1 Corinthians 15:10: “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace to me has not been in vain. In fact, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”

How many times do you see the word “grace” here? Three times in one verse, and that word “grace” is doing different things.

He says, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” He is saying that everything you see in me that has to do with my functioning in ministry has to be traced to the grace of God.

He is talking about the output, the flavor, his ministry, what he has achieved, the message he has preached, and the power of God at work in his life. He is putting everything down to the grace of God—not to a method, not to “I went to this school, that’s why this is happening in my life… I went to this conference… I listened to that minister.” No. He says, in effect, “Everything you see is attributable to the grace of God.”

Then: “His grace to me has not been in vain.” Here, he brings up the concept of grace as input and asks, “What are you outputting?” There has to be a result in our life of the grace of God we have received.

The way Jesus said it is: “I am the vine; you are the branches” and “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:1, 5). There is a connection between Him and us—but that is not the end. We want to see fruit. That is why Jesus said, “Every branch in Me that bears fruit He prunes so that it will bear more fruit, and every branch that does not bear fruit He takes away” (John 15:2). You see the picture: there is grace, and then there is what should be output based on that grace.

There is grace poured on you. The question is: is what I am expressing matching the grace that has been poured on me?

“He says, “I worked harder than all of them.” He is saying: the grace poured out to me is being matched by my output. We do not want to have so much grace poured on us, and what we are outputting is far less than that grace.

“Yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” So he is also saying that grace enables him to work hard. Even though he is working hard, it is not, “I am now better than you because I am working hard.” That hard work he is putting into the ministry is also a divine enablement. “I have been enabled to do it.”

He is drawing a contrast between who he was as a persecutor of the church and who he is now, and he is saying: the difference‑maker is the grace of God. It is all to the grace of God.

Now, the challenge is that phrase “worked harder.” How hard are you working? That is the challenge here. You may not have the same measure of grace Paul has, but there is something he is naming: “I worked harder than all of them.” That is something we may need to work on—hard work when it comes to the ministry.

God bless you. See you later.