1. All that the child of God is, is but by the grace of God. No aspect of our person, standing, or experience can be attributed to anything in us, but entirely due to the unmerited, undeserved favor of God in Christ. Every aspect of salvation, our election, redemption, justification, adoption, sanctification, regeneration, and final glory is the gift of God’s grace. It is such grace of God in Christ that gives the child of God a sure and good hope of glory. As an apostle, Paul declares in the previous verses that he was ‘born out of due time,’ and the ‘least of the apostles.’ Such an office, as with one of God’s servants, cannot be attributed to education, learning, industriousness, or through any merits of his own, but by the free favor and sovereign will of God, bestowing on him gifts and grace to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ.

2. The grace of God is effectual grace. “and his grace which was bestowed on me was not in vain.” When God, by grace, raises up men to preach the Gospel, the very gifts of grace, and the experience of salvation by grace, are what qualify them for the very preaching of the Gospel of grace in Christ. You can’t preach or testify to what you have never known or experienced. Every purpose, will, and gift of God in grace has its intended end, and it is never in vain.