Is not that I did choose thee? Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Nyberg. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 10.30 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
9.45 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com. I've entitled the message for
this morning, Why Did Paul Rebuke Peter? Now, we're looking at
a passage of Scripture in Galatians chapter 2, if you'll turn with
me there, where the Apostle Paul publicly rebuked the Apostle
Peter. Beginning in verse 11 of Galatians
chapter 2, but when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood
him to the face. I didn't do this behind his back.
I confronted him publicly before his face because he was to be
blamed. There was a reason for this.
For before that certain came from James, speaking of the pastor
of the church at Jerusalem, before some Jewish believers 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. These were men who professed
to be believers, but they were circumcised. They were Jewish.
And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him. And the word
dissemble means played the hypocrite. And the other Jews dissembled
likewise with him, insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away
with their dissimulation. or their hypocrisy. But when
I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the
gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew,
livest after the manner of the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews,
you don't live under law, Why compelest thou the Gentiles to
live as do the Jews? That's an act of hypocrisy. You're
calling upon them to do what you do not do. Now, why did Paul
rebuke Peter? And I could just as easily entitle
this message, The Components of Compromise. Because what Peter
was guilty of doing when he moved tables without saying a word,
all he did was move tables, he was guilty of compromise. Compromise, what does the word
mean? A compromise is a settlement reached by mutual concession. Management wants to pay $10 an
hour. Labor wants $12 an hour, so a
compromise is made. They pay $11 an hour. It's a mutual concession. Now, in any human relationship,
there must be compromise for people to get along, and you
know that's so, don't you? If you refuse to compromise, you
won't have any friends. You know people who are uncompromising,
and they refuse to compromise, and they refuse to go any way
but their way, and they won't compromise? That person is a
narrow-minded, self-serving person, and they're not gonna have very
many friends. It is a good thing to compromise. But the word compromise, although
it can be a very good thing, and we compromise every day in
so many ways in order to get along with people, But the word
compromise also means to expose to risk. You can do something
that compromises your health. You can do something that compromises
the safety of you or other people. It's a risky thing, this thing
of compromise. It's a dangerous thing. When
people make a compromise in the gospel, They make a concession
and they leave out some parts in order to get along with people.
What they're doing at that time is being guilty of compromising
the gospel, and that's a place where compromise can never be
tolerated in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know something
that God's never done and never will do? He never compromises. Why should He? He's God. He doesn't
have to make any concessions with me or you. He's the God
of glory. He doeth according to His will
in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth,
and none can stay His hand or say unto Him, What doest thou?
God doesn't negotiate with sinners. He doesn't try to reach a concession.
He's God. He never compromises. Now, like I said, in many cases,
compromise is necessary and good, but not when it comes to the
gospel. Paul said to Peter, by this act
of changing tables, that the truth of the gospel was at stake
and that they were not walking uprightly according to the truth
of the gospel. And we have an example earlier
in this chapter where Paul refused to have Titus circumcised. The Jewish believers said that
he needed to be circumcised and Paul said, we're not going to
do it. Now, if he would have compromised and went ahead and
let them circumcise Titus, he says the truth of the gospel
wouldn't have remained. You can read about that in Galatians
chapter 2 verses 3 through 5. Now, compromise. Peter, an apostle,
a man who wrote scripture, compromised the gospel. Somebody says, can
a believer do that? One look into your own heart
ought to answer that question. Peter was an apostle, and if
he compromised the gospel, you and I could compromise the gospel
very easily if the grace of God doesn't prevent it. As a matter
of fact, we will do it if God does not prevent this from being
the case. Now, let's look at these verses. In verse 11, we
read, But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to
the face. This wasn't speaking behind his
back. I spoke to him face to face because he was to be blamed. This was a serious transgression
that he was guilty of committing, something that had to be dealt
with publicly. That is something to think about. If you love somebody,
you want to cover their transgression. You don't want their sins exposed. You know, people that like to
tell things about other people, they just prove the badness of
your heart. If you love somebody, if they
fall, if they do something wrong, you don't want anybody to know
it. You keep it covered if you love that person. You don't want
to expose them to people and make them subject to embarrassment
and humiliation. But what Peter was doing was
a public sin. He was publicly denying the gospel
and leading other people in that direction. And that's why Paul
said this had to be dealt with publicly. That's intense, isn't
it? I put myself in Peter's place,
how embarrassed he must have been. I put myself in Paul's
place, how difficult this must have been to do. But this was
something that had to be done. Verse 12, for before that certain
came from James, and he's referring to what took place in Acts chapter
15 when some Jewish believers came to the church at Antioch.
and said, true, salvation is by grace, but you also need to
keep the law. You also need to be circumcised.
It was a Christ and. You need Christ and this and
that. It's salvation by works. Christ plus anything is salvation
by works. It's Christ alone. Who he is
and what he did is everything in salvation. Peter, before these
Jewish believers came, he was sitting at the table of the Gentiles.
He was to have a pork chop dinner with the Gentiles. He knew he
wasn't under law. He'd already made the statement, why do you
put a yoke upon the disciples' neck, which neither we or our
fathers were able to bear? Why are you trying to put these
Gentiles under law? We believe that through the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved, even as they.
Us Jews will be saved the way the Gentiles are. And Peter knew
this, and here he is eating at the table with the Gentiles,
eating pork, fellowshipping, having a good time, and all of
a sudden these Jewish believers move in. They came from Jerusalem,
came from James, and evidently these men were I mean, they said
they believed, but they didn't because they were trying to bring
people back under law. But Peter became nervous seeing
these men. He became afraid, and what he
did, he got up without saying a word and moved tables and sat
over here with the Jews. That's all he did. Now, he stopped eating with the
Gentiles and went to the table of the Jews. Why? Well, perhaps he reasoned with
himself. Now, these Jewish believers are
weaker brethren, and they still think they're under the law.
And maybe they think that I'm disrespecting the law and
disrespecting them by eating with the Gentiles, because they
wouldn't be eating with the Gentiles. So I'll just go get up without
saying anything. No one will notice. I'll just
get up and sit down here with the Jewish believers. And no
word will be said, and everything will be fine. Now, in doing that,
Paul said, here's what you've done, Peter. You've denied the
truth of the gospel. You've said Christ is not all
in salvation. You said, true, these Gentiles
are saved, but you can be a little bit more saved, a little bit
more pleasing to God, a little bit more holy and sanctified
by practicing these Jewish laws given in the law, and that makes
you a little bit better. And Paul called this hypocrisy. He called it not walking according
to the truth of the gospel. And he publicly reprimanded Peter
for doing this. Now, Peter, what happened? How
did you give in like this? What took place? What were you
thinking when you did this? Now, Paul used three words to
describe what Peter was doing. He says in verse 12, For before
that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles.
But when they came, he withdrew, and separated himself, fearing
them which were of the circumcision. Now here are three words used
to describe Peter's defection and his compromising of the gospel. He withdrew himself, he separated
himself, and he did this out of fear. Now this word, withdrew,
is also translated in Acts chapter 20, shun, where Paul said, I
have not shunned, declared unto you all the counsel of God. and it's translated kept back.
He said, I've kept back nothing that was profitable to you. It's
actually a nautical term and it's used to let the sails down,
just some, so you don't go quite so fast and the wind doesn't
drive you quite so fast. Now here's what happens when
someone is compromising. They think, well, I don't want
to offend this person, so I'm not going to bring out this particular
doctrine or that particular doctrine. Now I realize that it would be
mighty hard to preach everything you believe in one sermon. But
if I keep back anything in order to keep from offending someone,
if I make a concession, I say, well, I can preach a gospel,
but I don't have to preach election. I don't have to preach predestination.
I don't have to preach Christ's effectual redemption for the
elect. I can leave those out because I know people will become
offended and disturbed when I talk about stuff like that. So I'll
say everything I'll say you'll agree with. It'll be good, but
I'll leave out certain things. Now understand this. That's compromising
the gospel, and no one is ever saved through that kind of preaching.
That's trying to package the gospel in a certain way. I'm
trying to package it to make it appealing to the flesh, to
try to make this person more likely to receive it. And any
time you package the gospel, you destroy the gospel. Preach
the naked gospel and don't try to withdraw, don't try to keep
back, don't try to shun to declare all the counsel of God, and that's
what Peter was doing at this time. he was withdrawing himself,
and the scripture also said he separated himself. He no longer
wanted to be identified with the Gentiles. He separated himself
from them, not wanting to be identified with them. Now, it
says he did this through the fear of man, fearing them which
were of the circumcision." He didn't want to be identified
with the Gentiles, so he separated himself. He didn't want to be
identified with the message of pure free grace because he knew
people would be opposed to it. And this was all done out of
the fear of man. The wise man said, the fear of
man is a snare. It's a snare. The lust of the
flesh, the lust of the eyes, that's the fear of man. Being
more afraid about what men think and see than what God thinks
and sees. The fear of man. He withdrew, he separated himself
out of the fear of man. Now, look what Paul says in verse
13. and other Jews dissembled likewise
with him." Now, what he did was an act of dissimulation. It was
an act of hypocrisy. If you do something wrong, if
I do something wrong, people are always going to follow our
example. He had other Jews following his example. They thought, well,
if Peter can do it, maybe we ought to do it. And they got
up, and the other Jews dissembled likewise with him insomuch that
Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation, their
hypocrisy. Even Barnabas did this. Paul
saw this as a spreading infectious disease, and that's why he had
to stop it. You see, what was going on right
now was a denial that Christ is all in salvation. True, Christ
is very important. He's 99%, but you can make yourself
a little bit better by going over here under the Jewish table
and practicing circumcision and dietary laws and so on. You can
make yourself a little bit better, a little bit more sanctified,
a little bit more holy, a little bit more pleasing to God. That's
what was going on and that's what Paul was putting a stop
to. Now in verse 14, but When I saw that they walked not
uprightly, this walk from one table to another was not an upright
walk. It was a deceitful walk. It was
a sinful walk. It was a wrong walk. It was a
walk that was contrary to the truth of the gospel. Paul says,
but when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the
truth of the gospel, What is the truth of the gospel? Before
we look at what he said to Peter, what exactly is the truth of
the gospel? Now, I would like to read a few
verses of scripture from Luke chapter 18 if you want to know
what the truth of the gospel is, or we could go anywhere in
the New Testament, but I love this passage of scripture. In
verse 9 of Luke chapter 18, and he spake this parable unto certain
which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised
others. Two men went up into the temple
to pray. These are the two representative
men. You and I are in one of these two demographics. We're
represented by one of these two men. Two men went up into the
temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican, a despised
tax collector. The Pharisees stood and prayed
thus with himself, God, I thank thee that I'm not as other men
are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast
twice in the week and I give tithes of all that I possess.
And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much
as his eyes unto heaven. but smote upon his breast, saying,
God, be merciful. Literally, be propitious to me,
thee, sinner. I tell you, the Lord says, this
man who cried out, God, be merciful to me, thee, sinner, this man
went down to his house justified. justified. He said he was a sinner,
but Christ said he was justified. You know what that means? He
stood before the holy law of God without guilt. Perfect before God. No sin. Justified. Question is, how can
that be? Remember, we're asking what the
truth of the gospel is. The truth of the gospel is how
a sinner can be justified. Now, how is it this man, by his
own confession, said he was the sinner? And he knew God was holy
and God couldn't just up and sweep his sins under the carpet.
He said, God, be propitious to me, the sinner. Remove my guilt
to do something about my sin. I can't do anything about it.
Would you be pleased to remove it? Would you be merciful to
me, the sinner? And he went down to his house
justified. Now, this begs the question,
how? How can this be? Was he justified because he was
sorry? Was he justified because he prayed? Was he justified because
he repented? Was he justified because he believed?
Was he justified because he turned his life around? Was he justified
because he tried to keep the law? Was he justified because
he humbled himself? The answer to all these questions
is no, he was not justified by any of these things. He was justified
because God justified him. God justified him. You see, justification,
there's nothing you can do to get it. It's something God declares
you to be, and he justifies the sinner through Christ. You see, my sin, God took my
sin. I didn't take my sin. I remember
one time I was here listening to a preacher and he'd been caught
in some kind of scandal. And they were interviewing about
it, interviewing him about that scandal and the things that he
did. And he said, now I've taken that sin and I put it under the
blood. And I thought, oh, you think you've got the authority
to do that? You can just up and take your sin and put it under
the blood? Only God can do that. God took my sin and put my sin
on Christ. That's why he died on Calvary
Street. He was guilty. He was guilty
of my sin. My sin became his sin, and his
righteousness becomes my righteousness. I'm not justified because of
anything that I do. I'm justified because of what
God has done for me in Christ. He was propitious. He removed
his reason for anger through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and gave me his righteousness." Now, justification. This is the
truth of the gospel. Justification is by grace. It's
not by works. It's a gracious act of God. Justification
comes by the blood of Christ. Romans 5, 9 says we're justified
by his blood. You see, his blood actually washed
away the sins of everybody he died for. That's why I hate that
teaching that says that Jesus Christ can die for you and pay
for your sins, and you wind up in hell anyway. Why, that makes
his blood meaningless, and that makes the power of salvation
not his blood, but in you. And my friends, that's just not
true. We're justified by his blood. We're justified by faith.
Faith is the evidence that he's done something for me. I believe
the gospel. And we're justified by works.
Our works will prove whether or not we're justified. And I'm
not talking about works before men, that I try to show men how
good I am and it shows how I'm justified. Abraham's work proved
he believed God when he offered up his son, and there weren't
any men to observe this. He wasn't doing this to show
men his faith. But he offered up his son, believing
God's promise that God would raise him from the dead. He was
so sure that God's word was true. And we're justified by words.
The Lord said, by your words, you'll be justified, and by your
words, you'll be condemned. If I'm really justified, my words
will line up with the great glorious truth of justification. Now,
look what Paul says to Peter. But when I saw that they walked
not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto
Peter before them all, if thou being a Jew livest after the
manner of Gentiles and not as do the Jews, why do you compel,
why do you force the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? He's
saying, Peter, why are you telling somebody to do something that
you don't do? It's called hypocrisy. Now, Peter had blurred the lines
between law and grace and led others down this road. Now, how
embarrassed must Peter have been when Paul rebuked him like this?
I try to put myself in his place. Public embarrassment, I think
of times I've been embarrassed publicly and I still sting when
I think of them. It's just a horrible thing to experience, public humiliation. And Peter experienced public
humiliation at that time. Paul said, you're acting the
hypocrite. And can you imagine how difficult
this was for Paul to have to do this publicly? He loved Peter.
He didn't want to do this or get some kind of satisfaction
out of humiliating Peter. He was doing this for the sake
of the gospel because he loved the gospel of God's grace. And
I can imagine all the things people said about Paul for doing
this. Paul, really? Is it that big a deal? Paul,
you're so inflexible. You're one of those my way or
the highway guys. You're so self-righteous. You're
so judgmental. You're so narrow-minded. You're
so unapproachable. What arrogance to pick a public
quarrel with Peter like this and embarrass him. And how insensitive
to embarrass the church at Antioch that way. How narcissistic and
egocentric to place your convictions before the feelings of others.
Paul's a troublemaker, he makes no effort at unity. And I'm sure
Paul was judged harshly for this action, but Paul understood that
this action of Peter's undermined the truth of the gospel. Now, you can be sure he didn't
wanna do this, but he had to, because what Peter was doing
was undermining the truth of the gospel, that Christ is all
in salvation. There's one reason why I'm going
to be saved. Christ. That's it. Not because I did
anything. There's one reason I'm going
to be saved. Christ. Christ is all in salvation and
Peter blurred that line. Now how easily you and I can
compromise the gospel and we can even justify and vindicate
ourselves while we're doing it. If we compromise the gospel,
here are the components of compromise. First, we withdraw. We hold back
some aspect of the truth in order to keep from offending someone.
It's called removing the offense from the cross. We withdraw and
we separate ourselves. We don't want to be identified
with the message of pure, free grace. Christ is all, so we separate,
we remove ourselves from that. Fear of man is behind it. The
fear of man that bringeth a snare, more concerned about what men
think than God thinks. And such actions is the practice
of hypocrisy. It's acting. It's not being real. Paul called it hypocrisy. And
it's not walking uprightly according to the truth of the gospel. Now
here's the truth of the gospel. Christ is my justification for
God. Christ is all in my salvation. All God requires of me, He looks
to His Son for. And I'm looking to Christ the
same way. This is my only hope that everything God requires
of me, He looks to His Son for. That's my only hope. I wouldn't
claim anything else. That is the truth of the gospel.
And whenever someone is not walking uprightly according to the truth
of the gospel, they're always going to seek to compel people,
to force people, to guilt people into doing things that, in reality,
they don't do. You need to do this. You need
to start doing that. You need to keep the law. You
need to... Do I? Do I? You see, that kind of...
It's not real. It's just trying to put people
under pressure and forcing people to do things that are not so. Now, I realize that I'll be no
different than Peter, apart from the Lord preventing it, but one
of the things I love about this story is Peter's response. In 2 Peter, Chapter 3, verse
15. And to count that the longsuffering
of our Lord is salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul.
He was thankful for Paul's rebuke. Even as our beloved brother Paul
also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto
you, as also in all his epistles speaking in them of these things,
in which are some things hard to be understood. which they
that are unlearned and unstable rest, as they do also the other
scriptures, unto their own destruction." He realized that when Paul spoke
and when Paul wrote, it was scripture. It came from God and he called
him our beloved brother Paul. May God give me that spirit. Now we have this message on DVD
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