Dear Friends in Christ,
Rather than having Epiphany slip by tomorrow unnoticed, we will exercise our Christian freedom to observe “Gentile Christmas” this morning. Epiphany introduces the season of Sundays that connects Christmas to Lent. After all, God’s Son was born in Bethlehem in order to suffer and die just up the road in Jerusalem. Our cross, backed by the Bethlehem star, serves as a constant reminder of this six-mile connection.
Paul’s words are very personal here. They lend themselves to a particularly personal approach for the writer of a sermon on them. Paul writes about God’s gracious call to be a servant of the mystery of Christ “that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.”
This is a gracious call that I, and all pastors, share with Paul. We share his great joy and gratitude for this undeserved and glorious work. I feel about you as Paul felt about the church in Ephesus: It is My Privilege to be Your Pastor. First, to marvel with you at God’s manifold wisdom; and second, to share with you Christ’s unsearchable riches.
This former persecutor of Christians marveled at God’s grace that had changed his life. Now, he was a household manager, an administrator of God’s grace and “a servant of the gospel.” God’s grace not only had called him to saving faith in Jesus Christ but also to be an apostle to the Gentiles. I marvel with you that God calls us lost sinners to saving faith in Christ. I marvel with you that God calls and uses sinful men in the pastoral office of the public ministry.
God’s manifold wisdom is far beyond our understanding. It was hidden until God revealed it. This revelation is that the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel through Christ. It was there even before Christ’s coming. It was hidden in God until he chose to reveal it first to the Israel, and then to the Gentiles. God who is the Creator of all things conceived and revealed this plan of salvation.
Now it would spread abroad, everywhere, in the expansion of the church. Both Jewish shepherds and Gentile Magi came to worship Jesus. This is the manifold wisdom of God that salvation is for one and all. The gospel of Christ also would be known to “rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.” Even the angels would come to see in a fuller way that God’s grace in Christ redeemed all people.
This is the manifold wisdom of God, the mystery the Holy Spirit revealed through apostles like Paul and revealed through pastors today: Who could have thought that God would find a way to save sinners from what we had coming after we slapped him in the face with unbelief and disobedience? Who would ever have thought God would plan the sacrifice of his Son as the substitute for the human race?
It is my privilege to be your pastor to marvel with you at God’s manifold wisdom. God calls pastors and people together as he called Paul and the Ephesians. Pastors preach the gospel of Christ and the Holy Spirit uses the means of grace to created and strengthen our faith. The Spirit uses the gospel to extend his kingdom.
We enjoy unique and special relationships. First, we are brothers and sisters in faith, sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. In addition, together as pastor and people we “preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery.”
Paul rejoiced and thanked God for this privilege to be an apostle. I rejoice and thank God for the privilege of serving as your pastor. The joy and thankfulness comes in the work. God’s riches are “unsearchable,” literally, not able to be tracked, untraceable. The Holy Spirit must reveal them. He makes them plain. He brings them to light. Our work as the church is to be the hand that holds out to the impoverished world the riches of Christ, which the Holy Spirit has revealed to us.
It is my privilege to be your pastor because I get to share with you Christ’s unsearchable riches. What are some of those golden nuggets? God’s eternity, the Son taking on flesh, the Son being my substitute and paying for all my sins, his descent into hell and ascension into heaven, his providential care and my place in the counsels of God, Jesus’ reign in glory and his return in judgment. These are only a few.
I get to share these with you as I declare them to you. I get to share them with you as a fellow believer in those things. There is a theory that pastors should not use big theological words in sermons because they are too hard for people to understand. I think that is like saying hide gold coins from people because they may not comprehend the value of gold. Those concepts need explanation. The Spirit through the Word gives appreciation and trust in those riches of Christ even if they are too wonderful to comprehend fully.
Those unsearchable riches of Christ are the inexhaustible theme of the preaching you have called me to do. What a privilege that you have entrusted this message to me. It is God’s amazing grace at work. What is the result of that sharing? “In him and through him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.”
Freedom has the idea of boldness to speak. We are bold in our approach to God because of what Jesus did for us on the cross and there shed his blood. We also have confidence that he will not reject us but will hear us. This includes our prayers but we do not limit it to that. For Paul this is very personal. We notice he did not use the second person, you, but the first person, we.
You and I, we, have such freedom and confidence in our faith. Through Jesus, we have a blessed relationship with the Father. It is a privilege to be your pastor to marvel with you at God’s manifold wisdom, and to share with you Christ’s unsearchable riches. Amen. <SDG>