blinded by the gods of this age. Secondly, we’re dead. Ephesians 2:1-6. And you he has made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. Zombies.

That’s what Paul says. We are. You were dead in trespasses and sins and yet you walked. I walked. I had a course of life. I was a walking dead man. And what did I seek to do with that life? Devour whatever my flesh desired. That’s who we are. Apart from the saving grace of God, because of the fall of Adam, because of our own sinful nature, we’re dead. And yet we’re walking dead. It’s worse than if we were dead because we’re making other dead people, right?

We’re consuming others in our deadness. So we’re dead. We’re blinded. We’re dead in our trespasses and sins. It goes on to say, “Even when we were dead in trespasses, God has made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved.” You cannot bring people from death to life apart from Jesus just by believing in a set of doctrines. They want to be more moral people. They want a better marriage.

They want better kids. They want to change their lives that way. But if Jesus isn’t at the center, you see, they’ve not been born again. They’re not coming into new creation life. We move from death to life through union with the resurrected one, the Lord Jesus Christ. Right? So Christ has to be the center of our message in evangelism because we’re talking to people who are blinded, who are zombies, and we’re talking to people who are dead.

And the only way to bring them to life is having Christ at the center of the proclamation of our gospel. It’s not a better life. All is also that, but apart from being united to Jesus and his death and resurrection we are still dead in our sins. This is what the great Bob Dylan in his lyric when he made the Saved album. “I was blinded by the devil, born already ruined, stone cold dead as I stepped out of the womb.

By his grace I have been touched. By his word I have been healed. By his hand I’ve been delivered. By his spirit I’ve been sealed. I’ve been saved by the blood of the lamb,” the centrality of Jesus Christ. Now, if Bob Dylan could understand that in some way—I don’t know what his spiritual state is—brothers and sisters, we need to keep that at the center of our understanding of what our life is like. And when we drift away from Jesus, we drift back toward darkness.

We drift back toward deadness. We walk like the people of the world walk. If we want human flourishing, big term these days, if we want the common good, if we want people to have good lives and to flourish, if we want to have a good life and flourish, what do we have to do? We got to come into the light, come into the resurrection life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Apart from that, you’re not flourishing. You’re decaying.

Apart from that, you don’t have common good. You got a common curse upon all men who are rejecting of the gospel of Jesus, rejecting the person of Jesus Christ. Okay? So these terms drive us right back to the centrality of Jesus Christ, the riches of Christ at the center of our message of evangelism and preaching to ourselves as well.

Let me quote from Spurgeon. He said, “The blood of Christ can wash out blasphemy, adultery, fornication, lying, slander, perjury, theft, murder, all these things. Let me read that list again.” And you think about what you did in your previous life or right now in this life. Remember that if you look at murder for instance, we can murder with our words other people, right? Think about these things. The blood of Christ and I would say only the blood of Christ, as Spurgeon says, can wash out blasphemy. Did you swear this last week in your mind, in your thoughts, in your words?

Blasphemy. Did you blaspheme God? Adultery. Did you have impure thoughts? Fornication. Same thing if you’re single. Lying. Did you twist the truth? Present a little bit of the truth? Use equivocation like the devil does? Use different terms so you’re not revealed, what you want to stay hidden? Lying, slander. Did you talk about your brother in less than a positive way? Did you fail to commend your brother for the good things that he’s done?

Right? Perjury, theft, murder. This is what the blood of Jesus Christ washes us from. And only the blood of Christ, right? And we do these things all the time. So the riches of Christ in his grace is not just the grace of initial salvation. It’s the pardon for sins that we continue to commit. It’s sanctification. It’s sanctifying grace we could say as well as saving grace.

Spurgeon says, “Though thou hast”—let me jump to a little bit later in the quote. He says if you do all these things you can come to Christ and ask his mercy. He will absolve thee from all sin. Do but wash in the bath which he has filled with blood. And though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

He says, “Do not misunderstand me. I mean just this, that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not for the moral, not for those who think they’re okay, but rather”—he says it is for you who are irreligious, for you who are not even moral or sober or honest. I tell you, the gospel of Christ is meant for the scum of the earth. It is meant for the lowest of the low. It is meant for the worst of the worst.

That’s what Paul said. I’m the least of the least of all saints, or the worst of all sinners. He says Hercules, according to Roman mythology, you know, would take the river and clean out this horrifically spoiled area that was filled with rot and scum. And Jesus, by way of analogy here, is the greater Hercules who through the torrent of his blood washes clean the world. There is the lamb of God who sheds his blood to cleanse the sin of all the world. Jesus must be at the center of the reach of the center of the preaching of our gospel both to our evangelism and also in our sanctification. Jesus must be center.

I talked about reconciliation, talked about that the last couple of weeks: the uniting together. Thank you, by the way, for your prayers for our church in Oregon City meeting last Wednesday. It went well. Erin and Melissa Klein were there and it generated a very interesting conversation which I think was quite helpful for the pastors that were there and I heard one of the newer pastors in town inviting them to come and speak at his church. So I think we were very encouraged as well.

So this is unity. Jesus, one of the great immeasurable riches of Christ is bringing the world together. It’s Jew and Gentile. But beyond that, we now live in a divided world theologically coming out of the effects, some of the effects of the Reformation. And while everybody at Oregon City that comes to our meetings doesn’t exactly know where we’re going or what steps to take, everybody knows we don’t want to go back to when all the churches were separate and talking about each other in competition. At least that was the perception. So praise God that part of the immeasurable riches of Christ bringing people together with him and his word and sacrament at the center is beginning to happen here in the context of Oregon City.

I mean, we should have as soon as the religious liberty situation happened, churches across the Pacific Northwest or at least here in Oregon should have sent forth proclamation to the government. This is wrong. Leave these people alone. You’re in danger of judgment from God for the persecution of people for doing what their consciences told them they should do in terms of affirming or not affirming a homosexual marriage, which was illegal at the time, by the way. All right? So you’ve heard about that from me. And Jesus Christ is our ongoing intercessor.

You know, when we come to church, you hear this gospel, the centrality of Jesus preached from the moment the church service begins, right? We praise his name, but then we immediately confess our sins and we hear about the immeasurable grace and mercies and riches of Christ in forgiving us our sins and also for sanctifying us as we move along. Jesus’s grace is really the beginning point of the administration of the service of God to us in the context of our worship service.

So grace—let’s see now, this is important. This is a riches of Christ to us, this grace, right? Yeah. Okay, we all know that. Good to hear it. Good to remember the centrality of the immeasurable riches of Christ in this grace. But here’s another verse where this same word is used, this riches. 2 Corinthians 8:2, in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality.

Paul is talking about people that were church that had trials and sufferings and difficulties and yet was able to abundantly give riches of their liberality. What’s he talking about? He uses the same word riches. What riches do we have to distribute to other people? And the point here is if the riches include as a central component the grace and mercy of God and if we are now united to Christ as the recipients of that grace, what is our obligation? Our obligation is to give of our riches with liberality to people who have need graciously. Right?

So the grace, focusing on the grace riches, the richness of Christ that is his grace, it has an implication to us then. Once we understand it, that we contribute that to other people. Then okay, God gives us gifts that we’re to pass on. If he has been gracious to us we’re to be gracious, this text tells us, to other people. And so we have these riches of Christ, not just to be ours, keep in our own little bank account and be happy about it. I mean, part of it’s that—to be happy about what he’s done for us—but he gives us these riches so that we could distribute them to other people.

You know, we’re going through a series of discussions about organizational structures of the church. We’re going to have a vision meeting next year like we do every couple of years. Gordon will be on board, so that’ll be great. And we’re talking about organizational structures and maybe how the one we have now could be modified, changed to make things go easier. But you know, organizational structures are okay and it’s good to have them.

But any organizational structure without a distribution of grace from people who understand the recipients of grace and the working of the church won’t work. I can give you the best plan for your marriage that you can ever imagine based upon what the word of God says and you can implement much of that, but if you’re not gracious to each other in your marriage, right? Overlooking little offenses, bringing up things you can’t overlook. If you don’t bring that grace that you’ve been given by Christ and extend it to the other person, the best marriage structure in the world isn’t going to work.

So, you know, please pray for us that we get a good structure, that we do make some modifications there. But recognizing at the same time the centrality of Christ means the centrality of these riches of grace that he’s given to us and that we’re to distribute to one another.

Grace, okay. The next thing I was going to mention is knowledge. So here another text using the same word riches. Romans 11:33-34. Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become his counselor?

Now, this is kind of related to what we said earlier about light. But here the riches part of the immeasurable riches of Christ are specifically identified as wisdom and knowledge. Okay. So moving from grace to the second topic which will be shorter. Wisdom and knowledge. These are part of the riches of Christ. What does that mean?

Well, it means that every attempt we make to build a good organizational structure of a business, a church, a marriage, whatever it is, anything we try to do in life, we need to have wisdom, the knowledge to plan, to take steps, to make it work, to take the steps to implement what we understand to be the course of direction and what we have to recognize is that Jesus Christ is the center of the gospel of Paul’s gospel and Jesus Christ with his knowledge and wisdom, his riches of knowledge and wisdom, is what Paul was preaching to them, what he is preaching to us and what we are to be preaching to other people.

You can’t figure it out yourself. Or if you do, your knowledge has a bent to it now. Okay? And the world’s knowledge apart from Christ has a bent to it. Now, lots of things can be developed and known by science. God reveals things to people with or without their cooperation with Christ. Often times, he’s gracious and giving. He gives us great gifts. But friends, what this means is when you try to figure out things in your marriage, things at your work, things in your relationship, things in your finances, whatever thing you’re trying to get wisdom and knowledge about, the source is Jesus Christ.

And if he’s not the center of your trying to figure out what you should do next and how you should perceive the world in which you now live, then all hope is lost. All hope is lost. I think we just had this in our worship service, right? Let me just give me just a minute. Yeah. Psalm 73.

But where is it? Well, no, that’s okay. You can rest for a minute. Take a breath. Oh, I think this is it. Yeah. What verse should I start with? Yeah, here it is. Okay. So in verse 23 of what we read responsively from Psalm 73, nevertheless, I am continually with you. You hold me by my right hand, the center of Yahweh, Jesus with the psalmist. You will guide me with your counsel and afterwards receive me to glory.

Now if when you read that or when you read that responsively, is that your experience? Is God, is Jesus at the center of your life? Is he center of your being, of your guidance? Is his counsel—that’s what it says—you will guide me with your counsel and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside you. There is none upon earth that I desire beside you.

And so this connection between the centrality of Jesus Christ and a waiting on his counsel and understanding of the scriptures, right? knowing what they say about particular topics, marriage, kids, politics, finance, whatever it is. Okay. The counsel of Jesus Christ is part of, according to the text we just read, the immeasurable riches of Christ. Romans 11:33, untapped riches. You’re sitting there. So often we make plans where you don’t really think of Jesus at the center. We don’t really think about his word as opposed to some book we read in terms of the counsel of how to go about what we’re doing. And we figuratively speaking have this many resources.

But if we turn to the counsel of Christ, speaking through his spirit, speaking through his word, looking at his life, the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, the suffering and resurrection, right? Sacrifice preceding blessing. If we look at that, if we look at Christian people, other members of the body of Christ, seek counsel from them about our particular dilemma. Now we don’t have this many resources. Now we have immeasurable resources.

Now we’ve got the immeasurable riches of Jesus Christ and his wisdom and knowledge to rely upon to live out our lives, to make the decisions that we have to make and to be comforted with the knowledge that Jesus Christ is ours. Okay. Third, glory. Romans 9:23 we read. Paul says that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had prepared beforehand for glory.

So now we know that the riches of God’s grace and mercy are really connected to the riches of his glory, his brilliance, his weightiness, his glory. And it’s these mercies and the riches of God given to us by his grace is to the end that we might have glory, that the world might go from glory to glory, that God’s glory might be reflected in us. So the riches of God, of Jesus, is his glory. The glory of what he has accomplished, the glory of what he has done. You know the angels in heaven saying, “You are worthy to receive riches, honor and glory.”

And that’s set specifically in the context of him being the lamb of God. What’s presented before us here: the life of our savior and his death and his resurrection and ascension. That’s why he has received riches. Now, I know there’s a conundrum there. He was always God. But that’s what Revelation says we’re to sing. And those riches of glory that he has again are given to us. His mercy is given to us and we’re to then spend it on other people.

Right? Dispense it. His wisdom and knowledge is given to us and we’re to give that knowledge to other people. And here his glory is given to us and we’re to use that glory to manifest his glory in the context of the world. The riches are described as riches of glory. Again in Ephesians 1:18, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints?

The riches of his glory tied to what? To his inheritance of the saints, to us. But again, the riches of Jesus include the riches of glory. Ephesians 3:16, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man. So right after Paul says the riches of Jesus, he enumerates one of the specific riches. It is the riches of Christ’s glory. And we’re going to pray this prayer just a couple of minutes that is taken from the last half of chapter 3 of Ephesians.

Again in Philippians 4:19, “My God shall supply your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” Again, Colossians 1:27, “To them God will to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Christ in you, the hope of glory. Now, the riches of the riches of Christ that are given is an eschatological realization for us as well, that part of the inestimable riches of Christ are the riches of his glory.

And I mean I think in part, you know, we can see the riches of his grace and how that works, knowledge works, but the riches of his glory is sort of like the overarching theme of all these things. The manifest brilliance of his person, who he is, the nature of the triune God. Remember Jesus is revealing the Father to us. He’s not pointing to himself. When we look at the riches of Christ, he’s always showing us the Father. He’s always pointing back to the Father. And the glory of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is manifested in the riches of Christ’s glory.

And that glory is given to us over time and in time in history. And his glory then moves to fill the whole world. His magnificence, his brilliance, his beauty. The person of Jesus is the center of the proclamation of the gospel. And it must be if we’re to flourish, if we’re to have good lives, lives with purpose, successful lives, that we don’t see frustration after frustration after frustration and can’t move past that somehow.

Well, consider the fact of how central is Jesus in your life. And I preach to you and I preach to myself when we encounter difficulties. How much have we drawn from the riches of God’s knowledge and glory? How much have we understood the riches of Christ’s person and his suffering preceding his resurrection and ascension? That glory comes through self-sacrifice and difficulties and trials. And how often do we kick against those very things that are mechanisms for God to give to us the immeasurable riches of Christ?

And not just for us, but so that we could be recipients of that and channels of the riches of Christ to others that we talk to both within and without the church of Jesus as we bring people to faith and as we encourage one another with the riches of Christ. This is Christ was center to Paul. There was a man.

How much time do I have? Okay, I’m doing okay. I’m going to read a quote from Rob Rayburn. Let’s see. Actually, before I do that, another thing that we know—this should have been a subset of Christ’s riches of his mercy—are the riches of Christ’s comfort. His comfort. Lo, I am with you always. The immeasurable riches of Christ include his presence with us as we go through sufferings united to him. And so the comfort of Jesus Christ is at the center of our lives. As long as Jesus is there, that his riches can be called upon then in the context of our sufferings and difficulties, the comforts of Christ.

They’re never ceasing. They’re immeasurable, unsearchable, the comforts of Christ’s presence with us. And again, if Jesus is the center of your life, you know that. And if Jesus is somehow at the peripheral of your life, something you’ve kind of added on to your house, a top story or whatever it is, or a little spare bedroom you go to occasionally, then you don’t know the riches of Christ and his comfort as well.

Let me read a quote. Well, this is actually Spurgeon, but let me read this too. Christ is a greater Christ than you think him to be when your thoughts are at their greatest. That’s a good statement, isn’t it? That’s Spurgeon. Christ is a greater Christ than you think him to be when your thoughts are at your greatest. My master, he calls him my master throughout this sermon that I’m reading.

My master is more also to pardon than you are to sin. He is more able rather he is more able to pardon than you to sin. More able to forgive than you to transgress. Your transgressions are limited. They’re not immeasurable. And he is more able to forgive and to pardon than you are to transgress. My master is more ready to supply than you are to ask. And ten thousand times more prepared to save than you are to be saved.

Isn’t that great. I love that. That’s so true. We don’t look to him for his riches when we’re in dire straits and difficulties. Typically, he’s more willing, more ready to supply than you are to ask. Are you asking for the riches of Christ in your life in the midst of your trials and your tribulations? Are you waiting patiently, asking in faith, knowing that this is exactly the center of the gospel that you believe in?

Is the person of Jesus Christ. He says, “Never tolerate low thoughts of my Lord Jesus.” Never tolerate low thoughts of my Lord Jesus. And how often do we not just tolerate low thoughts, but we speak forth thoughts that God doesn’t really care about us, he’s not helping us, he’s far away. That’s sin. God’s word tells us differently. I know our experience is that. But that’s when he wants us to meditate even more on the centrality of who he is and the riches of his glory and his grace and his mercy and his knowledge.

He knows what he’s doing. He loves you far more than you can understand or believe. And in that love, he’s taking you through the trial. He’s comfort to you, but not if he’s off to the side of your life somehow. Your highest estimates, says Spurgeon, will dishonor him when you put the crown on his head. You will only crown him with silver when he deserves gold. When you sing the best of your songs, you will only give him poor discordant music compared with what he deserves.

But oh, do believe in him that he is a great Christ, a mighty savior. Great sinner, come and do him honor by trusting in him as a great savior. Come with your great needs. Come today. Jesus, as we pray. Come to him as you go about your life this week. He is a great savior far greater than you can imagine, well able to meet your everyday need because he is a savior of immeasurable riches. Rob Rayburn talks about a man.

Let’s see. Give me just a minute. Who was this guy? Eighteenth century Swiss fellow, a philosopher, a Christian preacher and theologian, a scientist rather and a poet. Rayburn’s sermons by the way are available online. Tremendous. He’s quite a rhetorician, great historian, knows all kinds of stuff and he writes beautifully and preaches beautifully. So anyway, in his sermon on this particular text—actually the whole first half of Ephesians 3—he talks about this aspect of the riches of Christ and he talks about this man and let’s see what is the man’s name that’d be nice. Johan Casper Lavater. Anybody know this name? No? Lavater. I’ll call him Lavater. And Clinton and Strong had an encyclopedia and they identified kind of his take on theology as Christomania, Christomania.

So he was like a maniac for the Lord Jesus Christ. And he was a little eccentric, I guess, but solidly sound in terms of basic orthodoxy, but Christomania. And Rayburn says, “I like that term. I wouldn’t mind being called a Christomaniac.” I remember seeing someone on William Buckley’s Firing Line—I think it was—an older man, well known and well respected by the world, and he had become a Christian in his older age and it was—he got invited to fewer and fewer cocktail parties because he was known as a Christomaniac. People knew that when he went to the cocktail party Jesus was the center of his life and he’d start to talk about him at some point. He was called a Christomaniac. Okay, and so Rayburn says, “I like that. I think we should like it, too.”

That’s what the point here is. Paul is Christocentric. We should be Christomaniacs. We should be focused and obsessed, if you want to call it that, with the riches of Jesus Christ and his person being at the center of our being. Well, Lavater wrote a poem and I want to read this poem to you. He says, “Oh Jesus Christ, grow thou in me and all things else receive my heart be daily nearer thee from sin be daily freed each day let thy supporting might weakness still embrace my darkness vanish in thy light thy life my death ease more of thy glory let me see thou holy wise and true I would thy living image be in joy and sorrow too make this poor self grow less and less, be thou my life and aim, oh, make me daily through thy grace more meet to bear thy name.”

Now, I think that’s who we’re supposed to be. People that are in love with the Lord Jesus Christ. What did Martin Luther say? “Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also, the body they may keep, God’s truth still abides.” So what he was saying there was not that he didn’t care about his wife, his family, his own life, his possessions. But he was saying that everything else in the world is second place to Jesus.

Good to honor moms today, but moms, parents, dads, they’re representatives of Jesus. You know, Jesus was like a mother hen. He wanted to gather Jerusalem, he said, like chicks and protect them. Good to honor mom today. But boy, must mom be honored—and she’s honored as a representative of the greater honor of this day, the Lord of this day, the Lord Jesus Christ. And all other things have to take second place.

And if that upsets you, well, there’s no other message to the Christian faith. That’s it. Center of the Christian faith. It’s not a set of ideas, doctrines, abstractions. It’s a person. And that’s why it’s offensive to people because other religions are not that. But that’s all we have. He is the center of who we are.

Let’s pray. Father, we bow our knees to you, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ—at least we bow our hearts. Father, we know that you are he who from the whole family in heaven and earth by which they are all named. We pray that you would grant us according to the riches of glory to be strengthened with might through your spirit in the inner man. That Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. That we being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height, to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.

That you may be filled—or that we may be filled rather—with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us. To you, Lord God, be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.