Ephesians 3:7
Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power.
Paul did not step into ministry because he qualified for it. He was not voted in by heaven because of discipline, education, or personal fire. He was carried in by grace. The same power that raised Christ from the dead raised Paul into service.
Ministry, in its truest sense, is not a platform we climb. It is a current that carries us. When the tide comes in, even a broken piece of driftwood moves with strength it does not possess on its own. Grace is that tide.
Ephesians 3:8
Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given…
The closer Paul walked with the Lord, the smaller he felt. Not because he lacked assurance, but because light exposes dust. When Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up in Isaiah 6:5, he did not congratulate himself on surviving the vision. He cried out over his own uncleanness.
Spiritual maturity does not inflate a man. It humbles him. Paul called himself the least of the apostles in 1 Corinthians 15:9. Later he said he was less than the least of all saints. Eventually he called himself chief of sinners in 1 Timothy 1:15. The deeper the revelation, the deeper the humility.
Grace does not reward the deserving. It empowers the aware.
Ephesians 3:8
…that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.
Paul’s message was not self improvement. It was not moral adjustment. It was Christ. Not principles about Him, but the riches found in Him.
You cannot drain the ocean one bucket at a time. You never reach the bottom. That is Christ. You can draw again and again, and there is always more. Forgiveness that never runs dry. Wisdom that never grows stale. Strength that never weakens.
He preached riches that cannot be exhausted because they are rooted in a Person who cannot be diminished.
Ephesians 3:9
And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.
Paul did not merely want people to hear truth. He wanted them to see it. Not just in parchment and ink, but in flesh and blood.
The mystery was Christ in them, and Christ displayed through him. His scars, his endurance, his joy in prison, his tears in prayer, all made the unseen visible. Second Corinthians 4:7 speaks of treasure in earthen vessels. The clay is weak, but the treasure shines through the cracks.
Grace made him a minister. Grace kept him humble. Grace filled his message. Grace made his life a window instead of a wall.
And the same grace is working still.