Kennystix's podcast
The Deep Riches and Wisdom and Knowledge of God
The following resource is from desiringGod.org. The text for today's message is found in Romans 11, starting with verse 33, going through verse 36. That's found on page 947 of your pewbibles. Again, that's Romans 11, 33 through 36. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways, for who is 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. Let's pray together. No plain Father, what Your aim is for us in this passage of Scripture. You want us to rise on wings of awe and wonder and praise and join Paul in this doxology. You want an "O" to come out of our hearts, and out of our mouths, "O", the depths, riches, wisdom, knowledge, unsearchable ways, inscrutable judgments, infinite resourcefulness of things and counsel, the beginning, the middle, and the end of all that is, and the end of the matter to you be the glory. This is our design. This is your design. And so I simply ask that you make it happen. I'm sure there are people here who don't stand in awe of Jesus, don't live for the glory of God, don't feel amazement about how much He knows and how wise He is and how rich. And so Lord I pray for them that they would have now eyes to see and ears to hear, hearts to feel, minds to understand, spiritual things. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. One of the great high points I think it probably was academically the high point of my brief six-year teaching career at Bethel College from 1974 to 1980 when I taught in the Biblical Studies Department and carried a band of students for four semesters through Greek, making Romans 9 to 11 the final semester as we did rigorous exegesis of these three chapters. The high point came like this, it was May, 1977, Tom Steller was in the class as one of my students, and you can ask him if this was so. It was the last day of class, a few days before graduation, when Tom would graduate and there were about a dozen in the class. And I had set myself to summarize the chapters and to do it with arcing. Only a few of you know what arcing is but that's okay, I just drew a big line, we used black boards in those days all the way across the board from one side of the room to the other and drew about six or eight big arcs, each representing units of the three chapters. The aim in this way of interpreting the Bible is to draw one big arc over the hole with a symbol in it that represents what the main point is. And you just heard the main point of Romans 9 to 11 in these three chapters. And I drew the final big arc and I underlined like this verse 36 of chapter 11 from him and through him and to him are all things to him be glory forever and ever. And as I lay down the chalk they broke into the doxology. Never happened, never happened before, never happened since in any class I've ever taught. Unbidden, unasked for, undesigned, I don't know who started it, it just burst. At the end of about what, 14 weeks of belabored exegesis in Romans 9 to 11 and the tears came to my eyes when I was just thinking this through yesterday I got all misty eyed again about it. It was just an absolute, it was one of the reasons I quit teaching because I wanted it to happen more often. I like to preach and teach in the context of singing and worship and a lot of people who are being moved not just thinking, thinking yes. So that was a high point. I've already ruined the spontaneity of ending this service that way so don't plan it. I've got another plan for how to end this service. But it was high, it was sweet. That's what the chapters are all about. So what I want to do tonight and this morning is to focus on verse 33, "O the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God," and that's all I'm going to talk about now in this message. Everything else is result. Everything else is happening because of that and so when we come back next week, Lord willing, we will unpack the rest of the paragraph as spill over from the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God. Everything else, the inscrutability of his ways is a result, the fact that nobody can counsel him as a result, the fact that you can't give anything expect to be repaid as a result and the fact that all the glory belongs to him as a result. Everything else is a result and so that was a summary of next week's message. So we need to get down into the depths here for a little while before we do that. So let's start. We'll take it one word at a time. I'm going to focus on, "O depth, riches, wisdom, knowledge," and God is over and under it all. "O the depth," what do you hear in the word "O," "O the depth"? I think to ruin it in prosaic fashion, it would mean this is very deep. This is very deep. The depth here is very deep. It's so deep that it elicits a very simple, "Oh, how deep it is," indescribably deep. There are not words. There is only, "Oh," for how deep these riches, this knowledge, and this wisdom are. And so let's talk about depths. When I hear the word depths, I hear three things. I hear hiddenness, I hear reality, and I hear foundation. Let me take those one at a time. Daniel 2, 21, "hiddenness," God gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what is in darkness. Notice the pairing of deep and hidden in relation to wisdom and knowledge. Connoted in the depths for the apostle Paul, I believe are, "I can't see it down there. I can't go down there. We can't get down there. There's a depth to riches, a depth to wisdom, and a depth to knowledge where we can't go. It's hidden. It's out of sight. It's unreachable. It's indescribable. There will always be depths of God like that, I believe. I believe, even when it says in 1 Corinthians 13, "Then we will know even as we are known," I think that means accurately, not exhaustively, at least not exhaustively all at one time because our brains are finite, and they would explode. If you tried to put all of God's knowledge into my brain, even my sanctified brain, it would blow up. We will know accurately in heaven and in the kingdom to come, but I think we will be incrementally knowing God forever. That's what it means for him to be infinite and me to be finite. I learned something new about God every new day forever and ever and ever and ever as long as eternity lasts. That's what infinite means. But now is hidden. Much of God is hidden in his ways and his judgments and his knowledge and his wisdom. Second, besides hiddenness, I hear in the word depth's reality. And what I mean is this. When Paul says, "Oh, how deep is this wisdom," he means, "there's something down there. I'm not imagining it." Reality is down there. Now, that may strike you as painfully obvious. But you know why I mention it? Because of sitting in the car Friday night listening to NPR and one of their easily-wowed interviewers was interviewing a sophisticated lady talking about religion. And she said, "Theology is poetry." And the interviewer said, "That's a beautiful thought. Would you say more about that?" And she was eager to say more about that and said more and ended her more with "After all, religion is a human art form. I wanted to throw up." Now, I know that the desire to throw up is not entirely holy. And my reporting is not entirely holy. But it's good for pastors to be honest. I felt like throwing up. And after that moral nausea passed, I did bow my head. Noelle was in the house picking up Talatha. And I did bow my head and pray for those two women that they would stop behaving like three-year-olds denying the existence of Mommy and Daddy while they said at table, eating what Daddy bought and Mommy prepared. Biblical theology may not be perfect in our mouths, but it's not a mere poetic product of human imagination. And Christianity, the depth, the wisdom, the knowledge of God, partially yet truly revealed is not a human art form. That was not a beautiful thought. It was an ugly thought. Waxing eloquent with sophisticated language on public radio, wowing an unrooted interviewer, that was a deep thought. It wasn't deep. It was unbelievably superficial and evil. There's something down there much has been revealed. Chapters 9 to 11 have not been written in vain. They are not unintelligible. They do reveal something and yet when Paul is done, he says, "Oh, there's a depth where the reality is sunk out of sight and it is hidden and it is reality." Those are the first two things I hear in the word depth. The third thing I hear in the word depth is foundation. He could have said, "Oh, the heights of the riches and the wisdom of the knowledge of God." Oh, the heights! He could have said that and that would have been true. But he said, "Oh, the depths, the depth." The difference is this. Depth signifies foundation and height signifies pinnacle. Depth signifies roots and height signifies glorious, high-stretching, fruit-bearing branches. Depth signifies beginnings and height would signify goals and purposes and reaches. And both are absolutely true from him and to him are all things. They're both there in verse 36. But here at the beginning of his paragraph, he chooses, "There's a depth there. There's a foundation here. There's an origin here." And the point seems to be, you go down as deep as you can go. You push through layer of cause after layer of cause after layer of reason after layer of reason. And when you get to the bottom, there is God. And there is nothing beneath him. Nothing. You can penetrate back or forward, down or up. You can go diagonally in any direction infinitely and you will find at the beginning and at the end, God. So depth seems to signify hiddenness, reality, foundation, oh, the depth, unspeakable hiddenness, objective reality, ultimate, bottomless, divine foundation of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God. So let's take those three massive words now with this kind of depth. First, riches. The riches of God are very deep. God is very rich. In several senses, God owns everything. Psalm 24.1, "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein." God owns you. You are His property. And He may do with you according to His rights as owner. And if you rebel against that, you are a colossal fool, shall a fish rebel against water or a bird against air or a worm against the earth. What folly to say, "I will be my own," which is what the devil has been wanting us to do ever since the beginning. Deuteronomy 10, 14 is more sweeping. Behold, to the Lord your God, belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is on it. So not only does He own everything on the earth in the earth, but He owns all the far reaches of space, all the galaxies, and the heaven of the heavens beyond those where all the angels are with God. He owns all the angels, everything that is not God, God owns. It's His. Human wealth by comparison is ridiculously tiny. Bill Gates is a popper. And I hope he finds out soon. The poorest heir of God is a trillion times richer than Bill Gates. Why would you envy? Why would you covet except for one reason, one belief in your father's riches? Oh, we should linger over that one, but we must move on. Here's a second way he's rich. He's rich not only because he owns everything, but because he made everything out of nothing and can do it today. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. In other words, God is rich because He is able to make all that He wants to make out of a resource that is never-endingly available, namely nothingness. All of us are limited in our creativity by the raw materials with which we have to work. God's raw materials are nothing. And there's a lot of it, as much of it as He needs to do anything He wants and make anything He wants. So you don't just think of God's riches in terms of owning what is, which is a lot. In the heavens and all the galaxies and all the space in between and all the angel hosts and everything on the earth and all of what we call wealth. He owns it. It's His. He will dispose it as He sees fit, but He has at His resources ability to say, "Be to that which is not and it is." You can't be any richer than that. Yes, you can. There's a third thing. There is a third thing that constitutes the essence of God's riches and it isn't what He owns and it isn't His capacity to make anything out of nothing. God is infinitely rich because He is His own infinitely valuable treasure. If He made nothing, He would be infinitely rich. If nothing but God existed, He would be infinitely rich and He exists in a triune nature as the Godhead, Father, Son, and Spirit that He might enjoy what He is communally so that He did not need to create us in order to enjoy what He is. He was free to include us in that enjoyment and He did if we would have it. When the Bible, when the Apostle Paul in particular uses phrases like this, the riches of God's grace, Ephesians 1-7, the riches of His kindness, Romans 2-4, the riches of His glory, Romans 9-23, the essence of what He means is this, God Himself, gracious, God Himself, kind, God Himself, glorious, offered to us for our everlasting enjoyment and satisfaction. God Himself is our treasure because He is His own infinite wealth. You know the most personal way to say this? Ephesians 3-8, the unsearchable riches of Christ. And I think that little phrase, the unsearchable riches of Christ means not only what Christ gives but what Christ is. He is the unsearchable wealth of the universe. God as Paul say it in Colossians 1-27, the riches of the glory of this mystery, namely Christ in you, the hope of glory. The riches of the glory of the mystery, what Christ Himself in me, hope of His glory, my enjoyment of it forever and ever, exposing me to new vistas of all satisfying beauty every day of eternity to come. Christ is Himself the present guarantee the future gift of the glory of God. When Christ died, He both bought for us and became for us the greatest treasure of the universe. No sinner in this room and that's all we are, deserves or could ever inherit the wealth God designs for His children to have. We cannot have it. We don't deserve it. We're sinners. Therefore Christ comes into the world. He stretches Himself out on a cross and bears all of our sin so that He might buy and become our treasure. And conversion is a double thing. It is having all of our sins taken away and it is having a new nature given to us so that that doesn't sound boring anymore, but absolutely spectacularly satisfying forever and ever to have Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, becoming our friend, our food, our drink, our horizon every day. Let me just read in a song this morning. He makes the morning to sing and the evening to sing every day. And I devoted some time to thinking about what does that mean? God makes the morning sing and the evening sing. What he means is sunrises and sunsets. There's a visual song there. It's all about this is the way I am, folks. As the sun goes down, I make it really pretty. And as the sun comes up, I make it really pretty because that's the way I am. These things are singing to you about what it's like to know me, the heavens, especially morning and evening are telling the glory of Christ. So Christ is the personal way to talk about the riches of God. Let's go to wisdom. His riches are very deep and great. What about his wisdom and his knowledge? What's the difference, first of all? Wisdom, knowledge. There's kind of a common way to understand the difference. It doesn't hold always in the Bible, but I'm going to use it anyway. Usually we think knowledge that's facts. We know facts and wisdom is the insight for how to use the facts to accomplish good ends, good purposes. And people can be very knowledgeable and foolish and they can be very wise, but not have much knowledge to work with. Now that won't always hold. You read the book of Proverbs and sometimes knowledge and wisdom that you overlap and interpenetrate. But I think in general that's okay to talk like that. So let's let that help us. That knowledge is knowledge of facts and wisdom is the insight how to use them to get where you want to go, accomplish the high purposes. So first let's deal with knowledge. The knowledge of God, this says, is very, very deep, hidden deep and reality deep and foundational deep. It's very, very great. What is it? God knows all recorded facts. All facts stored in all the computers of the world, God knows. He could tell you any one of them if you ask him. He knows every fact in every book in every library in the world. And what's on microfiche? But vastly more than all recorded facts, God knows all events at the macro level on earth in the atmosphere, the far reaches of space, every galaxy, star, planet. God knows all events at the micro level. All that happens in molecules, atoms, electrons, protons, neutrons, quarks. He knows all their movements, every location of every particle and its condition at every nanosecond of time. He knows all events that happen in the human mind and in the human will and in angelic minds and demonic minds at every moment, all volitional events and all emotional events and all spiritual events, all thoughts, all choices, all feelings at all times he is perfectly aware of. And that includes all of those that are past, all of those that are happening at this moment and all of those that will happen into eternity. He knows now infallibly. He knows every event that has ever happened or ever will happen. He knows every level of existence, physical, mental, volitional. He knows all facts and events and he knows all of their relationships and how they affect one another. When one event happens, whether at the subatomic level or at the galactic level, he sees it perfectly and in the instance that it happens, he sees the billion, billion, billion, trillion, trillion effects of it in every part of the universe and each time of an effect happens, another billion is unleashed and each one of those unleashes another billion of effects and each one of those unleashes another billion effects and he knows them all before they happen and he is not the least taxed in this knowledge. He doesn't get a headache. He is at ease. It is very easy for him to know this. That's what it means to be God and not man. What about wisdom? If he knows that much and it is very deep, what about wisdom? Paul says God's wisdom is very deep. Oh, the depth of the wisdom of God. God is infinitely wise. That means he is able to conceive and implement, carry out his purposes and his plans and make use of all this knowledge to bring about what he intends to bring about. He knows how to use facts and how to guide events to achieve the best end namely. We'll see this next week, especially the end of it all. The display of the fullness of his glory magnified in the white, hot worship of a blood bought people. If you ask, what's the point of it all? Where does his massive bottomless wisdom tend? Where does it lead? Where is it taking the universe? The answer is it is taking the universe to the perfect display of the full range of the glorious perfections of God magnified and echoed back to him in the white, hot worship of a blood bought believing people forever and ever and ever. That is what the universe is about and it's all in Christ. All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made so Christ is the beginning and the creator of it all. He's the sustainer of it all, Colossians 117. He is before all things and in him all things hold together. The galaxies hold together, the atom holds together because Christ says hold together, Adam. I say so. And if Christ were to withdraw his word, the universe would cease to be. And Colossians 116, it is all for Christ from him, through him and to him. It says all things were created for him, for the display of his glory, for the magnification of his name or as we were singing for the honors of his name, which implies that Jesus Christ is the meaning of all things. If everything is made by Christ, if Christ holds in being all that is including the laws that make nature work and make brains function and all of it is tending toward the magnifying of his mercy and power and wisdom and wrath and grace and truth and justice. If that's what everything is about, every single thought in human brains, the University of Minnesota, in the Minneapolis-Star Tribune office, at the Capitol or in your homes, every single human thought that does not relate to Jesus as its origin, sustainer and goal is a thought in rebellion against the Lord of the universe, which means there's a lot of rebellion in this city. Christ is marginalized even in many churches, not to mention media, entertainment, business, education. Think of the mass rebellion in public education, where Christ is never brought into relationship to all the thoughts that come from him or held by him, lead to him, and it is all denied. I tell you, it is one great massive miracle of grace that we breathe another breath every day and don't get swept away in the judgment. Well, the riches are in Christ. I count everything as loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Savior, Paul said. He's infinitely valuable, and therefore Paul says everything is rubbish compared to knowing Jesus, and he's wisdom. He's not just riches, he's wisdom. Remember what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1-24? We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, foolishness to the Gentiles, but to those who are being called the wisdom of God and the power of God. Christ crucified. What was happening in Mel Gibson's movie is Christ hung on the screen for those who have eyes to see and are being called by God with their hearts being opened to the glory is wisdom, wisdom, wisdom. It's all God's marvelous way of saving millions and millions of people from the very sin that should bring down his wrath upon them if only justice ruled his heart, and it isn't only justice that rules his heart. Christ is all about grace, and he's all about patience, and he's all about mercy and love, and the wise way God chose to save you is not foolishness and a stumbling block, and he is knowledge. Everything sustained by him, everything known by him, everything created by him, it is he that everything is for. O the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God. May the revelation of the Son, Jesus Christ, draw you to worship him, to stand in awe of him, to yield your life to him, to receive him, and to spend the rest of your eternity enjoying, getting to know the one being who is sufficient to satisfy your soul forever. As you grow and grow and grow, both in the capacities for pleasure and in the sight of the resources to satisfy them in Jesus. Let's pray. Lord, as I look out across the room, it just seems to me that people are on the brink saying, I don't think I can ever have affections adequate to that Christ. I'm just not wired to stand in awe of anything. I just like pizza. I just like television. Father, I asked that nobody would give up, that everybody would look beyond what they are in themselves and realize that conversion is a miracle of being changed, to have new affections and new capacities of joy. So I pray that as we close, you would awaken those capacities and that you would draw people out of the numbness of worldliness into the living experience of the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of Christ who is the image and the radiance and the very image of God. In his name we pray, amen. Thank you for listening to this resource from desiringgod.org. If you found it helpful, we encourage you to enjoy and share from thousands of resources on our site, including books, sermons, articles, and more available free of charge. Desiringgod.org exists to help you treasure Jesus more than anything else because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.
Nothing and no one compares to the greatness and grandeur of our God.