chapter 2. Galatians chapter 2. Let's read together. Then after
14 years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along
with me. I went up because of a revelation
and set before them, though privately before those who seemed influential,
the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make
sure I was not running or had not run in vain. But even Titus,
who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he
was a Greek. Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in,
who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ
Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery, to them we did
not yield in submission even for a moment. so that the truth
of the gospel might be preserved for you. And from those who seemed
to be influential, what they were makes no difference to me.
God shows no partiality. Those, I say, who seemed influential
added nothing to me. On the contrary, when they saw
that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised,
just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised,
for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to
the circumcised worked also through me from mine to the Gentiles.
And when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars,
perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right
hand of fellowship to Barnabas and to me, that we should go
to the Gentiles and they to be circumcised. Only they asked
us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do."
Now, I'm going to be honest with you here. In this section of
Scripture, it is extremely disjointed. It's very disjointed for several
reasons, I believe. I believe it's disjointed because
there's something happening with Paul. He's trying to say enough
but not enough, not too much. That something's happening in
Paul's mind that he's nervous about going back into Jerusalem.
As it says there, 14 years he's going back to Jerusalem. Now
there have been some very smart people trying to make a timeline
out of this. When did this happen? Where did it happen? Exactly
what was going on? Where is this seen in the book of Acts, etc.? And I'll just resolve to say
this. We do not know. It is not for
us to take this text and to establish this ministry timeline for Paul. We just know that it had been
14 years since he had left Jerusalem. Now he's going back to Jerusalem. Paul is going back to where he
is from in that sense. As a member of the Sanhedrin,
he's going back to the center. We know that he was a Roman citizen,
we know that he was from Tarsus, but ultimately he served and
ruled in Jerusalem. And so here we are, and with
him is Barnabas, and then this is very striking. It should be
striking to you. He's taking Titus. He's taking
Titus. So here now, Paul, who's not
very known amongst his own people. Remember, I was advancing in
Judaism above my own age, yet amongst Judea, I was still unknown. He did not make a name for himself
amongst his own people. God had called him to the Gentiles. And so from a pastoral and apostolic
perspective of planting churches through the preaching of the
gospel, Paul was true to his calling. He stayed true to his
calling. He stayed and did what he was
supposed to do, not concerning himself with his reputation back
with his own people. He was not concerning himself
with what he preached to the Gentiles having an implication
to his Jewish roots or to his Jewish brothers and sisters.
But he loved them, as we'll later see in Paul's ministry when he
wrote to them the book of Hebrews. And when he wrote to the Romans,
he spoke of his love for the kinsmen of his blood, of his
genealogy, of his lineage. He loved them. He would even
be willing to give up his own justification before the Father
in order that they might all be saved. But he knew that was
not something that he could do. Either way, Paul is in turmoil. And this is another reason I
think that this is disjointed here. I think Paul is trying
to communicate, but not necessarily communicating as thoroughly as
he would like to. People will argue with me and
say, well, wait a minute, the Holy Spirit guided the words
of Paul, and so why would there be some disjointedness in what
Paul wrote? Well, the Holy Spirit wrote to
the apostles, but the Holy Spirit did not overcome the apostles.
They black out into some cognitive zone and then come together and
go, look at these words on the paper. That's ridiculous. God
does not work that way. So God never erased the vocabulary
and the personality of the scriptural writers. The apostles and the
prophets, you know what Paul's writing is because you can see
it. You can see it. You can see the grammar of Luke
and the grammar of John and the grammar of Paul. You can tell
the difference. Sometimes I've read articles that I've written
through the years and they never really take me by surprise because
I can say, that sounds like me. I remember, saying something
like that. But one time, many, many years
ago, and I can't even remember what magazine published the article,
but it was dealing with some practical applications of methods
in ministry. And I basically just rebuked
it all and talked about the scripture. But I wrote the article so hastily
that I just sort of spoke on paper, turned it in, they published
it. Years and years later, someone
sent this article and said, hey, thought you might like this,
thinking I would like to read an article that I'd written years
before. And as I'm reading the article, I'm like, man, this
guy, this guy sounds good. What is this? Not remembering
that it was something that I had written. And when I got to the
end and saw my name, I'm like, I didn't write this. This doesn't
sound like me, but this is spot on. This is spot on. And that's
the only time I've ever not recognized my writing, but for the most
part, it was my thoughts. So even when the grammar changed
or the vernacular changed, it was thought after thought after
thought of how I outlined these same issues and the same problem.
And you know, when you have 10, 12 years from the time you write
to the time you read it, sometimes it's hard to remember what you
were doing. I believe the personality of
Paul is bleeding into this letter in such a way that he's wanting
to communicate necessarily the details of this in a small way
without going overboard And at the same time, because he's going
back to Jerusalem and talking about that, Paul is very, very
discombobulated. He's just mixed up. Because it's
one thing to have the freedom to be out, to be cast away by
your people, and then to be used by God in such a way where you
are free and you're preaching and the Lord is working, and
now Paul is referring to his journey back to the very people
that rejected the gospel. And not only that, but he's talking
about Titus, who was not a Jew. So it'd be one thing for Paul
to go back and then to be received by the semi-Christian culture
of Judea, but then to say, now he's got this man with him who's
not even Jewish and has not been circumcised. And you might ask
yourself, how do these people know? Why was it that Timothy
was required to be circumcised? Because he did not want his uncircumcision
to be an obstacle. to his Jewish brothers and sisters,
to the evangelism there. That is an exception to the rule. Titus was not circumcised. How
do they know that? Because they checked. You found out who was and who
was not in the covenant by looking. And this is a strange thing for
me, and I don't really know other than that any of the details
of how that all played out. But it's almost like it's your
name badge. Yep, you can come into the sanctuary because you
are Jewish, and you are Jewish not because of who your daddy
was, but that you were circumcised. So this visit that Paul's talking
about, it's in conjunction with everything else that he's been
trying to say. How the gospel that he's been
giving has not come from man. It didn't come from anyone who
taught him, though he did learn from people. It didn't come from
any type of school. It came from the revelation of
Jesus Christ personally by the Holy Spirit. And it was congruent
with the learning of the Old Testament Scripture. So much
so that then people would say, well, you know, you are a Jew
and you came and all the other disciples, maybe the other apostles
sort of gave you credibility and Paul saying, listen, I didn't
go back there for a long time. I wasn't part of their ministry.
Peter sort of headed that ministry apostolically to the Jewish people. God called me to lead the ministry
to the Gentile people. And so he goes on and he says
in verse two, I went up because of revelation and I sat before
the people of Jerusalem. though privately before those
who seemed influential, the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles.
Why did I do that? In order to make sure I was not
running or had not run in vain. Now, I'll be honest with you,
because I don't know exactly what journey is being referred
to here. I don't exactly know the details
of this, so I'm not going to speculate and say, okay, over
in Acts this or over in Acts that, but we knew what happened
every time Paul went somewhere, what happened? He was arrested.
Every time Paul engaged in whatever town he was in, it always came
with pain and suffering. It always came with incarceration.
And when Jews would get wind of what he was doing, they would
always not like what he had to say, even though it was rare
as an audience. He did go back to Jerusalem.
And so Paul, in this sense, is just explaining the frustrations
and the aggravations, if you will, in defending the gospel
amongst his people. Now he's having to defend the
gospel amongst the Gentiles. Why? Because of his people. You
see what's happening here? So it is a little bit choppy. It's choppy even in English syntax. There's not a whole lot of making
sense here. It's not necessarily narrative that's clear. All these
parentheticals, though probably before those who seemed influential,
and you're thinking, who are these influential people? Well,
I could say maybe he sat before the Sanhedrin, or maybe he talked
to some Pharisees, or maybe he talked to some teachers. But
he doesn't say, and in verse six, he said it doesn't make
any difference. God doesn't care who they are. Their influence
amongst the people has no bearing. It doesn't matter. So even now
we see that there's a little bit of, I don't know, fogginess to me with
what Paul is saying. But the reason that he shared
what he had been given, and he did so privately, is because
he wanted to see how they would respond before he went there. Verse 3, but even Titus, who
was with me was not forced to be circumcised, though he was
with the Greeks. So we know he was in the audience of what?
Of Jews. And not only was he in the audience
of Jews, he was probably in the presence of the temple. He was
probably with them. He was probably in areas where
you had to be a Jew in order to sit and teach, and to bring
someone else along, sort of as an associate, is to say to the
people that are with you, that see you, this guy stands with
me. As I teach, he's learning to
teach. But he wasn't required to be circumcised. So there was,
in some way, some type of reception there. But what was Paul's primary
purpose? Paul's primary purpose was to
clarify the gospel. that he was preaching, that he
knew, now get this, had come from God directly. And he wanted
to make sure that the gospel that he had been given and had
been preaching to the Gentiles was the same gospel that the
other so-called apostles had been preaching to the Jews. Now think about that for a second.
So Paul was defending the gospel even in Jerusalem. He doesn't
just take it for granted that these other men who were teaching
somewhat of a Christ were doing it correctly. So he wanted to
clarify. Why was it necessary? Why was
it necessary that he go and defend the gospel in Jerusalem? We don't
know. what God had shown him. It's
a private revelation. But what we do know is that he
was sent by God and his gospel was not man's gospel. His gospel
was not the apostles gospel. His gospel was not the gospel
of Jerusalem or the gospel of the Gentiles. His gospel was
the gospel of God and Jesus Christ. So because, verse 4, of false
brothers who were secretly brought in, why were they brought in?
Who brought them in? We don't know. But is it out
of source? Can we not look at some of the
other circumstances where Paul ministered and other people were
brought in to accuse him, to arrest him? How about Saul and
Paul when he was part of the Sanhedrin in Acts chapter 6 and
7? What do we see there? In Acts
chapter 7, what happens to Stephen? The Sanhedrin got spies and people
to lie on Stephen so that Stephen could be accused of blasphemy
so that the people would be enraged and stone Stephen to death at
the authority of Paul. So the same thing that was happening
to the Christians, to the deacons, In the beginning of the ministry
of Christ, or the ministry of the church, now in like manner
in Judea and Jerusalem was happening to Paul and his associates. The
very thing he was guilty of, allowing and permitting. Now
we don't know that Saul was in on it, but we know that the influential
people of Jerusalem were in on it. It doesn't mean that the whole
of the Sanhedrin got together and says, OK, let's do this and
deceive everyone. But somebody did. How many times
did they try to trick Jesus into doing something blasphemous?
How many times did they try to get a false accusation against
him? So here the same thing is happening. So these false brothers
were secretly brought in. It doesn't say they invaded secretly.
They were brought in. So here Paul is defending the
gospel, making it clear, And yet there's still opposition.
They slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ
Jesus so that they might bring us into slavery. So what Paul
is talking about, who are these spies? Judaizers. The Judaizers
are not new to him. They're not new to him. The first
time he sees them is not in Galatia. He's dealt with them before.
When he went back to Jerusalem, the Judaizers were brought in
because there's these well-meaning people, these well-meaning God-fearers,
these well-meaning zealots who think we've got to make sure
that these new Christians understand the foundation of where their
hope lies, and that is in the law of Moses. That is in their
works. That is in circumcision. You
want to be in the covenant? You better be in the covenant.
And the best way to do that is to what? Circumcise someone.
So now Paul is saying there were people there to see just how
far we've come. I want to know if Titus is circumcised. Is he really a Christian? Has
he adopted the Jewish Messiah as his own? And I'm using these
words just off the top of my head. I'm not so sure that they
use that language. I'm just using it as an example.
But this freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, they wanted
to spy out our freedom. They wanted to see how far we'd
taken our antinomianism. You understand that, don't you?
Paul was considered an antinomian. He was considered an antinomian
because he preached the gospel of free and sovereign grace.
And it makes the practice and the adherence of the law ridiculous. A man, in order for him to stand before the Father and live
forever, he must have a sacrifice for sins. We talked about this
yesterday in our Hebrews class. What sacrifice of sin do we stand
before God with? What can we offer to God on our
own behalf as a sacrifice for sin? What can we give to God? What does God require of us in
order to stand righteous before Him? And the answer is nothing,
because there is no way possible we can offer God anything. The
Judaizers say you can believe all you want in Christ, but until
you offer your bodies into the service of the law, you are not
born of God. And that is wicked and evil. So Paul was an antinomian because
he preached Christ. But what was the outcome of these
Judaizers? What do they want to do? So that
they might bring us into slavery. They want to undo the gospel
and bring it back to humanism. They want to undo the grace of
God and bring it back to Sinai. They want to take us off of the
mountain of Zion and bring us to the mountain of the tempest. Beloved, if we are going to stand
before God righteous, we must stand on the shoulders of another
one who is the righteous one of God. In any addition, listen
to this, theologically, doctrinally, or in any practical way, any
addition to Jesus alone is no gospel. That is why we can rightly say
that election by grace is the good news of God. But to them, verse 5, we did
not yield in submission. We did not let these people shake
us. We did not, even for one moment,
allow them to corner us, to bother us, to trouble us. We knew it
was going to take place. We knew they were coming. We
knew this was going to be an issue. I feared it. I believe
Paul had great fear in his flesh, worrying about the outcome of
it. Maybe if not for himself, for Titus and Barnabas. What
am I going to receive here? Is this gospel that I go and
preach going to be the same gospel or am I going to have the this
law-abiding garbage, which is really self-righteousness to
contend with. And that's what he saw there,
in part. But we did not submit to the
meme for a moment so that the truth of the gospel might be
preserved for you. Who's he talking to? The Christians
of Galatia. The elect of Galatia. that if
Paul had conceded the gospel and not defended it in Jerusalem,
what message might have befallen the ears of the Galatians? If Paul had given in just a little
bit to his roots, just a little way to let the Judaizers sort
of be pacified, what would the gospel be to the people of Galatia? It would be no gospel at all.
Matter of fact, I'm going to submit this to you, beloved,
is that the majority of missionary messages in our world today are
not the gospel of grace, not the gospel of free grace, and
not the gospel of sovereign grace, but the gospel of humanistic
grace, which is no grace at all. It's an earned, a warranted work. And if we concede rather than
defend the gospel, There may be generations of people with
whom the gospel will be lost. But the good news is, God will
not withhold the gospel from His sheep. The truth of the gospel might
be preserved. So He defended and preserved the gospel. with
the Judaizers and against the Judaizers long before they came
to Galatia. So now, all of a sudden, we can
see a little bit of why, not just from a spiritual and theological
sense, why Paul is so furious and so horrified and so upset,
but he dealt with it already. Now, what's happened? In rebellion. These people have never stopped
preaching lies. You ever find that the case?
It's one thing to see a generation of unregenerate people who are
religious calling themselves Christians and then we preach
the gospel to them and then out of that group comes a large majority
of the elect coming to believe the true gospel, seeing the truth,
understanding the freedom of Christ, understanding the grace
of God, seeing the life that comes through Jesus alone. And
then there's always a small group that usually becomes the larger
group that divides from that truth. And they come out and
start saying, well, yeah, this is true, but and then they add
to and then they argue and they philosophize about how this must
also be required. And they set conditions on the
gospel or actions on the gospel. And then therefore they make
it a false gospel. And so they were rebuked harshly,
so harshly that they have to divide from us and they leave,
they went out from us because they never were among us, they
never were of us. But then at the end of the season,
we think we freed ourselves from them only to find that they go
somewhere else where they can manipulate more people into believing
lies. And it's easy to see in westward
expansion, the development of our nation, all of the different
cults, and types of iterations of Christianity and false Christianity
that have been birthed over the last 200 years. But friends,
Paul's not talking about damnable iterations of craziness. He's
talking about simple additions to orthodoxy. He's talking about
taking the truth here, perfectly correct, and sprinkling a little
additive on top. It's like adding MSG to your
rice. It might taste good, but you're not gonna make it home. You gotta run. Stop at the 7-Eleven
on the way home. If you don't get that joke, I'm
sorry. And from those, see now, Paul
says in verse six, who seem to be influential, and it doesn't
matter who they were, God says no partiality. From those who
seem to be influential, those, I say, who seemed influential,
added nothing to me. They had no effect on me. Isn't
that great? Isn't that awesome? That Paul
is witnessing to the Galatians about the very thing that they're
going through. He's like, I've been there. It's easy to take. Who are the influential people?
The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Judaizers, the rabbis, the
teachers, the wise old elders. The guy that always has the Bible
in his mouth, always ready to spew out a verse or six. The pastors, the preachers, the
deacons, the Sunday school teachers. Men who were trained up under
great evangelists, under great theologians, great pastors, great
orators. And the list can go on and on
and on and I have faces and names in my mind of people that I used
to esteem to be men of God who are actually children of the
enemy. And I'm so thankful for God's
protective electing grace to teach me the truth and to hold
me fast in his love, to show me the way of righteousness in
Jesus Christ alone, that I too would also be an apologist for
the cults of evangelicalism had he not kept me. And there are great influential
people. And we appeal to authority all the time. It's funny how
sometimes, you know, you can just be talking with somebody,
and they not know you from anybody, or they may know your name, or
whatever, and you're just talking with them, and you're just explaining
the scripture, or you're just sharing the faith, and they respect
what you're saying, and they're sometimes impressed. Well, that's
interesting, I never thought about that. But then when they
find out you've got some type of worldly credential, Oh, you're an ordained pastor.
Wow, I didn't know that. I wouldn't have been arguing
with you. Oh, you've got a, you've got
seminary degrees. You've got a master's in this
and a doctorate in this and a bachelor's in this and you know, a straw
hat in that and, and, and the list can go on and on and they
begin to esteem you. If you're the first one out of
the shoot with credentials. But woe be unto the man who is taught
by the Word of God, who is mentored and discipled by other men of
God, who teach and teach and teach the truth of the free and
sovereign grace of Jesus Christ. Woe be to that uncredentialed
man who stands against the seminarian. Who stands against those who
have published many works. Because the world and the unregenerate
and the half-hearted And the falsely converted will
hold fast to the man with the authority, not Paul. And the beauty of it is Paul
had more credentials than all of them. And Paul will tell us
later in his ministry, I counted all as loss, garbage, in comparison
to the priceless, glorious, beautiful, value of Jesus Christ. When I
take all that I am and all that I have and all that I've ever
done and all that I've ever been, and I weigh it against the pricelessness
of the glory of God in Christ, it is pure garbage. To be more explicit, it is pure
manure. I count it as garbage. They added
nothing to me. They didn't instruct me in a
better way. They didn't teach me the ropes.
They didn't sharpen the edges of my views of justification
and get my vocabulary all up in the way that it should be.
As a matter of fact, Paul tells the church of Corinth what? I
don't come with eloquence. I don't wax eloquent that you
might be impressed with my speech. As a matter of fact, He says
to them, I come with you before you to preach Christ and Him
crucified, lest the cross lose its power. And I have decided
and am convinced that I should teach nothing but Christ. And
I come to you with tears and quivering voice, barely able
to speak and barely able to stand. They added nothing to me. And friends, to this day, it
is hard for me not to establish in my own mind as I teach, every
single time I teach, three, four, five times a week sometimes,
depending on the season of ministry, I'm teaching. And it is very
hard for me not to follow in my head principles and practices
of proper speaking and etiquette. because it has been so drilled
in my mind since my childhood. But it doesn't matter. Thank
God I'm able to communicate, but my particular way of communicating
has no bearing on the power of God for you. Paul says he stuttered through
it with tears. Would you listen to teaching
that way? If the heater didn't work tonight, would you listen
through the Word of God? If there were rats running around
and filth all around us, would it be enough to draw you to assembly,
the Word of God? Weakness, frailty, lack of emphasis? It is Christ who draws His sheep.
through his voice. Verse 76, on the contrary, when they saw I had been entrusted
with the gospel, and I'm just going to change the wording here
for clarity, to the Gentiles, the uncircumcised, in the same
way Peter was entrusted with the gospel to the Jew, the circumcised. And I'm gonna skip that parenthetical
for a second. Verse nine, and when James and
Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars of the Jewish Christian
community, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave
me the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me. That we should go to the Gentiles
and they to the circumcised. Only they asked us to remember
the poor, the very thing I was eager to do. See what's happened? Paul did
not go to be affirmed by the other apostles. Paul went to make sure that the
gospel that the other apostles preached had not been infected. And even though it had not been
infected, and it was truly God's gospel, it is not conditioned
on the man to keep it pure. Because there are always going
to be, even internally in my brain, creative stupidity and
creative dumbness that could take us away from the Gospel.
So it is the Spirit of God through His Word alone written by these
apostles whom God preserved and gave us the covenant of grace
clearly. that we can maintain a sense
of hope and peace and continuity to defend and clarify the gospel
throughout all generations forever. Remember a week before last when
I talked about historical theology. It is a sad day in the world when someone can write a book
and commentate a doctrine, and the quotations of that commentary
can become the authority of the Word of God itself. Or a snip, or a power jam, or
a sermon jam, or a whatever out of somebody's preaching can become
more empowering than the written Word of God. Or the fact that we can have
a conference and we can have nobody's teaching scripture and
nobody cares. But if we get the right name,
we have to sell, or not sell, but we have to reserve seats
so we don't violate the laws of fire hazards. People will drive hundreds of
miles and spend thousands of dollars to hear a specific pastor
teach something that they could read for themselves in the Bible
in their bedroom. And as Paul clarified and defended
the gospel of free and sovereign grace, he realized that the true
gospel was given to Peter and to James, And to John, and you notice what
it says there, who seem to be pillars. And you know how they
perceived Paul's gospel was authentic? What credibility did they give
Paul? Did it matter? What would have happened if they'd
have said to Paul, you're not preaching the same gospel we
preach. You know what Paul would have said? You are not my brothers,
you are anathema. You think he's going to sit down
and argue it out and have a council and decide how they want to settle
it? No. He's going to say, this is the
gospel of God from Jesus' own mouth, by the Spirit of God himself,
and you are preaching another gospel. That's how he can say
to the people of Galatia, if I or we or any other apostle
or an angel from heaven changes the gospel that you once received,
you do not listen. But they didn't give the hand
of fellowship to Paul because he was an orator, because he
was a great preacher, because he wasn't a great preacher. He
was not a teacher to begin with. Nicodemus was a teacher. Paul
was a ruling authority. He was a judge, a governor. They didn't give the right hand
of fellowship because he'd learned so much stuff and he had it all
easily portrayed. They gave him the right hand
of the fellowship because they knew based on the confession
of Paul that the gospel of free and sovereign grace was his gospel. And they called it that. When they saw the grace that
was given to me, What does that mean? The grace given to me. When they
saw what God had taught me, when they saw what Christ by His mercy
had revealed to me, when they heard the message of the cross
clear and pure and true, they called me brother. Not based on some half-hearted
attempt to show up and do ministry together. Not based on some sort
of human desire to take care of the poor. And I think Paul
puts us in here on purpose. He's coming, we've got a main
mission, we want to help poor people. They didn't give him
fellowship on that. They didn't give him fellowship
because he wanted to do a vacation Bible school and reach children
with Bible stories. They didn't give him fellowship
except that they were able to see by the Spirit Himself that
the gospel of grace was Paul's and the gospel of grace was theirs.
So indeed they have fellowship with Christ together. Friends,
Our brothers and sisters are not those who are akin to us
by some sense or affinity, close. Our brothers and sisters are
those who have been given the grace of God to believe the one
true gospel, and that gospel is clearly and simply the grace
of God in Jesus Christ, who is God, who came to earth as a man,
who died for the sins of His elect, and who rose from the
dead and promised them eternal life, and gives them a change
of mind concerning their righteousness before Him, This is repentance
evidenced by believing in all of the doctrines of Christ. And
so on. They gave the hand of fellowship
to me and to Barnabas. And then they commissioned them,
look at that part of chapter 9, that we should go on to the
Gentiles. and they to the circumcised. When I read that tonight, I said,
they to be circumcised? What? You know, and I'm like, no, I
just miss, miss Saul. That this is the ministry God
had given Paul. And the Spirit of God confirmed
that with the other apostles. And the only thing they ask Paul
to do is to remember the poor. Remember the poor. And God is
no respecter of persons here in the history of Paul's ministry.
God didn't respect Paul, God didn't respect Peter, or John,
or Barnabas, or Titus, or any of them. God is not looking down
and going, that's my guy right there. He's doing a good job
for me. Man, I tell you, he's got some
credibility with me. The only way we have credibility
with God is that we are found adopted in Christ. And that is
all of Christ, all to His glory, always and always and always
to the praise of His glorious grace. So that there is never
a time where any man, woman or child who works in the service
of Christ can ever boast about their service. Yet the number
of boasting in the false church of America is printed and published
and disseminated continually about all that is done, yet God
is not glorified in it. And not only is God not a respecter
of persons, but we as His servants, we as His adopted children, we
should not then esteem others differently. or ourselves. This is not new. We know the
teaching of the apostles there. Do not think too highly of yourself. Do not think lowly of someone
else in comparison to you. Do not do this. For we are God's
workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works. The good
works there is the ministry to the body, the ministry of the
gospel. God has prepared for us to minister
to one another as the body. If we have an itch in our head,
we scratch it. Somebody has to be the nail and somebody has
to be the finger. Somebody has to be the hand and the forearm
and the joints and the shoulder and everything else in order
to scratch the head. A lot of parts here to do that.
That's not a simple straight stick. So, Peter, look at verse 11. I won't get through it all tonight,
but look at verse 11. I didn't even read this. But when Cephas,
Peter, came to Antioch, what did Paul do? Because Peter was
considered the pillar of the Jewish apostles to the Jews. So much so that the language
of scripture makes it as if he were a pope, which is why Rome
has adopted that stance. Of course, that's damnable. in
every part. But Peter, when he came to Antioch,
because he was worried about what? Eating with Gentiles. You know, growing up, you remember
things and you don't notice them when you're in the midst of it
all, but as a kid, we never, when we traveled, we never ate
certain places. We never ate at truck stops.
Ever. Eight at truck stops. Oh, there's
a Waffle House. No thank you, son. We're not
going there. Why not? I didn't care. I love
a Waffle House. Especially if, you know, if you
want to get sick, go to Waffle House. It's the way to do it.
But we just never did that. Because the association of truck
stops and travel stops and all these things is that they were
dangerous. You might disappear. They didn't have cell phones.
They had CB radios. But, I mean, you couldn't talk
to anybody, you couldn't help. So, I mean, you could go to the bathroom
and then your car's gone or your family's gone. I mean, it's just
always fear-mongering, you know. So we never went. Where did we
go? The Cracker Barrel. Or some other chain that was
not attached to a gas station. Or something like that. Me, I'll
stop anywhere. If I'm by myself, I got my family,
I just want to judge the appearance. I don't care what the name of
it is. What's the point? Some type of discrimination takes
place in our minds. This is safe. This is unsafe.
Sometimes spiritually speaking, we have this discrimination and
we think, oh, we're a little bit better spiritually than these
people because of the way they may look or appear or act or
operate. And that's what Peter was doing.
And Paul was not going to respect Peter because Peter was this
great apostle. But Paul also did not become
a ridiculous turd head and make a scene and was ugly to Peter. But look at this. Certain men
came from James. He was eating with the Gentiles,
but when they came back, they drew back and separated himself,
fearing the circumcision party. Who was he fearing? The Judaizers.
He didn't want to have to face them in town or at synagogue
or wherever they were going to run into him. He didn't want
to face them. Now there was nothing wrong with
Peter's gospel. But if you'll notice, Peter's
zeal and the things that Peter found himself in during the ministry
of Jesus, I will die for you, I will protect you, I will never...
I don't know who you are. I don't know that guy. Get away
from me. I don't know Jesus. The same temptation he had when
faced with that same type of possibility. It was well known
who he was, but now these Judaizers who were, quote, Christian, but
they weren't. Because they were adding to the
gospel. They wanted some camaraderie. They wanted to be the reformers
of the Messiah and his work. Let's get it back in and let's
make it all work for all of us. Peter didn't want to face it.
He'd be called today a compromiser or a coward and he was being
cowardly and he was compromising at that moment. But what did
Paul do? He intentionally avoided his
Gentile brothers and sisters, Peter did, because he didn't
want to hear it from these other guys who were not his brothers
in Christ. And the rest of the Jews acted
hypocritically along with him so that even Barnabas was led astray by their acting.
The word hypocrite means actor. Hypocrisy means acting. By their
acting. They acted like they were all
brothers and that the Gentiles were sort of filthy, dirty people
because they weren't circumcised. But when I saw this, what does
it say in verse 11? I opposed him to his face, to
his face, in the flesh, in person. When I saw that their conduct
was not in step with the truth of the gospel. Now, I'm going
to talk about that next week. I said to Peter before all of
them, He didn't hide. He said it right there. Why?
Because everybody there was calling themselves Christian. Don't argue
with that historically. You know what I mean. Professing
to be in Christ. And, because they didn't call
themselves Christians. And, they were all following Peter's example,
which was sinful. The book of James had not been
written to them yet. And he says to him in front of
everybody, if you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not a
Jew, how can you force Gentiles to live like Jews? And that's the segue Paul gives
to the heart of the gospel, which is that we who are in Christ
are justified by faith in Christ, not the works
of the law. So we'll stop there. Let's pray.
We thank you, Father, for your word.