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.
-Ephesians 3:8
Did you hear that language? Hopefully if you listen to this podcast regularly, that language sounds very familiar to you. And it’s just reading through the Bible. Hopefully if you read the Bible, this language sounds familiar, but I think we miss it. And here is Paul again now in Ephesians 8:3 saying this great grace was given. Talking about grace from God and his salvation to preach to the Gentiles, to the nations, the unsearchable riches of Christ.
See the connection the Bible makes over and over and over again with the grace of God in our salvation and the purpose of God in our salvation. God’s grace. Who are we to know God, to be forgiven of our sins, to be in relationship with God, to have eternal life with God? Who are we? That’s all by his grace and his grace was given to us for a purpose.
God’s Grace
We saw the same thing in Galatians 1:15-16. Now we’re seeing it here in Ephesians 3:8. To me, this grace was given to preach. I’ve been given this grace, not to sit on it and just soak it in myself. Like yes, soak it in. Yes, enjoy it to the full, and proclaim it and spread it. Grace from God is always intended to spread through us. That’s the purpose of grace. It’s not just for us. Yes, by God’s grace, we receive it, but we also reflect it. We also reproduce it. We spread it.
That’s the whole picture here. I’ve been given this grace to preach to the nations, the unsearchable riches of Christ. These unsearchable riches that I found in Jesus are not just for me to enjoy. They’re for the nation to enjoy. They’re from more and more people, and more and more people groups to enjoy.
Prayer
That’s why we pray like we do on this podcast. That’s why we should pray like this as Christians, because this is all over the Bible. From the beginning to the end and everywhere in between, God blesses his people for the spread of his bless blessing and his glory and his grace through his people among all the nations. And so we pray, God help us to connect your blessing, your grace, with your purpose in each of our lives.
God, we pray that you help us to enjoy your grace to the full. The unsearchable riches of Christ to the full. We want to know more and more and more. We want to experience deeper and deeper and deeper riches and treasure in Jesus. God, may it be so in each of our lives, and don’t let us stop. We’re just soaking this in for ourselves. God help us to spread the unsearchable riches of Jesus to others right around us.
Ephesians 3:8 Reminds Us to Share the Gospel
God help us to faithfully share the gospel today with somebody that we interact with. God help us to intentionally share the unsearchable riches of Jesus with someone else, that they might receive this grace. And God, don’t let us stop until all the peoples of the world have heard this grace. We pray today for Burundi Arabs. As far as we know, no known believers among them. God, you obviously know, but God, if that’s true, if there’s no known believers among them, God, we pray that that would change. We pray that the grace might spread to them, and we pray that you would help us in our lives, in our families, in our churches to faithfully spread this grace to them. That they might know the unsearchable riches of Christ.
We pray for disciples we made and churches to be planted and multiplied among Burundi Arabs. God, please, may it be so. For your glory and for their eternal good. Help us God. Oh, God. When we think about 3 billion people who have little to no knowledge of the gospel right now, we just confessed. That’s a reality because we’ve let your grace stop with us instead of spreading through us. So God change it, change our hearts, our lives and our families and our churches that your grace might spread, flow through us, to people right around us and to peoples all around the world, including Burundi Arabs in Jesus’ name, we pray according to Ephesians 3:8. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
