Okay turn if you would again
to The book of galatians continue our study in the book of galatians
I was looking at this We're in study number 27 and we're only
in the second chapter. I think this be a few years here
in galatians. So But it's been good, hasn't it? I was talking
to Dan about that yesterday. It's been a really good study.
It's just been a wonderful study going through Galatians and seeing
Paul defending the gospel against the false teachers and how the
Holy Spirit's preserved this letter for us so that we could
learn for our learning too. So today we're going to learn
some things out of the second section here. In preparing this message, I
was looking at verses 11 and 12. And, you know, you look at that in the
surface and some people might say, well, there's not a whole
lot there that you can teach on. Well, yeah, there is. Yeah,
there is. There always is in the Word of
God. There's always things we can teach on. And as I was reading
these two verses that we're going to look at today, I was thinking,
boy, how quickly the old man can come back. How quickly the
old man can come back. How quickly, how quickly we can
turn into Pharisees. That happened to me this week.
I was sitting there, I read something, and I was thinking about the
person that I read the article about, and it was a religious
person, and I thought, boy, well, I don't know if the Lord saved
them or not, I shouldn't say that, but I was reading it, and
there was something in there, and I thought, oh, look at that,
look at that. My old pharisaical ways came
back, and you know, It wasn't about 30 seconds later that I
got it right between the eyes. And it was like, Wayne, you were
there doing that too. Oh my goodness. I just put my
head down and asked the Lord, begged the Lord for forgiveness.
Isn't that? It's actually wonderful when
the Lord does that to us because it shows us that we're all recovering
Pharisees. Right? We're all recovering Pharisees.
That's what we are. Yeah, we're a work in progress,
beloved. We're totally, we're totally The Lord's chipping at
us, right? Remember, He's conforming us
to the image of Himself, the image of the Son. So last week
we looked at verses 9 and 10 of chapter 2, and we see the
apostles tell Paul and Barnabas to remember the poor after giving
them the right hand of fellowship. And in the next section, actually,
we're going to look at, this is a really important section
of this letter because it brings forth that justification before
God is only in Christ and Him alone. It's not by anything we
do. See, Paul, not only was he battling the Judaizers, but we're
gonna see here that legalism is still in all of us. You know,
we're our worst enemy, right? How quickly it can rear its ugly
head. But when we remember how much
we've been forgiven, all that stuff just fades away, beloved.
And last Sunday we looked at Acts chapter 13, how we saw that
the center of the Christian church to the Gentiles and circumcision
was now found in Antioch. most of the preachers who were
preaching to the Gentiles. And then the center of the Christian
church for the ministry to the circumcision, the Jews, was found
in Israel, or found in Jerusalem. So same message though, right?
Because remember Paul got together with the apostles, same message,
same message. Just Paul is sent to the Gentiles
and Peter is sent to the circumcision, the Jews. So with that in mind,
let's read verses 11 to 21. Galatians chapter 2, but when
Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face because he was
to be blamed for before that certain came from james he did
eat with the gentiles but when they were come he withdrew and
separated himself fearing them which were of the circumcision
now some people believe it might have been the false teachers
that were that were tickling the ears of people but i don't
think it was because these folks were sent by james they came
from james so i believe they were they were believers they
were just caught up still in the fact that Here's a Jew eating
with Gentiles. That wasn't even allowed under
the Mosaic law. Grave closed, beloved. Grave
clothes. We all got grave clothes. See? That's that whole thing that
happened to me, too, this week. Grave clothes, right? They're
still hanging around. The old flesh rears its head.
The old flesh is a legalist. Oh my, it's just a pharisee of
pharisees. That's what our flesh is like.
And the other Jews disassembled likewise with him, insomuch that
Barnabas was carried away with their dissimulation. So even
Barnabas, who was with Paul, He was even carried away. I can't
eat with them Jews. Oh my gosh. Oh, so this is what
Paul's talking about with the bondage, you see. This is just
bondage, beloved. This is just religious bondage,
leftover. And we have to give them, we
have to give them some grace too, because remember, they were
raised in Judaism. That was all they knew. And all
the Gentiles knew was paganism. So the Gentiles are probably
thrilled now, the Jews are eating, the converted Jews are eating
with them and thinking, oh, this is wonderful. We're all one in Christ,
like Paul's been telling us. And then all of a sudden, Peter
and even Barnabas, whoomp, over here they go. Whoa, we can't
eat with those Gentile dogs. Because just because somebody
came up of maybe prominence from the Jerusalem church, and look
what happened. Look at that man. rather than
God. We keep our eyes on Christ, all
that stuff will fade away, because we know we're just a bunch of
sinners, don't we? That's all we are. Saved by the grace of
God. That's all we are. And look at
Paul. Now, Paul, I love this. Paul
didn't let them get away with it, too. And not many people
would stand up to Peter. But this showed that Paul was
kind of separated from the twelve, in the sense that he was an apostle,
too, but he was on his own. He wasn't afraid to, for the
gospel's sake, we saw that in chapter one, right? He was not
afraid to take a stand for the gospel. He even called, he called
though, he said, let those false teachers be anathema. That's
strong language. That's like cursed. My, he's,
so he's not gonna let Peter get away with this. He's not. And I'll tell you, he does this
in love, too. It's not he's not like he's not all full of pride
and going, you know, he does this in love, beloved, because
he loves those Gentile believers. Right. They were converted under
his ministry by the Holy Spirit of God. It was God who saved
them. And so he knew that, too. And. You know, how would those Gentiles
feel, too? Think of that, too. Here they
are. They're eating. They're having a wonderful time with Peter. He's there for
a couple of days. They're eating with him. And all of a sudden, these
Jews come. These Jewish converts come. And he's like, oh, I got
to pull my way. That would hurt their feelings,
wouldn't it? It probably would have. It probably would have.
They would have thought, what's going on? What's going on here,
Peter? Why did you just walk away? Barnabas,
Brother Barnabas, what's going on? Oh my. But when I saw that they walked
not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel. So Paul
always, look at this, this is how we should measure all things,
by the truth of the gospel. That's how we measure all things,
right? Salvation's in Christ alone,
plus nothing by man. They're being swayed by man.
They're being swayed by man to not eat with the Gentiles, right?
They're brothers and sisters in Christ. And he was just eating
with them. Oh, look at this. They walk not
uprightly according to the truth of the gospel. See, Paul just
didn't say, well, I'll brush it under the carpet and I'll
have a talk with Paul later or Peter later. No, he confronted
them, didn't he? Now. We're going to talk about
this right now. We're going to deal with this head on. We're
not going to wait till later. We're going to deal with this head on. I said unto Peter, before them
all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the man of the Gentiles,
and not as do the Jews, why compelst thou the Gentiles to live as
do the Jews? Why are you trying to yoke the
Jews, or what, sorry, why are you trying to yoke the Gentiles
under the Mosaic law? They don't even know it. They
don't even understand it. And plus, Christ is the end of
the law for righteousness. He's fulfilled the law in our
place. And look at this, he says, we who are Jews by nature are
not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified
by the works of the law. Look at this. Is that not so
clear? There's so many people in the
world right now trying to justify themselves by something they
do, and it's so clearly written in the scriptures. Knowing that
a man is not justified by the works of the law, by our own
doing, we cannot be justified by the law. The law killeth.
The law says the soul that sinneth it must die, right? All the law
does is bring death. In Christ, there's life, beloved,
eternal life, by his shed precious blood. My, it's wonderful. It says, even, now look, here's
an additional clause, right? But knowing that a man is not
justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus
Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ. You have to
believe on Christ, right? What did Paul tell the Philippian
jailer? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. And not by the works of the law.
He says it twice in the same sentence. Not by the works of
the law. For by the works of the law.
Look at this. This is so clear. For by the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified. None. It's so clear, isn't it?
It's so clear that we cannot be saved by our works. by anything,
not even a pinprick of our works. It's so clear in scripture. This
is not my words. These are the inspired words
of God. God, the Holy Spirit, inspired Paul to write these
words, beloved. And here we have them here today
for our learning, right? And what does the word of God
say? It says that no flesh shall be justified by the works of
the law. Absolutely none. So anyone who's
trusting in anything, just again, just a pinprick of works, trusting
to get them to heaven, they can never be justified by what they
do. Now we can be justified in Christ,
can't we? Hallelujah. In Him alone, by faith in Him,
trusting in Him. Now look what he says, But if,
while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also
are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God
forbid! For if I build again the things
which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through
the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. Now here's
a beautiful verse, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Nevertheless I live, yet not
I, But Christ liveth in me. In the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me, and what? Gave himself for me. That is
a beautiful verse, isn't it? Look at that. We're crucified
with Christ. When Christ died, we were crucified
in him. Right? Remember we were all in Adam?
When he fell, we fell. When Christ died, we were in
him, beloved. We were in him. Isn't that wonderful? Oh, it's
beautiful. Let's read that again. I'm crucified
to Christ. Nevertheless, I live here. I
live here on this earth right now. Yet, not I, but Christ liveth
in me. He lives in us, beloved. He lives
in us. In the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and, praise God, gave himself for me. Every believer can say
that. He gave himself for me, personally.
For me. You can say that, if you're a
believer. He gave himself for me. And we're going to look at
that today. We're going to look at the blood. Oh, the blood of Christ is so
vital, beloved. It's what cleanses us from all our sins. It's what
purchased our forgiveness. And the blood, right? Scripture
says the life of the flesh is in the blood. Well, that ties
right in here. He gave himself for me. You just
like in the Passover, the innocent lamb died, right? Well, the innocent
lamb died in Calvary, didn't he? The blood of an innocent one
was shed to save us from our sins. Isn't that amazing? Blood of an innocent lamb was
shed to put on the lentils and over there on the doorposts in
Egypt. There's the blood of the lamb.
There's what that blood was pointing right to, right? Right to the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. And look what Paul says
here, I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness
come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. If righteousness
comes by something you did, then Christ, he died in vain. And
I always ask people this, if you can be saved by something
you do, why did Christ even come? Right? Why did he even come then? If you can be saved by something.
He came because we can't be saved by anything we do. He came to
save us from what? Our sins. You see, we can't save
ourselves from our sins, can we? But praise God, he did. He
purchased our eternal souls with his precious, precious blood.
My, it's absolutely wonderful. Now, Paul and Barnabas and Titus
were sent from Antioch to settle an argument between law and grace,
basically, right? We saw that in the beginning
of this chapter, that they were sent up to Jerusalem to basically
settle. The Judaizers were saying, you
gotta be circumcised and believe on Christ to be saved. Paul said,
no, it's just faith in Christ and Him alone. You're saved by
Christ or you're not saved at all, right? That's what Paul
was preaching. That's what we preach here, too.
But the self-righteous Jews crept in to different churches, because
this is not just one church in Galatia Paul's writing to, this
is the churches in Galatia that he's writing to, several different
churches that were established. So they had crept into all these
different churches here. And we saw they even crept into
Jerusalem, didn't they? Because they were there putting
up the point too, before the apostles, and the apostles said,
we're not gonna have none of that. You're saved by grace alone,
or you're not saved at all, right? And in their sinful attempt to
establish their false doctrine, they attacked Paul's apostolic
authority. And this attack had been rebuked
by the apostles at Jerusalem. They said they gave him the right
hand of fellowship, right? They gave Paul the right hand of fellowship.
They rebuked those Judaizers by doing that. And in this epistle,
the apostle Paul not only exposed these false teachers by declaring
the truths of the gospel, but he also confirmed his position
in the Lord's church. And again, Paul was preaching
the same gospel as the other apostles, and they added nothing to what
God had revealed to Paul. We saw that too, right? They
didn't add nothing to what he preached. They preached the same
gospel. John and Peter and James perceived the grace of God being
given to Paul in Barnabas, and they gave him the right hand
of fellowship. See, the Lord Jesus Christ had wrought effectively
in Paul and Peter and James and John as he has in us, beloved.
It's a work of the Holy Spirit of God, right? You must be born
again. You must be. And when you're
born again, you're given faith to believe on Christ. And then
here's Titus. They bring along Titus, an uncircumcised
Jew. Right? They bring along Titus.
And he's one of God's preachers too. How do we know that? Because
Paul writes him a letter. He's one of the Lord's preachers. He's one who God's ordained to
preach the gospel. And do you know what? He's living
proof that the gospel now going to the Gentiles. He's living
proof. That's why Paul took him up there
to Jerusalem with him. He's living proof, beloved. He's
living proof that even the Gentiles can have the circumcision made
without hands, right? The new birth, it's wonderful.
Titus was born again by the Holy Spirit of God, and he experienced
the miracle of the new birth. And nothing could have made him
more incomplete. Nothing! And think of that with you and
I too, okay? Nothing could have made Titus more complete than
being in Christ. Because Paul wrote, you are complete
in Christ, in Colossians chapter 2. You're complete. You're filled to the brim, that
means in the Greek. You can't add another drop. Absolutely complete
in him. A hundred percent. And in the
sixth verse of chapter five of this book, Paul wrote these words.
And again, he's moved by the Holy Spirit to write these words.
He says, in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything
nor uncircumcision, but faith, which worketh by love. Doesn't
matter if you're circumcised or not circumcised. It's faith,
faith in Christ in him alone, faith in Christ in him alone.
God-given faith, God-given faith. Right? That comes to us when
we're born again. It's given to us by God. And
the apostles of Jerusalem couldn't say anything against Paul's ministry.
So, nothing at all. And you know what? False teachers,
they hate the doctrine of God's free and sovereign grace. They
despise it. You know, you've experienced
it too, sister. They despise it. They despise
it. They do not like it. You start
talking about God's sovereign grace, and how he's absolutely
sovereign over all things, and people go squirrelly. I'm telling
you, they do. And these are religious people usually that do that.
People that claim to believe the Bible, and you present God's
sovereignty to them in the scriptures, and they say, well, no. Man's
still got free will. Well, I keep saying our will
is bound to our nature, right? And if you have a dead nature,
all you're going to want to do is sin. But if you're born again,
now you hate sin. Now you got the battle, right?
Now you got the war within you. And it's constant, isn't it?
You wake up in the morning, it's been going on when you're sleeping.
You wake up in the morning, it's still cooking. All through the
day, it's just cooking through the day. And at night, you pillow
your head again, and it's still going. It just never ends, does
it? That war with the flesh. Oh,
it just never ends. But praise be to God, we have
victory in Christ, don't we? We have victory in Christ. Now
look at verse 11 and 12 here. Here comes Peter, he comes up
to Antioch. It looks like he came up for
a visit. But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to
the face because he was to be blamed. For before that, certain
came from James. He did eat with the Gentiles,
but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing
them which were of the circumcision." Now, again, we see Paul's independence
here from the Twelve. He was an apostle, but he wasn't
afraid to talk to these men. You know, Peter was kind of like
the head spokesman amongst the apostles, wasn't he? But Paul
wasn't afraid to go toe-to-toe with them, was he? When he was
wrong, he wasn't afraid to go, Peter, you're wrong. Just like
Paul, I would imagine if he was wrong, he would appreciate somebody
talking to him about it. Actually, at the request of the
Gentile churches in Galatia, he knew he was preaching the
gospel, but at the request of them, he went up to see the apostles.
Right? And here we have that for our
learning, too, don't we? He was preaching the gospel. You know,
if man is sent to preach the gospel, that's what he wants
to do. He wants to have his whole life
devoted to preaching the gospel. That's what he wants. That's
what we desire as God's preachers. And here, Paul's independence
from the Twelve is brought forth in the fact, again, that he's
not afraid to withstand Peter. He's not afraid to say, Peter,
you're wrong. You're wrong in this situation. And you know
what it is? It's the purity of the gospel,
right? The purity of salvation through Christ alone. We can't
let anything pollute that. Nothing at all. We're to contend
for the faith, aren't we? Once delivered to the saints.
We're to contend for the truth of salvation in and through Christ
alone. We are in a world of religious
people. I was there. Were you? I was there. I was a full-on
religious person. I know lots of you were too. Oh my. My oh my. So we have to be ready to defend
the gospel. And anyone adding any works by
man, like I mean just the pinprick too, to be saved, they're teaching
a damning heresy. That's what they're teaching.
Now people say, well, that's strong language. Well, it's true.
People are going to go to hell because they're trusting in something
that they're going to do for salvation. And there's teachers
that are saying, yeah, that's fine. You're gonna be great. You ever hear about, how's that
put? Graveyard regeneration. I remember
one preacher talked about graveyard regeneration. He had this guy
just lived his life for himself, did everything he wanted for
himself, right? Everything. And the preacher gets there and
just preaches him right into heaven, even though he never
knew Christ. That's awful. That's awful. Now God will do
what's right, right? We don't know what, we don't
have any idea what the Lord will do. We don't know. It's up to
Him. God will do what's right. That
was told to me a long time ago by Bruce Crabtree. And I love
that. That's how I approach all that. God will do what's right.
I don't know where one or the other, but somehow everybody,
nobody goes to hell. Right? Because they were supposedly
good people. Is there any good? No one's good,
is it? No, we're all a bunch of sinners.
But you know what? Praise be to God. Salvation is
in Christ and Him alone. By His shed blood. His perfect,
complete sacrifice on Calvary's cross. His sin-atoning work. The innocent one. The Lamb of
God. Right? The Lord Jesus Christ,
God in the flesh, shed his blood for us, beloved, to ransom our
eternal souls, to purchase our eternal souls. Aren't you thankful?
Oh, it's so good, isn't it? So good. And isn't it good to
our souls to hear that there's nothing we can do because we
know we'd mess it up? Isn't it good to our souls? It really
is. It makes us rejoice, doesn't
it? Makes us rejoice. His sacrifice was a perfect sin
atoning work with nothing to be added. Absolutely nothing
by any man or woman. Nothing. He died in our room
and place. Now just think of that too. Let
that sink into our hearts. For those of us who are redeemed.
We saw that, didn't we? We saw that in Galatians 2. 220 look at that again. I am crucified
with christ nevertheless. I live yet. Not I but christ
live within me in the life Which I now live in the flesh. I live
by the faith of the son of god Who loved me and gave himself
for me? Gave his life for me My So there's
several lessons in this passage that we're going to as we go
through this next few weeks There's several lessons for us. But one
thing we can learn today in this passage, we still have this body
of flesh. We still have pharisaical ways.
We have this body of flesh. We think, oh, how could somebody
do something like that? Well, if it weren't for the grace
of God, we'd be doing it too. Right? Yeah. I remember Norm Wells said, there's
more sin on Sunday morning at workspace churches, there's more
sin on Sunday morning at workspace churches by men preaching a false
gospel than there ever was on Saturday night. Think of that, preaching a workspace
salvation. More sin there. Oh my. My, oh my, oh my. So one thing
we can learn here, again, is we're still just flesh. We're
still just flesh. You know, James and Peter and
John and all the saints of God had this struggle, right? In
the flesh. And we have it too, don't we?
We have it too. We have it too. And you know,
Paul didn't, remember this too, Paul didn't put himself above
Peter. You know how we know that? Oh, wretched man that I am. Who
can deliver me from this body of sin? Paul's saying, I'm a
sinner too, Peter. I know he withstood Peter. He
did, right? And he was right to do that. But Paul did it knowing
he is just a sinner saved by grace too. Because Paul wrote,
oh, wretched man that I am. He didn't say, oh, wretched man
that I was. Did he? See, religious people say, oh,
wretched man that I was. Did I tell you guys about a friend
of mine? And I was talking to him, and he said, we were talking
about sinning. I think I mentioned it last week.
I'm not sure, but we were talking about sinning. And he said, well,
yeah, I figured I sin at least once a day. I fell out of my chair. I fell out of my chair. He says,
well, I sit in bed once a day. And I was like, buddy, you sitting
right now? And you sit all the time. And
he had a smile on his face. I think he's just trying to get
a rise out of me. He did. Oh my goodness gracious. Once a day, oh my gosh, everything
we do is tainted with sin. That's why we're so thankful
for salvation, aren't we? It's so wonderful. It's so absolutely
wonderful. Oh my gosh, beloved. Yeah, I
fell over when he said that. So Paul didn't say, oh, wretched
man that I was. He said, oh, wretched man that I am. And he
said that as a believer. He said that as a believer, beloved.
Oh, wretched man that I am. And we can say the same thing,
can't we? And you know, The sad thing is that we have a foe,
and he's a master deceiver. He's a master deceiver, that
old enemy of God. He's been around for a long time,
and he's been studying mankind for 6,000 years. He knows how
to make us fall just like that. He knows every trick in the book,
doesn't he? But he's not all-powerful, is
he? He's not all-powerful. God's all-powerful. He can only
do what God will allow him to do. That's all. Satan also used
brethren against brethren, which is the saddest thing, isn't it?
That's the saddest thing, when he pits brethren against brethren.
That's so sad. See, but he doesn't care as long
as he destroys the church. That's all his goal is, is to
destroy the church. But God won't let him do that.
God won't let him do that. So we see here, I see here, personally,
that old grave clothes take a long time to fall off. Old religious
grave clothes. See, it happened to me again,
as I said, this week. You know? Oh, look at that. Yeah, bam! Right between the eyes, right?
Oh, my. But that's what happens. Look
at this again. Look at verse 11 and 12. Look
at this. It happened to our brother Peter
and Barnabas, and it's happened to us, too. But when Peter was
come to Anak, I was stood him to the face, because he was to
be blamed. For before that certain came from the James, he did eat
with the Gentiles. But when they were come, he withdrew
and separated himself, fearing them, which were the circumcision."
So the ceremonial laws, the holy days, they were all part of the
religious heritage, again, of Peter and Barnabas. So we can't
really, you know, we're all sinners. We're all sinners. You know,
I have my hang-ups about certain things that I went through in religion that still hang on
and are starting to fall off more and more every day. But
we all, again, as one Grace preacher said, I think it was Greg Almquist,
we're all recovering Pharisees. Every one of us. We all are.
We all are. We can be so critical so quickly,
right? But let us rejoice in what God's
done for us. And so these things were ingrained
in them. And it took time for these things
to fall away. It took time for these things.
And we see that right here. Here's Peter. He's eating. Hey,
brother, how are you? Give me some chicken. Or give
me something, whatever. Give me some pork. Because they
weren't allowed to eat pork. Give me some pork. Boy, I'm thankful
God lets us eat anything, because I love bacon. So I don't know
what I'd do without my bacon. But no, see, they were all eating
together. They were having sweet fellowship, weren't they? They
were enjoying each other's fellowship. And then here comes some certain
men who maybe have a little sway in the Jerusalem church, right? And right away, they pull away
from them. How would you and I feel? We'd feel sad if we were
the Gentiles. We'd feel a little offended,
wouldn't we? And so again, we're going to
look into this more. It's already 10.20, and I just
But we're gonna look into this a little bit more. But what we
see here, what we see here is a classic case, again, of grave
clothes. Grave clothes. And we all have them. Every one
of us have them. Okay? But rejoice when they fall
off. Because you know what? The Gentiles
are saved by the same Savior as Peter, James, Barnabas, right?
And John. Okay? And in pulling away like
that, they were still seeing the distinctions outside of Christ.
But in Christ, there's no distinctions, is there? But one. out of every tribe, kindred,
tongue, and nation. Jew, Gentile, circumcision, uncircumcision,
barbarian, Scythian, bond, or free, the scripture says. We
are all one in Christ. And that's what... Remember,
Paul wrote that to the Colossians, right? He wrote that to the Colossians.
He's living it here, isn't he? He's living it here. We're one,
Peter. You don't have to split away
from our brethren. We're one in Christ. Outside of Christ,
we're just a bunch of different folks, right? But in Christ,
beloved, we're one. We're one. And you know what
we're saved by? The precious blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Same blood, eh? Same blood shed
for all of us. Same Holy Spirit regenerating
us. Same Father, same Spirit, same Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise His mighty name.