1. You Gentiles are the very reason God called me to the ministry Romans 11:13 "For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:" Acts 9:15 "But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel:" To the Gentiles is especially and not exclusively.

2. "according to the dispensation of God" Albert Barns defines it this way "The arrangement which God has made. That is, he designed that the gospel should be preached to the Gentiles, and, in accordance with that arrangement, he has called me to be a minister."

3. We do not choose to be saved, preach, pastor, missionary, or etc. God does the choosing and when He chooses He has a purpose and this was Paul’s purpose 1. To preach to the Gentiles and 2. To suffer in the flesh for Christ and these Gentiles.

4. Let’s not forget Paul was a Jew which made it difficult for him to do what God had chosen for him.

1. Paul also said in 1 Corinthians 4:2 "Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful." A steward is one who has been put in charge or an overseer. And while this faithfulness is in all things, it includes in God’s word.

2. Paul just said God has called me to be an Apostle to this church, the Gentiles, and to suffer for you in this body like as a continuation of His bodily suffering, but He also called me to be faithful in fulfilling His word.

3. It is not a choice of convenience; Paul must preach the word of God fully and not compromise it in any area. This is also the charge to every minister of the gospel. 2 Timothy 4:1-8 "I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; [2.] Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. [3.] For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; [4.] And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. [5.] But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. [6.] For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. [7.] I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: [8.] Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing."

4. Just as Paul said we are as ministers are commissioned by God’s word and must be faithful in serving this office.

5. Paul could also be saying "I am commissioned by God’s word and I must be faithful to the discharge of my office." It is God’s word that we will be judged by in eternity. Not for our sins but on how we obeyed His word. Our holiness in this life is obeying and living God’s word. It is by obeying it that our rewards will be issued.

1. I have no doubt this "mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations" is the salvation and the insertion of the Gentiles into the church.

2. This is the reason for so many verses such as John 3:16 "For God so loved the world…" World means Jews and others in the world. The Jews was not God’s only focal point anymore this was His mystery.

3. Romans 10:12-13 "For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. [13.] For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." This is not whosoever prays, The whosoever is Jew or Gentile. Paul says "For there is no difference" not reason these teachers of Gnosticism hated him so much.

4. Paul explained this in more detail in Ephesians 3:3-9 "How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, [4.] Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) [5.] Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; [6.] That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel: [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. [8.] Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; [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:"

5. We see in Isaiah 49:6 this spoken of; "And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth." However the Jews thought this included converted to Judaism Gentiles, and not just plain Gentiles.

6. Galatians 3:28 "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." In the church we are all the same, we may have different roles (that is Pastor being the overseer, women not speaking, and ETC.) however no one is better than the other and no color, race, or nationality is excluded. Beloved we are a church not a club!!!!

7. V. 26b "but now is made manifest to his saints:"