Relationship to God & Responsibility from God

When Paul opens his letter to Titus, he lays a foundation that answers these questions about himself, and about Titus, and about every other follower of Jesus: “Who am I, and why do I do what I do?”

What we see in the opening verses is that Paul’s relationship to Titus (and to the churches), and his responsibility to him (& to them), is grounded in his relationship and responsibility to God.

Titus 1:1–4 ESV

1 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, 2 in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began 3 and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior; 4 To Titus, my true child in a common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

In the context of a letter to Titus for establishing healthy local churches in Crete, Paul’s opening establishes the foundation that our relationships and responsibilities in life spring from our relationship and responsibility to God.

Our relationship and responsibility to God gives us clarity and priority in our relationships and responsibility to others.

Paul’s mentoring relationship to Titus, and his relationship to the churches, springs from his (& their) relationship and responsibility to God.

First, Paul grounds his relationship and responsibility to others in terms of his relationship and responsibility to God. He is a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ.

Second, (about that responsibility) Paul has complete clarity concerning the purpose of his ministry and the basis for his ministry. - The purpose is the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, and the basis is the hope of eternal life, which God has now fulfilled in the present through Jesus and commanded Paul to proclaim.

(Third) Paul’s relationship & responsibility to God has resulted in his relationship and responsibility to Titus and these churches, and through Titus to these churches. Therefore, Paul’s authority from God for this ministry is delegated through Titus. (And what is to be understood as the letter moves forward from here is that) Titus’ relationship and responsibility to God, and his association with Paul, determines his relationship and responsibility to these leaders and churches.

Paul grounds his relationship and responsibility to others in terms of his relationship and responsibility to God.

Paul identifies himself as a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ.

Paul speaks of being God’s slave to emphasize that God’s grace to bring him into a saving relationship with him also has a corresponding responsibility—to do the Master’s will, for the Master’s glory and good. - What is true of Paul is true of Titus: to do the Master’s will for His glory. And what the elders in Crete are responsible for is therefore also called a stewardship: the work doesn’t belong to them, but they have a responsibility.

Paul emphasizes his apostleship to drive home the authority that he has to instruct Titus, and the authority Titus therefore has to appoint leaders and instruct the churches (v. 5).

-All God’s children have a kind of derived authority from Jesus, who has commanded his disciples, that according to his own divine authority, they are to make disciples (Matt 28:18-20). We, like Titus, stand in the line of the Apostles and carry on the ministry in delegated authority from Christ.

We’ve seen that as Paul identifies himself in the greeting, he chooses to emphasize that he is a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, and then in the remainder of this elaborate sentence (all of vv. 1-3), what proceeds is a lengthy interpretation of his apostolic office. Everything that follows serves as a validation of his apostolic ministry.

Is your identity and purpose grounded in your relationship to God and responsibility from God?

-Do you funnel and filter the priorities of your life (relationships and responsibilities) in terms of your relationship and responsibility to God? There is a sense in which we should be tunnel-visioned, singleminded about our lives.

So as he describes his apostolic office in this opening of his letter to Titus,

Paul has complete clarity concerning the purpose of his ministry and the basis for his ministry.

The purpose is the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godly living, and the basis for his ministry is the hope of eternal life, which God has now fulfilled in the present (through Jesus Christ) and commanded Paul to proclaim.

If you wonder how I have taken this pregnant and complicated sentence (vv. 1-3) and broken into these two parts, I’ll simply tell you that it’s at this kind of level where it becomes important to understand how language and communication works. The rest of vv.1-3 are so packed that it almost makes us go, say what? And we’ll either work really hard to figure out what Paul means, or we’ll just shrug and move on. We don’t have the luxury to skim over it. The reality is that God has given us language as our means of communication, so especially when the clarity of communication is at stake, we must do the hard work of understanding the grammar and syntax and the meanings of words we are reading.

In this case, syntax (how sentences are structured) and especially the prepositional phrases unlock the flow of this long sentence. After Paul mentions his apostleship, he then uses two prepositional phrases which break down the structure of the sentence and help us formulate what he’s getting at. [On the back of your handout I’ve provided you with a way to understand the syntax of vv. 1-3 based on these two key prepositional phrases (Thank you, Philip Towner.), so you language people can geek out on that more.]

But the first preposition leads into what Paul is an apostle for (purpose) and the second on or upon what basis his apostleship and apostolic authority rests.

The purpose of his ministry:

In particular, Paul’s apostolic ministry is for the faith of God’s elect and for a depth of gospel knowledge leading to growth in godliness. I believe the first emphasis on faith in that of a saving trust in Jesus, and the emphasis on knowing truth is a deepening understanding of God and his gospel, which leads to godliness.

This saving faith is with respect to God’s elect (chosen ones). Although elsewhere Paul can speak of election as God’s activity of choosing (Eph 1:3-6, cf. Titus 3:3-7), here Paul is speaking of a category of people, connecting those of faith in Jesus Christ with God’s true people of ages past. (***)

So the first goal of Paul’s ministry is saving faith, and the second is deeper knowledge, a growing knowledge, of “the truth,” which is almost certainly a reference to gospel truth, the entire gospel proclamation with the death and resurrection of Jesus at its center.

And here specifically Paul says knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness (to be all about God with our whole lives so that it shows in our daily living). True gospel knowledge should lead to godliness. In this letter, Paul deliberately contrasts this goal of gospel knowledge leading to godliness with those who “profess to know God, but they deny him by their works” (Titus 1:16), showing their true colors.

Notice again that our growth in godliness is grounded in the gospel. The good news about a right relationship to God through Jesus is not merely the entrance, it is the entire scope of the Christian life. Have you not noticed that as you grow the gospel becomes only more real, more vibrant… more true and more satisfying? Or if not, such may be part of the reason for a lack for growth.

The basis for his ministry:

The second prepositional phrase (beg. at v. 2) leans into the reason for Paul’s apostleship, the basis for his apostolic ministry—the hope of eternal life, which God promised and has now fulfilled in the present (through Jesus Christ) and commanded Paul to proclaim.

Why is the hope of eternal life the basis? (Because) God has now fulfilled His promise (from before time) in the present through Jesus Christ, which we receive as our own through faith in Him. (Paul explains in Titus 3:7 “being justified by his grace we [have] become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”) His restoration to God and apostleship is established on the hope of eternal life, that God has fulfilled his promise to save through Jesus.

Just as the mention of godliness (in v. 1) strikes at the contradictory nature & behavior of the false teachers, so also the mention that God does not lie contradicts any dishonesty and the waywardness of a culture that celebrates dishonesty. Unlike the so called god Zeus that the Cretans celebrate and look up to, who would lie his way into lying with women, the true God never lies. He is always true to his word and fulfills every promise. And this most central promise to mankind he has fulfilled in Jesus.

And the fact that God never lies is why we can trust His every word and every promise.

Next Paul speaks of the eternal quality of God’s promise, probably to emphasize God’s own eternality, that promises and covenants made to us within time have their basis in the eternal decrees of God, who is beyond time. And this same eternal God has at the proper time (of his own choosing and perfect knowledge and plan) manifested/revealed his word (that is, the gospel, cf. 1 Tim 1:11).

And the reason Paul emphasizes the word (the gospel of Jesus Christ) is to also delineate the content of his preaching with which he has been entrusted and commanded. - Paul’s priority is on the gospel, and that Jesus is the substance of our faith, and that growth in gospel truth will lead to growth in godliness. (as v. 1)

The basis of Paul’s ministry is the hope of eternal life, which God himself promised before time but at the proper time has now manifested, specifically to these listeners by the preaching assignment God entrusted to Paul by his own command.

Before we move on, notice that Paul’s certainty of his own identity and mission is based on a knowledge of who God is. It is God who is the Savior (equating Jesus with God, who is the Savior in v. 4). It is God who entrusts and commands, God who fulfills at the proper time his eternal promise, God who never lies, God who is the source of eternal life, God who is the locus of truth and godliness, God who elects, and the gracious God who has made Paul his apostle, his redeemed slave, his rescued child.

Does this give you clarity and priority of whose we are and what we should be about?

Because we have been saved, we continue for the faith and growth of God’s elect in knowledge of gospel truth… based on God’s own promise which he fulfilled in Jesus… which we proclaim in obedience to the command of God our Savior.

As Paul has been entrusted with this task by the explicit command of God, so Titus (and we) have been entrusted with it as well.

Paul’s relationship & responsibility to God has resulted in his relationship & responsibility to Titus and these churches, and through Titus to these churches.

Therefore, Paul’s authority from God for this ministry is delegated through Titus. (What is to be understood as the letter moves forward from here is that) Titus’ relationship and responsibility to God, and his association with Paul, also determines his relationship and responsibility to these leaders and churches.

As we mentioned last week, Paul calls Titus his true child in a common faith. Paul probably led Titus to Christ and has continued to mentor him in his character and ministry. But all of this is because they share faith in God through following Jesus. And it is a common faith, which doesn’t separate the faith of the Jew (Paul) from the faith of the Gentile (Titus), so long is that faith is in Christ alone. Nor is Titus’s relationship to God and responsibility to God any less real and necessary than Paul’s. He is Paul’s true son in a common faith.

And because they have a common faith in Christ, Paul Christianizes his greeting to Titus, which is a regular feature of his letter openings. “Grace & peace…”

Grace is God’s favor displayed toward us that is unmerited by us. It is the other side of mercy, which is God’s kindness to not treat us as we deserve—severe discipline for our sin. God’s grace is his favor to save us himself through no merit of our own but through the merit of Jesus Christ.

Peace is to longer be at enmity with God, to now be in right relationship to God through Jesus. Again, what does this grace and peace mean for us? When we were… Titus 3:3, God… Titus 3:4-7.

And what should peace with God as a result of his grace do to us in the way we live? Titus 2:11-14.

Are we basing our relationships and responsibilities on our primary relationship and responsibility to God?

-Ex. Marriage vows as Christians are based on what? Our responsibility to our children is grounded in what? Our responsibility for what kind of employee we are and what kind of work we do? And what kind of testimony and good works we live in front of a watching world?

-If Paul came into our church and into our home lives and public lives, or sent Titus for that purpose, what would he say? What would he challenge us to reevaluate? Where would he tells us that we are behaving inconsistently with the Lord we profess? Where would he ask us if our priorities are out of alignment, what we seem to care most about in terms of our investment?

Conclusion: Who are you and what is your life about?

I am God’s child and servant, and I am Christ’s ambassador/emissary.

Our relationship and responsibility to God gives us clarity and priority in our relationships and responsibility to others.

In the overall context of this letter, then… Paul is prioritizing what Christ’s people must prioritize: making and strengthening disciples who will make and strengthen disciples. The disciple of Jesus (relationship to God) is a disciple-maker (responsibility to God). - Gospel ministry is compounded when Paul’s ministry is multiplied through Titus, and that ministry is multiplied yet further through the faithfulness of the elders and believers in Crete.

And a primary avenue to multiply mature disciples is to invest specifically in some, who will in turn do the same.

Our relationship and responsibility to God leads directly into our relationships and responsibility to others.… In an ongoing chain of making and maturing disciples of Jesus. (***)

PRAY

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