Ephesians Series: Unsearchable Riches

Introduction

Pray for Josh in India

in the study this week…. I felt really small…. This passage is so majestic… I feel like a tiny mouse on the vast open stretch of the Great Plains. Or like a speck of dust floating in the expanse of outer space.

Chapter 3 - ends the Part 1 of Ephesians.

Gospel in the Air. (Ephesians 1-3)

Gospel on the Ground. (Ephesians 4-6)

Ephesians - split into 2 parts

Part 1 → chapters 1-3a - High Theology. The gospel in the air. The zoom out, birds eye view. The doctrine and teaching of God and our faith in it’s most glorious and majestic level. Ephesians is on the level with Romans in theology.

Part 2 → Chapter 4-6 - Practical Theology - the gospel on the ground. Rubber meets the road. Where what you believe actually meets what you do on a day to day basis.

Hinge - swinging the door between the two parts is a short prayer by Paul. Ephesians 3:14-21.

For this reason…

Ever start praying and get distracted? Ever start telling a story and start running down a rabbit trail? Preachers, we can be known for this. Paul seems to do this too… Paul is intending to pray for the church and end Part 1. But he get’s pulled aside into this wonderfully glorious edifying rabbit trail.

Verses 3:1 and 3:14 - both begin with “For this reason”

Paul is in prison! Roman prison. PRISONER. but he doesn’t want them to lose heart… (13). He wants them not to be ashamed of the gospel because he is in prison.

Talk through the passage 3:1-21… in a verbal conversational tone.

Read / pray the passage

1. Reveal the Mystery of the Gospel (1-6)

Mystery is… (vs 3,4, 6, 9)

The gospel is the clear manifestation of the mystery of Christ. — John Calvin

Mystery is truth revealed

Mystery made know by revelation. something that was not previously fully known but now it is known.

Something previously hidden that God has revealed because you would never have guessed it. It’s so incredible, the mystery of Christ is you’d never been able to predict it

It was hidden from generations before but now it is fully revealed.

The mystery is…

Gentiles and Jews. (6)

Gospel… good news not just for Jews but for gentiles too.

Romans 10:9–13 ESV

because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Transition: let’s not lose the plot. Let’s not lose our childlike wonder for the grace of God poured out upon us. Let’s not lose the exciting nature of this message. Do you remember when you first came to faith? Let’s not take for granted the amazing story of Jesus!

Well, the Church’s Gospel, or “good news”, is as exciting as a murder mystery.

Peter Kreeft

Spoiler alert…

murder mystery. True Crime podcasts. Who dunnit?

Bible study, in a living room. And one guy clearly has never heard of the story. Leader, is like well, we are coming to the end of Matthew, and we’re in chapter 27 where Jesus dies…. and the one of the group is like…. wait, Jesus dies?? what?? yeah, it’s ben tablking for it for 2,000 years… wait, what? I just started season 2… the NT? Well, he was betrayed… don’t tell me it was Judas… and wait, but it’s ok, Jesus comes back to life. Whaaatt?? He comes back to life?!

Never grow accustomed to the story of the gospel.

PLOT TWIST:

Jews were given a great responsibility and blessing from God.

But now, Gentiles, are welcomed to receive this good news and grace of God too.

Gentiles, become fellow heirs and partakers of the gospel.

This is the mystery (vs. 6)

The mystery of Christ has been revealed to us because we would never have been able to write this story on our own.

2. Preach the Unsearchable Riches of Christ (7-13)

Paul never graduated from humility and grace. (7)

Paul was called to preach

To preach Christ and the gospel and to bring to light what was formerly hidden… this truth is now revealed and open for all.

The Church is called to shine (9-10)

Is the light house shining the light of the gospel out to the sailors on a stormy sea. We are a light bulb so the light of the gospel would shine through us… individually but also corporately. As a gathering of lightbulbs shining out the gospel. A people like a city set on a hill… not hiding our lights but burning bright.

to bring light to everyone… through the church… the manifold, entire, wisdom, plan of redemption, would be made known, in heaven and earth.

We are called to more than personal and individual salvation.

We are called to “we are called to be the means by which God teaches the universe a lesson, and a beautiful lesson.”

Unsearchable riches (8-9)

Break this down…

Never fully find the end

Untraceable, beyond finding out.

never fully lay hold of them, never fully trace down the ends of them. never discover the end.

Explorer, Lewis and Clark expedition, to explorers of the Louisiana territory. Vast untamed riches of land, territory, mountains, valleys, rivers… you will never map out the ending boundary of Gods kingdom territory.

Outer space is probably the best way of describing the “unsearchable riches of Christ”

Outer Space: The universe is not static; it’s expanding. New galaxies are moving farther away, increasing the already unimaginable scale of the cosmos. This concept of continual expansion parallels how humanity’s knowledge of the universe grows every day, and yet there is always more to explore.

Unsearchable Riches of Christ: Christ’s riches also expand in our lives the more we walk with Him. Every season of life brings new experiences of His grace, new depths of His wisdom, and fresh revelations of His love. Like the universe, Christ’s riches grow in our understanding, yet we never reach the end of them. Even in eternity, we will continue to marvel at the infinite riches of God’s grace.

Never fully comprehendible

Outer Space: The universe is so vast that even with the most advanced technology, humanity has only begun to explore a tiny fraction of it. Space appears to be infinite, and the further we explore, the more we discover its endless reaches. Scientists continue to find new galaxies, stars, and phenomena that were previously unknown.

Unsearchable Riches of Christ: Similarly, the riches of Christ are beyond full comprehension. Just as we can never reach the end of the universe, we will never exhaust the depth of Christ’s grace, mercy, love, and wisdom. No matter how much we study, grow, and experience Christ, there is always more to discover—more forgiveness, more peace, more love.

Never fully described

Words fail me.

As a preacher… I often feel frustrated on Monday morning… feeling as if I fell so far short. I just don’t seem to have the words to explain the unexplainable.

this week… I’m studying this passage… and it’s like you’re opening multiple pandoras boxes, each one to just open up another one. Now I’m drowning in opened boxes, each one filled with all sorts of treasure, and riches, and comfort, and strength.

What is something, you have been at loss to describe? You don’t have the words. Words just don’t do it justice. This picture just doesn’t capture the beauty and awe of being there.

Never fail, inexhaustible, incorruptible

they never diminish. Rust. or corrupt. They don’t break down and they can’t be stolen.

They don’t stop working.

What a truth… when the earth tends to chaos and disorder and everything breaks down and falls apart eventually…

The riches of God never fail, break apart, or break down.

What are the unsearchable riches of Christ and his gospel? How do I get them?

A new car. a new house. a great job. a beautiful family. Good health. Success. Fame. money. comfort. Ease. Free of pain. This is what it means to be rich right??

Isn’t that what God promises us? Health and wealth? Is that what Paul is talking about here? Unsearchable riches must mean that right?

Pauls in prison right now….

Those things are all temporary and fleeting and can easily come and go. But what about spiritual riches that cannot break down or be stolen away.

Redemption - Jesus is our redeemer.

Reconciliation - Jesus is our peace.

Sanctification - the Holy Spirit is the sanctifying power cleansing us and transforming us.

Glorification - the guaranteed inheritance of the fullness of God completed one day when he returns. the work has begun, the work is in progress. The work will be completed.

Life. Salvation. Cleansing. Freedom.

Christ is our Life:

Colossians 3:4: “When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

Christ is our Freedom:

Galatians 5:1: “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”

Christ is our Salvation:

Acts 4:12: “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

Application:

Do you realize what you have in Christ??

Are you content today dear Christian?

Or what has God not done for you?

What has he held back from you?

There is a world out there that will tell you that you deserve more and God is miserly and holding so much back from you…

In fact, these same lies were first told by a snake in the garden. Oh you know, God doesn’t have your best interest in mind, he doesn’t want what’s best for you, God is hiding so much knowledge of good and evil from you.

Are you not partakers in the gospel of Jesus Christ? Does your faith in Jesus not secure you a rich inheritance

What was Paul’s secret? contentment… because when you are content in Christ and than you can do all things … it doesn’t matter but the secret to having a lot or having a little… isn’t more or less… it’s deeper in Christ. Of eternal life? Are you not at peace with God?

What was Paul’s secret? contentment… because when you are content in Christ and than you can do all things … it doesn’t matter but the secret to having a lot or having a little… isn’t more or less… it’s deeper in Christ.

There are riches untold.

Depths unknown.

Storehouses undiscovered.

Frontiers left to explore.

3. Know the Love of Christ (14-19)

Paul prays…

For this reason…

Paul Prays on his knees.

Paul prays for spiritual needs first and foremost.

For unity. For love, for understanding, for filling.

Prays of Unity

Every family in heaven and on earth is named…

We are family. Both now and forever. Spiritually tied together. Heavenly family has passed on and is with God right now in the Present Heaven. They will return one day to Earth… when Christ returns to renovate and restore all things, as he brings about a New Heaven and a New Earth.

“with all the saints” (18)

Together, comprehending together… not in isolation.

Prays of Love

Down here we must be rooted and grounded in love… but also know the lofty love of Christ that is so high you can’t reach it.?!

The prayer has climbed higher and higher.

Martyn Lloyd Jones says they reach a rareified atmosphere. We reach as it were the pinnacle of Christian truth. There is nothing higher than this. God grant us His Spirit that we may consider it aright. WE are in a rareified atmosphere; in a place to which alas we are not accustomed. Far too many are content to spend our time in the lowlands and the plains amid the mists and the other characteristics fo that level of life.” - Martyn Lloyd Jones

Kilimanjaro. Altitude sickness. The air is thing. Hard to breathe. So it is with these lofty truths… This is why Paul prays for spiritual power to truly comprehend and begin to grasp the magnitude of God and his love.

but as you climb higher into the lofty majestic truths of God and the more you understand the inter-workings of the mystery. The higher your knowledge of God, the greater your

Last week I told you something. Very clearly: Jesus loves you.

This is something to say… it’s quite another to experience and actually receive.

It is in receiving the love of God and being loved by God himself that we begin to understand and comprehend the great love of Jesus.

You must first be rooted and ground in the fact that “Jesus love you” and in so doing you may begin to scratch the surface of the great love of God. And in so doing grow in knowing who God really is, since God is love.

yet, this love… surpasses knowledge. You cannot fully know it.

Pre-Marital counseling. I can instruct you in the ways of marriage. I can inform you on what it looks like to love someone day in and day out. I can have you read a book and have you memorize data surrounding marriage… but until you learn to love your spouse in daily marriage, you don’t know what marriage is.

Prays for Understanding

Expand his comprehension. (Spiritual illumination)

How can you know a love that “surpasses knowledge.”

How can you know something unknowable?

We may actually take comfort in this…

God is much bigger and far greater than us.

Capacity to grasp

“The Love of God,” written by Frederick M. Lehman in 1917.

Could we with ink the oceans fill

And were the skies of parchment made,

Were every stalk on earth a quill

And every man a scribe by trade—

To write the love of God above

Would drain the oceans dry;

Nor could the scroll contain the whole

Though stretched from sky to sky.

Know the Dimensions of God’s Love ( in 3D. 4D. Virtual reality. )

How small we are?! We are children in a paddle boat puttering along at the edge of a deep blue ocean. The Pacific ocean. It’s vast bottomless depths.

Stott does, that “the love of Christ is ‘broad’ enough to encompass all mankind (especially Jew and Gentiles, the theme of these chapters), ‘long’ enough to last for eternity, ‘deep’ enough to reach the most degraded sinner, and ‘high’ enough to exalt him to heaven.

Wide - how many and how far

Long - how limitless and far reaching

High - how exalted and lofty

Deep - how deep and lasting and meaningful and rich

Prays for Filling

It’s out of the limitless, vast, inexhaustible storehouse of God that Paul prays we would be filled with.

Fullness of God.

“to be full of yourself”

— he’s full of himself. He is filled up with his own pride and arrogance. He can’t get over himself.

4. To God Be the Glory (doxology) (20-21)

DOXOLOGY [Gk. doxología, from dóxa—‘praise, honor, glory’ and lógos—‘utterance’].

A brief expression of praise, primarily to God or to other members

A study of this magnitude can only lead us to a prayerful expression of praise to God!

The sermon is important. We learn from the sermon. But doctrine, if it is rightly understood, leads to doxology. If we discover who God is and what he has done for us, we will praise him.

James Montgomery Boice

Our theology must become doxology.

R. Kent Hughes

Conclusion: prayer and meditation and doxology

Ephesians 3:20–21 “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

Jude 24 “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy,”