We read of William Ward, who was a member of the Metropolitan Tabernacle years ago, in the beginning of the 19th century, and he went out to India to help William Carey. William Ward was one of the Serampore trio. He was a printer and he used this very verse and wonderfully so. He says, ‘Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, [he changed one word] that I should print among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.’ And he did and he was mightily used of God but he did more than print, he became like the other two a mighty preacher also. That is how we should behave.
Look back at your conversion; look back at yourself. Remember your hardness of heart and your great pride. Remember how untouchable you might have been – or many of us were – how shallow you were as a person, how trivial and earthly and materialistic, how much against God. Remember these things and be melted down. Don’t repent of them all over again. You have repented and God has saved you but when you think of them, yes, be melted and praise him and thank him and then let it stir your indebtedness. How much you owe him. That is what the apostle does. You can see his practice coming out here – ‘Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints.’ The great treasures of Christ – oh, the mercy of Christ to me! So much forgiveness for you and for me. There was so much to forgive. The term ‘unsearchable’ means, it cannot be traced, it cannot be tracked, not by human sense. You cannot calculate the treasures of Christ’s mercy – so much forgiveness, so much love, so much patience towards us, so much light given to us, so many gifts and wonderful blessings and happiness and assurance, so many years rolling on into infinity, into the endless ages we shall have in eternal glory. It is beyond all calculation of treasures, the riches of Christ.
If you have never come to Christ, what have you got? Do you have a big house? Is it well furnished? Do you have cars? Are you wealthy? Do you have a great career, a beautiful garden (not many of us have these things)? But do you have those things? They are nothing compared with the unsearchable riches of Christ, to know him.
So what are you doing for him? What are your priorities? You must come to him and, once you have come to him, you must live for him. Oh, there is too much comfort in our Christian homes; too much leisure; too much seeking out for ourselves. Let’s live for him. You can see the apostle’s great heart speaking in all these verses.