A Draft Day Surprise

“Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness” (v1).

You know you’re a hardcore sports fan when you can wait to watch the draft. Yeah, I confess. But I know I’m not alone. Go ahead. Admit it. You do too. It seems like at every draft there’s some sort of crazy surprise in the first round. Some team takes what seems like a ridiculous chance on some dude you’ve never heard of. Mel Kiper scratches his well-coiffed head. Nobody had him on their draft board! 

Turn back the clock to the first century and you could well be talking about the Apostle Paul. Nobody could have predicted that God would make him a top draft pick. Check out the scouting report on this guy. He was formerly known as Saul of Tarsus. Oh, he has skills. No question about it. “Tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee…as to righteous under the law, blameless” (Phil 3:5, 6b). Sounds like lottery pick material, doesn’t he? 

There’s just one problem. Right in the middle of his resume in Philippians, Paul makes an interesting admission. “As to zeal, a persecutor of the church” (Phil 3:6a). The apostle formerly known as Saul shows up running the coat check table at Stephen’s stoning (Acts 7:58). He gave two thumbs up to this bloody execution (Acts 8:1). At that point, he rolled up his sleeves and took his act on the road. “Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and woman and committed them to prison” (Acts 8:3). When it comes to hunting down the followers of Jesus, Saul’s the baddest man on the planet.

That all changed one day when he and his black ops team headed to Damascus to take out more Christians. Before they could bust the door down and raid the local church, the resurrected Jesus ambushed them just outside the city (Acts 9:1-8). Before he knew what was happening, Saul was blind and hearing the voice of Christ. Jesus took His number one enemy and made him His number one draft pick. One moment he’s persecutor Saul. The next he’s Apostle Paul. From murderer to missionary. Nobody had him on their draft board.

Ever feel like a lost cause? Ever feel like God could never use you? Yeah, I think Saul/Paul’s story pretty much slams the door shut on that argument.

Here in the opening lines of his letter to Titus, the former Saul now humbly refers to himself as “a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ” (v1). Wow. Talk about a 180! By claiming the title of servant, Paul puts himself at the bottom of the org chart. Later in this same letter, he writes instructions to slaves save by Jesus. This is the Greek word doulos. “Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything, they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior” (Titus 2:9-10). Paul lets us know that he’s modeling that submission to the Master. He’s letting Titus know that he’s ready and available for whatever God wants, whenever God wants, with whomever God wants. 

Are you available? Are you ready? With God, it’s not about your ability. It’s your availability. 

Paul goes to say that he’s “an apostle of Jesus Christ” (v1). For those of us who spent a little time in Sunday School, we might make the mistake of thinking an apostle is just another word for disciple (and that an epistle is one of the their wives!). Back in the Greco-Roman world, an apostle was someone appointed by the boss and given full rights and privileges. When you’re talking to an apostle, it’s the same as talking to the boss. So when you’re talking to one of the Twelve, it’s like you’re talking to Jesus Himself. That means that when you’re reading what they wrote under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it’s like you’re reading something from Jesus. So when Titus opens this note from his mentor Paul, he reads it like it’s from his Savior as well.

Paul doesn’t play the apostle card willy nilly. He does it humbly. He does it appropriately. Even when he does, he sees himself as “the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God” (1Cor 15:9). What a great lesson for the rest of us. This is an awesome lesson of servant leadership. There’s absolutely no reason for any follower of Jesus to get cocky. We’re all simply beggars who’ve stumbled onto the Bread. 

The man from Tarsus lets us in on a big part of his purpose as a servant/apostle. It’s “for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords to godliness” (v1). Or as the Message tells us, “for promoting the faith among God’s chosen people, getting out the accurate word on God and how to rightly respond to it” (v1 The Message). It’s very important to remember that in Paul’s day, the idea that Jesus is the Messiah and He selects non-Jews to salvation was hot off the presses. A huge part of the apostle’s role was to explain this amazing truth, especially to Gentiles (Acts 9:15; 22:21). 

The apostle wanted God’s hand-picked people to know exactly who Jesus is, what He has done, and who they are because of Him. Paul wrote to his friends in Corinth, “For our sake He (God) made Him (Jesus) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him (Jesus) we might become the righteousness of God” (2Cor 5:21). Jesus lived the perfect life that we fail to live. He died the brutal death for our sin that we should have died. He rose to a spectacular new life that we don’t deserve. In other words, we’re just like Paul. Nobody looked at us as draft picks for God. We weren’t on anybody’s draft board. 

Once we know the truth of who He is and what He’s done for us, we know how to live. This is “godliness” (v1). We don’t try to be godly so that Jesus will save us. We’ll never be good enough for Him to come to our rescue. No, it’s the other way around. He saves us and then we respond by living godly lives. We live lives of godliness as an act of worship. We do what He commands because we’re so thankful for what He’s done for us. Paul’s buddy Pete lets us know that Jesus didn’t save us and leave us swinging in the breeze to try and be godly all on our own. “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and goodness” (2Pet 1:3). Christ isn’t simply our Hero who pulls us out of a tight spot. He then gives us all the resources we need to live godly lives.

Paul is a draft day surprise. So are you. So am I. Once Jesus handpicks us, He gives us His power to perform.