The Blazing Center - The Unsearchable Riches of Christ

THE BLAZING CENTER – THE CROSS

“To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…” ()

There have been two periods in my life that I can point to at the moment that have been completely life and heart altering for me in how I perceived God.

The first was during my time in college when, while being raised a Pentecostal Arminian and attending a fiercely Pentecostal/Arminian Bible College, I began to study the Scriptures and realize that much of what I was taught wasn’t biblical. This presented a problem for me. Over a 2-3 year period at this college I eventually became Reformed, and it changed me. It changed how I thought, what I believed, my philosophy of ministry and Christian living, and how I theologically viewed God.

The second period in my life is one that is currently ongoing. Over the past several weeks, maybe months (not sure), God has been opening my eyes to beholding the beauty and glory of Christ. Slowly and surely I have begun to understand that this whole thing we call life – mortal and eternal – is all about Him; it’s in Him, by Him, through Him, and for Him.

For me this revelatory, though it is not some new thing or a secret.

For most of my life I have viewed Jesus as a means to another end. He was the means to my justification; a means to my sanctification; a means to my healing or my provision; or a means to my perceived destiny, etc.

And this is something that I believe we do as Christians at individual and corporate levels in our preaching, discipleship, and evangelism.

Many times we focus on the peripherals and make Jesus a means to getting to those things.

However, Jesus isn’t a means to another end. Jesus isn’t a stepping stone to some other better thing. No, Jesus is the end. Jesus is not just a better thing, He is the only thing. He is the cornerstone, the centerpiece upon which everything hinges. He is All in All, the very glory of God that we, alone, were meant to behold and pursue.

We can look around us and behold the glory of God. We can look at the sky as the sun rises and as it sets and see the sky painted like a canvas in absolute beauty and see the glory of God; we can look at the oceans – their power, their darkness and mystery, their resiliency, and untamed intensity – and see the glory of God; we can look into the sky at night and witness the incredible infinity that is space, filled with stars and planets stretched over millions of light years, in billions of galaxies that we can only dream of, and every single blip of light in the darkness proclaims the immensity, eternality, and majesty of its Creator – the glory of God.

We look at all these things and rightfully say, “Wow! How beautiful, how powerful, how infinite…!” Yet they are but shadows, blips on the radar screen, drops in the bucket compared the infinite holiness and glory of the Living God, the Maker of it all.

And this inscrutable God, through whom and for whom all things, seen and unseen were made (), put on humanity and dwelled with us. In Christ, the manifest glory of God, the fullness of God was pleased to dwell (). He is the very image of God.

And that fullness of the Godhead was nailed to a cross to bear the fullness of God’s wrath and judgment so that we could receive the fullness of God’s mercy and grace so that we could be the fullness of God’s righteousness in Him so that we can live with a full understanding of the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God ().

This is what Paul was given the grace to preach: the unsearchable riches of Christ. Not of justification, not of healing, not of sanctification or glorification, or love, or anything else we can sometimes make it to be. No, he came to preach the unsearchable, the incomprehensible riches of Christ.

Namely, in this context, that the Gentiles were included in God’s plan for salvation. That God was not only the God of the Jews but the God of people from every tribe, every nation, and every tongue. That God died for all and that anyone who beholds the Son and turns to Him, in repentance and faith, will be saved from the wrath to come.

How unbelievable! Because of this most of us here, if not all of us, are sitting in this room hearing again – as all who call upon Him will proclaim from today through all of eternity – the Gospel of the glory of Christ.

Paul’s response to this reality, at the end of what is most likely the most beautiful theology ever penned, says,

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?’

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” ().

And this is what we were meant to see, this is how we are meant to respond: with awe-inspired wonder, being absolutely stunned by the Christ who hung on the tree, for us, in victory. To say, like David, “When I look…what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (, ). We were made to behold, to absorb in complete fullness the beauty and glory of God forever and ever in Jesus Christ, and in beholding that glory forever changed, transformed into the same image from glory to glory ().

But we have to turn. We have to look. We have to behold. We have to repent.

Like Matt Papa says, “Seeing the glory of God in the face of Christ is a work of repentance” (p. 86).

And this is Christian repentance: “It is turning away from the world and all of its pleasures toward Christ and all His superior pleasures” (p. 86).

Many of us, like me, desire to throw ourselves into Him, into this glory. But we hesitate because of doubt and fear.

We doubt His goodness – His lovingkindness and steadfast love – in how He works toward us, whether in His commands or in His sovereignty in answering or not answering prayers and allowing pain and suffering.

And we fear, because of sin, when His blazing Light shines on us, and instead of running to Him, we can prefer to hide, like Adam and Eve in the Garden, in the insufficient comfort of our dull idols…maybe believing that He isn’t sufficient enough to satisfy us.

But the gospel of the Glory of Christ – the reality of this Glorious, all sufficient God hanging on a cross – should put all away for good doubt and fear. The cross and the Christ who hung upon it should give us confidence of God’s lovingkindness and steadfast love toward us. It should give us confidence to approach His throne of grace, and that if He was able to satisfy His eternal justice in Christ, He can surely satisfy our longings in Him.

If we would but confess and believe, we will see the glory of God ().

Let me end by praying for you what Paul prayed for the Ephesians in response to what he wrote about what God has accomplished in, through, and set forth in Christ.

(()):

“For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love[f] toward all the saints, 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”