A Word in Season: Preaching the Unsearchable (Ephesians 3:8)

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A small, frail man gets into an old, leaky rowing boat and begins to pull slowly away from the shore into the vastness of the

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Pacific Ocean. At first, the land is within sight, but before very long he is swallowed up by the greatness, the breadth, and the depth of that mighty ocean.

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So spare a thought and a prayer for those men who will preach to you today the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ, for they are in, in some senses, a far worse and a far better state than that old, frail man in that old, frail boat.

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Paul talks about being less than the least of all the saints, but having this grace given to him, that I should preach among the

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Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. There in Ephesians chapter three and verse eight, he expresses on the one hand his awareness of his own sinfulness and weakness.

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He is less than the least of all the saints. Yes, he may not be least among the apostles, but he is profoundly conscious of his own unworthiness as a man, let alone as a minister, for who but God in his matchless grace would have chosen

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Saul of Tarsus, that blasphemer, that persecutor, would have humbled him before the living

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Christ, would have taken him to himself and then sent him out from himself in order to make known the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ.

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Yes, Paul, though in himself nothing and less than nothing, a fierce and rebellious sinner, is now the instrument of God, the messenger of Jesus Christ.

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He has not put himself in that position. He did not demand it. He would never have wanted it, humanly speaking, but it has been bestowed upon him to declare fully, to make known among the

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Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. And there's the tension. Here is this frail man.

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Here is this sinful man. And his task is to make known something that is unsearchable, better, someone who is unsearchable.

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This is that small, frail man in that old, leaky rowing boat who is meant to try and bring back the riches of the

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Pacific to the people who are on the shore. This is a man standing on a mountaintop and seeing vistas laid out before him, great wealth of nature spreading out to the far horizons.

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And his responsibility is to bring back and to record and to make known so that others too can enter into these riches, all that is there which he sees, a properly representative declaration.

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And it is what brings preachers to the end of themselves, for they know that in themselves they cannot do what they are called to do.

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And it's the same thing that gives a holy thrill to preachers because they know that there is no lack of material, no lack of truth, no lack of goodness and grace and glory in Christ Jesus, his mercy, his loving kindness, his personal glory as the incarnate

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Son of God, his saving work as the Messiah of God, the

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Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. We could preach every hour of every day, of every week, of every month, of every year of our lives and the unsearchable riches of Christ, that fellowship of the mystery, the things that God has now made known in his

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Son. We will only ever begin to scratch the surface of those glorious truths, but we will keep scratching.

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And by God's grace and with the Spirit's help, we will stand in the pulpit again today and you will have the privilege of hearing somebody to whom grace has been given to make known to you the unsearchable riches of Christ Jesus.

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So pray for those men and pray for yourself because you will be the beneficiary of those searches and studies.

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As they search the unsearchable, as they plumb the depths of the infinite, as they bring up the treasures that God has made known to them, they will present them to you in order that you too may truly, savingly know this

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Christ Jesus and may glorify him with all that you are and all that you have both now and forever.

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It is a glorious task and it's a glorious privilege to hear proclaimed those unsearchable riches of Christ Jesus, our