The Attributes of God | Week 51: Unsearchable

The best is yet to come. Do you believe that through God’s unsearchable riches, you can overcome?

“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.”
- Ephesians 3:8b–9

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Transcript: Welcome to Five Minutes with Pastor Lutzer. I am filled with joy today. I hope that you are also filled with joy because of the privilege of talking about the unsearchable riches of Christ. We’re doing a series of messages, and we come to the unsearchability of God.

My text is actually taken from the book of Ephesians chapter 3, where Paul writes these words. He says “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 to everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things. And through the church he wants to show his manifold wisdom.”

The phrase I want to zero in on, though, is “the unsearchable riches of Christ.” Open your heart today, because I believe that we’re gonna be blessed together as we contemplate this. First of all, let’s talk about Christ Himself. He is prophet, priest, and king. And as a prophet, He instructs us; as a priest, He redeems us; as a King, He rules over us.

By the way, there are many people who want to have God’s instruction, and of course His redemption, but they don’t want His kingship. But as one writer has said, it is very necessary for us to have a whole heart devoted to the whole Christ—prophet, priest, and king. But what are these unsearchable riches? Well, I can only list them and comment on one of them. First of all, the riches of justification—standing righteous before God because of Jesus; the riches of sanctification, the fact that we are being made holy in experience thanks to the blessed Holy Spirit and the trials that God brings to us; and then, the blessings of glorification.

Now I want you to think about this for just a moment. The Bible says that glorification includes a number of things. First of all, it is a brand new body. I can’t believe this. It’s hard to believe, but we believe it because it’s in God’s word. But actually in the third chapter of Philippians, the apostle Paul says that when we are raised, we will have a body like onto His glorious body. Boy, that’s an unsearchable riches, but it doesn’t end there.

In Romans, the apostle Paul says that we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. What that means, as Calvin pointed out, that everything that belongs to Jesus is going to belong to us. We are joined heirs. He makes no difference between that which He has and that which we have. When the will is opened, there are our names who have believed, along with the name of Jesus. And we share it with Him. And He’s generous enough to let us.

You know, I’ve often thought of the verse of Scripture from the book of Revelation. It says “He who overcomes, to him I will grant to sit with me on my throne, even as I overcame and sat with my Father on his throne.” I’ve read that and I’ve scratched my head and said, is this even possible that God would take us from the mud and bring us to the marble, so to speak; that He would take us, in all of our sin, clean us up, declare us as righteous as Christ is, thanks to His redemption—and then we sit on the throne of God. You say, “Well, how big is the throne?” Well I don’t know how big the throne is, but evidently it’s big enough for all Christians to sit on it and to rule with Christ forever and ever.

You understand now why His riches are unsearchable and why we will be searching those riches forever and ever? Now I need to tell you that I’ve never yet met a Christian who didn’t wanna be an overcomer. They might exist, but all the Christians I’ve met, I think that they have wanted to be overcomers. But I find very few Christians who want something to overcome. So whenever God brings something into their lives that is difficult—something for them to overcome—they of course, become very upset instead of saying, “Oh, what a wonderful privilege it is to overcome this, because I wanna be an overcomer, and get to sit with Christ.”

You know, one day when Rebecca and I were in California, we were right across the street from a cemetery. And somebody said, “Frank Sinatra’s buried in that cemetery.” So we went and Googled his grave—actually, somebody walking by Googled the grave for us—and we walked right to it. And I wanna leave you today with what is on Frank Sinatra’s grave. Not sure that what is there actually applies to him, but I know for sure it applies to believers. On the tombstone of Frank Sinatra are the words of one of his songs: “The best is yet to come.” The awesome, unsearchable riches of Christ.

Be encouraged today. You have a hard day? The best is yet to come. Thanks today for joining us. We hope that you will join us again next time, and today, go with God, and enjoy the riches of Christ.