Introduction
In a previous article we considered the precious privilege of preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ. To do so, we need a proper estimation of our ministry. But now we focus, secondly, on the essence of our preaching.
Paul describes it in a pithy fashion as follows: “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” (Eph 3:8). Grace has come down to the depths, flooding the floor of the lowest cavern in the collection of the saints, to call and equip Paul, to do what he is not sufficient to do; namely, that he would preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.
The Sinful Preacher’s Gracious Privilege
When Paul thinks of his grace-empowered role in the Church, it is to do one thing: to preach, to herald good news, to announce the victory of Jesus. Likewise, this is how a minister of the gospel is to think of himself. He is a great sinner, given great grace, to perform a great task—to preach, to herald, to declare the mystery of the gospel (Eph 6:19-20). Paul tells the Ephesians elders gathered at Miletus that his life is not accounted as dear to him, “if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus.”
What is that ministry? It is to solemnly testify “to the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24). Christ has commissioned Paul, and he’s commissioned every called, gifted, and graced minister, 1) to proclaim Jesus, 2) to preach Christ crucified, and 3) to placard the Savior’s doings and dyings as he gave himself for sinners and defeated him who held the power of death.
The Oxymoronic Nature Of Preaching The Unsearchable Riches Of Christ
But here Paul particularly highlights the content of preaching. What is the good news that we announce? It is the unsearchable riches of Christ. That statement is a bit oxymoronic, isn’t it?—like jumbo shrimp or something that’s bittersweet. How can you preach to people, inviting sinners through your words, to search out Christ if His riches are unsearchable? One aspect of Paul’s thought here is to communicate that the riches found in Christ are infinite, limitless, immeasurable. Those riches never come to an end.
Throughout Ephesians Paul has been highlighting the word “riches” as a figure of God’s amazing grace in Christ. Ephesians 3:8 is the fourth time Paul has used that word. It’s as though the poverty of our former condition—dead in sin, defiant in deeds, dominated by the devil, doomed to destruction (Eph 2:1-3)—is pushed aside by the picture of the riches of God’s grace lavished upon us (Eph 1:7-8). But here’s the wonder for the preacher: The preacher gets to publish the riches, spelling out the wealth of what can never be fully measured.
Dear Preacher, There Is Always More!
As believers under biblical preaching or as preachers studying weekly to preach, we will never get to a point and say, “I get it all now. I’ve mastered the immeasurable things of Christ. I know it all. The book of delights is now closed.” Not at all! For, in eternity, Paul indicates, God will show us “the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:7). There is no end to the riches of Christ.
There’s always more to see, fresh truths to captivate, deeper avenues in Jesus to explore. Certainly, this implies that our preaching should never be boring. Yes, we may repeat ourselves, but even as we repeat something of Christ’s riches, those riches just keep going and going and going. This is what will make heaven so glorious.
We will never come to the bottom of the depths of our Savior’s riches. We’ll never run out of things to adore in Jesus. The Lord will ever thrill us, and our task as ministers is to declare how Christ is thrilling, captivating, and full of glory. We preach a Christ who overwhelms us, dazzles us, blows our minds, and causes our hearts to swell with affection. Indeed, we show God’s people jewel after jewel after jewel found in the Lord Jesus. The fountain never runs dry.
Dear Preacher, Proclaim These Unsearchable Riches
You explain that there is ample provision in Christ for the soul’s deepest needs. Jesus makes the foulest clean. No sinner is too dirty. Anyone can come to Jesus and be washed. You proclaim that there are depths in Christ to fuel the mind’s greatest mysteries: the union of the God-man or the magnitude of the Son of God sinking into the hell of the cross.
You set forth Jesus as the answer to the heart’s ultimate search for significance. All the satisfaction you could ever want is found in the unsearchable, unfathomable, inscrutable, and incomprehensible Christ. This is something of the imagery of Jesus in John 4 when he speaks to the Samaritan woman about living water. It’s water that never runs dry; never ceases to supply what you need.
While you can’t get to the depths of every truth or convey how profound every detail of Jesus and His salvation is, you preach it like a man awed by it. You preach like the gospel is new and living every time. You preach the God-man, the union of a true body and reasonable soul to the divine person, and you adore.
You preach the baby Jesus upholding the world with His powerful word, yet not even able to talk. He’s the one whom the demons confess and fear, who is yet willing to associate with sinners. You preach the naked, bleeding, shame-filled, curse-bearing sufferer on the cross, who swallows up death and satisfies God’s infinite justice for our sin. You preach the Person of Christ and call sinners and saints to stand in awe before Jesus. “See how you must repent and believe in Him!”
Who can grasp that the darling of heaven is thrown to the dogs for our salvation? Who can comprehend the Master of the Universe praying for Peter in his failure? Who can fathom the unstained Lord of glory willing to rub shoulders with sinners? Who can contemplate the holy, undefiled King reaching out to touch the leper, receiving the tears of the sinful woman, or saying to the thief on the cross, “Today, you will be with Me in Paradise”? Preach these riches!
Dear Preacher, Keep Preaching Christ
Preach likewise Jesus’s marvelous works. Preach Jesus’s power to forgive sin and his effectual prayers. Preach his mighty word that banishes sickness, arrests stormy waters, and reaches beyond the grave to give Lazarus life. Preach Jesus’s tender sympathy with sinners. Preach his compassion to tell those like sheep without a shepherd of the way of life. Preach his gentleness to take infants in his arms and bless them.
Preach his work of atonement, his redemption, propitiation, and reconciliation. Preach his obedience unto death, even death on a cross. Preach his substitution of the just for the unjust. Preach his unsearchable offices. He’s our prophet, priest, and king. He’s our Guide, our Advocate, our Protector. Turn the diamond of the Savior’s beauty as our elder brother, our great high priest, our surety, and our trailblazer.
Preach his willingness to be the Physician of the soul, to seek sick sinners, to shine his light and expose our darkness. Preach Jesus’s example, enduring the shame of the cross with a joy set before him, always giving obedience to the Father no matter how hard the test, or how severe the suffering.
Preach Jesus as the Lover of our souls, as our Bridegroom. Preach the riches of His names—the bread of life, the vine, the door for the sheep, the Good Shepherd, the greater Solomon, the prophet like Moses, the Light of the world, the Fountain of living waters, the One who satisfies the thirsty.
Preach the riches he bestows upon us who believe: peace with God, privileged to call out, “Abba, Father,” positioned in grace, purchased for everlasting glory (Rom 5:1-2). Preach the access given in Jesus. We’re able to boldly approach the throne of grace. We’re filled with joy, even in the greatest moments of earthly sorrow. We’re never bereft of Jesus’s presence, and thereby strengthened to run and not grow weary, to walk and not be faint.
Preach the riches of his power to keep us from the prowling devil, power that holds us in his hand that we might never fall. Preach his unceasing prayers that save us to the uttermost. Preach his grace to help in time of need. Preach his powerful reign as the risen and enthroned Lord, his coming in a flame of fire, his soon destruction of the king of terrors, the last enemy, death.
Show the people of God, by unfolding the whole counsel of God, that Christ is the Snake-Crusher, the Rock who gives us stability, the shade in a weary land, the Sun of righteousness who rises with healing in his wings, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
And dear preacher, know this: to preach all these unsearchable riches demands that you swim in the pool of those riches; that is, you never cease going back to Jesus, to learn more of him, to grow in love for him, and thereby, with a heart filled with his beauty, you speak.
Conclusion
J.C, Ryle, in his last address as Bishop of Liverpool in the Church of England, charged the preachers under him to “never neglect their preaching.” He said the places where you preach can vary, small places and large places, but the people “will not be content with dull, tame sermons. They want life, and light, and fire, and love in the pulpit as well as in the parish. Let them have plenty of it. Never forget that a lively, Christ-exalting minister will always have a church-going people.” (1) May we never cease to understand that the essence of our preaching is to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ.
(1) J.C. Ryle, “Farewell to the Diocese,” in Charges and Addresses, (Carlise, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2021), 424.
