Galatians 2 - Living In Step With The Gospel
Tom Shrader examines Paul's confrontation of Peter in Galatians 2:11-14, where Peter withdrew from eating with Gentiles out of fear of the Judaizers. Through this dramatic clash between two apostles, Tom explores how the fear of man leads to gospel compromise and hypocrisy, while the fear of God keeps us aligned with gospel truth.
“Your kind of flinch is to be afraid of man. When you are, unplug, count to 15, and rather than fear of man, plug into fear of God. That's the antidote every time.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Galatians
Recorded: 2008
Duration: 57 min
Themes: fear, hypocrisy, confrontation, compromise, truth, courage, peer pressure, integrity, pastor, church leader, facing peer pressure, navigating conflict, compromising beliefs, elder, struggling with hypocrisy, new believer
Scripture: Galatians 1:17, Galatians 2:1-14, Acts 15:1-30, Romans 3, Romans 6:10-18
Theological Themes: gospel truth, justification, sanctification, apostolic authority, church unity, biblical confrontation, legalism, grace theology
Full Transcript
Open your Bibles to the book of Galatians chapter 2. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand and we will take our time here. Make sure we get you a Bible. If you get a Bible from us, it's page 631.
Our emphasis today, if you're following along with our study guide or if you were sharp as you listened last week, is on chapter 2, verses 11, 12, 13, and 14. I'm going to read those, and then we're going to go back to the beginning of chapter 2, try to get some context around that, and then make sure we understand what's happening here. Make sure we understand the scope and the issue that's in front of us, and then try to pull out some real practical applications.
In chapter 2, verse 11, Paul writes to the church of Galatia: "When Cephas (that's Peter) came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned. For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he (that's Peter) used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they came, Peter began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision. The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, and the result was that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy."
You might make a note there in verse 13 - underline, circle, whatever - see that word "hypocrisy" twice. That becomes really important. Verse 14: "When I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter, in the presence of all" - this is a public confrontation. Here's the way I described it this morning: he "brewed" him. He's in his face. Very clever. See, it's a slow rumbling. The people from Tucson will be the last to join in as they get there.
"I opposed him to his face. I said it in the presence of all" - so this was in front of cameras and everything. "If you, being a Jew, live like a Gentile, not like a Jew, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?"
The Battle for Grace
This is a big issue. We continue, in a sense, to look at one giant issue - you catch it in the title of the study: fighting for grace. When we talk about grace in this context, we're talking about the gospel. We're talking about the battle that goes on for the gospel. This event that we have in front of us today is one of those that really begins to help us deal with all of this.
I was talking to Tyler last night - Tyler's teaching in Arcadia today, Rick is teaching in Tempe, and I think Justin is teaching at Gateway. We all are doing this section. Really, this section is verses 11 through 14, but the way that I've chosen to do it is just break that up a little bit. We're all teaching essentially the same thing.
Tyler called last night, and we were talking about something dealing with the lesson, going back and forth about how you're going to deal with this, and what you're going to do with this. I said there's an issue in here that perhaps could confuse things. I think first hour, at least for some, I did confuse them. So let me see if I can do this better.
The Timing Question
In the big scope of things, it doesn't really matter to our day-to-day, but it is kind of interesting, especially as we look at Peter in this. That's the timing of this meeting that we're going to look at today, this confrontation, chronologically.
We know from the book of Acts that Paul made four trips to Jerusalem. One, we already looked at. That's what we saw in chapter 1, verse 17, when he talked about he went to Jerusalem. Remember, he met with Peter. This was not really a theological discussion. It was 15 days. It was more, "let's see how we are as colleagues, let's compare notes." I'm sure they talked theology, but it was not that. Paul goes out of his way to say this was not a training time.
Then there's a time where Paul takes an offering to the churches at Jerusalem. If you look at verse 10, chapter 2, verse 10: "They" (that's Peter, James, John) "ask us to remember the poor, the very thing I also was eager to do." The churches in Jerusalem were very poor. We're talking dollars now. As the gospel spread, especially to the Gentiles, the Gentiles had more money, and he's saying, "well, you remember that." So there's a time when Paul brings an offering to Jerusalem.
Then in Acts chapter 15, there's the first council of Jerusalem. Then at the end of the book of Acts, Paul moves through there on his way to Rome. It's this first council of Jerusalem that becomes the issue timing-wise.
The issue was: did this incident we're looking at now come before or after the council of Jerusalem, or is it in fact, in this chapter 2, the very council itself? In the overall arching scope of things, I don't think it matters a ton. You have scholars all over the place on this. I typically use guys that are pretty solid commentary scholars, and they seem to be divided on it. Where it becomes practical is just understanding Paul's role in this.
Paul's Constant Challenge
Paul has a constant problem in his ministry, and that is false teachers who seem to follow him wherever he goes. The minute he comes to a city and
The Ongoing Battle Against False Teachers
Paul faces a persistent problem throughout his ministry. Everywhere he goes to preach, certain opponents follow and stir up people against him. They challenge his gospel message and his authority - an ongoing battle that was Paul's problem, but it's ours as well.
These opponents are called Judaizers. They would come in and undermine Paul by saying, "Here's what Paul says, but he's not really an apostle like James, Peter, and John. He's not of that caliber, and he's preaching a different message than they were preaching." Since they didn't have the ability to Google or call or Skype to check this out, these false teachers could claim, "I came from James," and people had no way to verify their claims.
The False Gospel of Judaism Plus Christianity
The Judaizers presented a specific issue. Remember, early on the gospel was preached by Jews to Jews, but now it was being moved out into the Gentile world. The Judaizers wanted Judaism plus Christianity.
They said, "Listen, for a Gentile to become a Christian, just like when a Gentile became a Jew, they would circumcise him. That would be part of the whole process." Paul said no - you don't need to do that anymore. We're not under the law anymore. We're free. Jesus fulfilled the law. We don't have any requirement.
Let's make sure we understand the gospel. We're sinners under guilt and the punishment of the wrath of God - eternal separation from God. That's the punishment. But Christ died to set us free from that. The Judaizers would come along and say, "No, if you want to be a Christian, you're going to have to be a Jew also."
The Judaizers' Clear Message
If you keep your finger in Galatians, go to Acts chapter 15, verse 1. You'll get the anthem of these Judaizers, and it's real simple: "Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren," and here's what they said: "Unless you are circumcised according to the customs of Moses, you cannot be saved."
In our study in Galatians over the next several weeks, we'll be directly dealing with essentially this very same issue - the question of what is the gospel. Paul's been very clear that the gospel is salvation by grace through faith. Anything other than that is not just a tweaking of the gospel - it's not still the gospel with some variations. It's a different gospel. It's a false gospel.
This is a huge issue. To the Jews, circumcision was their heritage, their sacred mark, the command they had received from God. In the past, if a Gentile became a Jew, he had to be circumcised - that's what the law required. But not anymore, not into the Christian faith.
The Core Issue We Return to Again and Again
That's the issue we come back to again and again and again - the gospel. What's the gospel? We're going to come back to that every week. That's at the core of what we preach, teach, and think. It becomes the answer and the solution to all that we look at in life and what God did for us.
Paul's Defense: The Jerusalem Meeting
So Paul begins to defend that gospel. In Galatians 2:1-2: "After an interval of 14 years, I went up again to Jerusalem" - remember, he had made that trip before, but this is a different trip. "I went up with Barnabas, and also took Titus along. It was because of a revelation that I went up; and I submitted to them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but I did so in private to those who were of reputation, for fear that I might be running, or had run, in vain."
Here's what Paul is saying: He goes to Jerusalem and has two traveling companions. One is Barnabas, who played a huge role in Paul's life. When Paul was converted and began to preach, the Jews were very suspicious. Barnabas becomes the bridge that comes in and says, "No, no, no, guys, this is a new creature. People change. People are different. He's been redeemed." Barnabas, the son of encouragement.
Paul also has Titus, the Greek, who's an uncircumcised Greek. Titus becomes the perfect illustration of the issue - he's a product of Paul's ministry, the very ministry that the Judaizers are saying is false or inaccurate.
Meeting with the Pillars of the Church
Paul comes to submit to them - the word means literally "to lay before them for their consideration" - the gospel. The "them" refers to Peter, James, and John. This is James, the half-brother of Jesus, and others who might have been gathered together.
In verse 2, Paul identifies them as "those of reputation." In verse 6, he says they were "of high reputation" and "of reputation." In verse 9, they were "of reputation and reputed to be pillars" of the church. Four times, Paul seems to insert and elevate these guys.
We don't know exactly why, but one possibility is that he's being sarcastic. The accusation has been, "Oh, they're the real apostles, you aren't," and he's got a little tongue-in-cheek response. At the very least, he's saying, "Listen, I talked to the guys that you all say are the men. In fact, they're identified as the pillars of the church. They're the ones to whom I presented this gospel. These are the ones who have the authority, who are seen as the men."
Presenting the Gospel to Jerusalem
So he comes and presents this gospel to them. It's the gospel that he had preached, and it's the gospel that he was preaching. He's coming, by the way, not to validate the gospel, because he understands it's the gospel from God. He comes because what he wants to avoid is any sort of split in the church over this gospel issue. People are coming in and trying to drive a wedge between Paul and what he's teaching, Peter, James, and John, and the church in Jerusalem.
The First Jerusalem Council
Now, keep your finger there, and I want to take you over to the section in Acts chapter 15 that has in it the first council of Jerusalem, and you'll see that the circumstance is very similar. There's some variation. You'll see really quickly why some guys would say, "No, no, no, that's not what we're talking about there in Galatians," and others would say, "No, it's the same thing."
So some men came down, they said, verse 1, "Unless you're circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you can't be saved." When Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them, the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and some of the others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders concerning this issue. So the church in Antioch says, "You need to go."
Remember we saw Paul says in Galatians chapter 2 verse 2 that he went as a result of revelation, that God revealed this to him. Now maybe God revealed it to him through the church and the leaders, who knows? But they said, "You need to go."
The Church's Response in Jerusalem
So what happens is, verse 4, they arrive in Jerusalem, they're received by the church, the apostles, the elders, and they reported all that God had done through them. So here's Paul and Barnabas—and we don't get this, but Paul and Barnabas are there, Barnabas—and this becomes really important later on. Barnabas is part of this.
They said, "Here's what God's done. We preached the gospel, here's the gospel we preached, here's how God's come along, there have been signs, wonders, miracles, people were being saved, doors are open." But some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up and said it's necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to observe the law of Moses. So there's the issue again.
Peter's Declaration
The apostles and the elders came together to look into this matter, and after there had been much debate, Peter stood up. Now again, you've got to pay attention to this so we can tie it together at the end. This is Peter now, and here's what he said: "Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God who knows the hearts testified to them, giving them the Holy Spirit just as He did us, and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. And now therefore, why do you put God to the test by placing upon the necks of the disciples a yoke which neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? But we believe that we are saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus in the same way they were saved."
So Peter in a way there flips this around, and he doesn't go, "They're saved like us." He says, "We're saved like them."
The Verdict and Its Reception
All the people kept silent. They were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they were relating the story, the signs and wonders through all that was going on. James now stands up, he delivers the verdict, and the verdict is this: salvation's by grace through faith, and there's nothing that I can add to that.
Verse 30, they sent them away to Antioch. They gather the church together at Antioch, they bring the letter from Jerusalem, and when they read it they rejoice. Why? Well, because they've got this gospel, there's nothing that needs to be added to it. They spend some time, they sent them away, Paul and Barnabas stay and teach. So that's the story of the first Jerusalem council.
Back to Galatians: The Private Meeting
Let's go back now to Galatians chapter 2. They've gone to Jerusalem, they present it—it may or may not be the same event. Now we saw, for example, that in what we looked at there in Acts chapter 15, it seemed to be very much a public setting. We see here in verse 2 of chapter 2 it was a private setting. Doesn't necessarily mean that it wasn't private before the public—you get that, you get what's going on.
Verses 3, 4, and 5—one of the scholars writes this—verses 3, 4, and 5 are "a shipwreck of Greek grammar." Most of the scholars say this is so convoluted that it's very difficult to unpack. But we can grab the big idea. It's right there in verse 3: "But not even Titus who was with me, though he was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised."
The Case of Titus
So here's the big idea: when they listened to the gospel that Paul preached, they found they were in total agreement with it. So here's exhibit A: Titus, Greek, uncircumcised. When they were done listening to Paul's testimony, presumably listening to Barnabas and Titus as well, they said there's no reason to circumcise him. Why? He's already a believer. There's nothing he has to go through, there's nothing to add to that.
On the human side, one author writes this—it's kind of cool: "Of course this is a daring step of Paul to take Titus with him at all. Thus to introduce a Gentile into the headquarters of the Jerusalem church could have been interpreted as a deliberate act of provocation. In a sense it probably was, although Paul's motive was not provocative. It was not in order to stir up strife that he brought Titus with him to Jerusalem, but in order to establish the truth of the gospel. The truth is that Jews and Gentiles are accepted by God on the same terms, namely through faith in Jesus Christ, and must therefore be accepted by the church without discrimination between them."
Standing Against False Brethren
Paul comes along and he says, "This is what we did." I'll read you verses four and five: "And it was because of the false brethren who were secretly brought in, who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage. But we did not yield in subjection to them, even
for an hour, so that, here's the key, the truth of the gospel remained with you. He said, here are these guys who secretly moved in. Listen to J.B. Phillips' paraphrase of verses three and four: "Not one of them intimated that Titus, because he was a Greek, ought to be circumcised. In fact, the suggestion would have never arisen, but for the presence of some pseudo-Christians who wormed their way into our meeting to spy on our liberty we enjoy in Jesus Christ, and then attempted to tie us up with rules and regulations."
Jesus said, "You'll know the truth, the truth will set you free." Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, the life, no one comes to the Father but through me." In the gospel, we don't find ourselves, let's use Phillips' words, tied up in rules and regulations. We find ourselves set free.
Four Areas of Freedom in Christ
One of the things that we talk about here at Gilbert regularly is the freedom we have in Christ. We point out it's freedom in four areas. So if this is something that is familiar to you, hang on, we'll be right back to you. If it's brand new, you're going to love it. When we are placed in Christ, when we believe in Jesus, when we come to Him in repentance and faith, we are set free. I'll give you four of them.
Number one: freedom from the bondage of sin. Paul writes this in Romans chapter six, verse 10: "For the death that Jesus died, He died to sin once and for all, but the life He lives, He lives to God. Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, alive to God. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lust. Don't go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present them to God."
Verse 18: "Thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you became obedient from the heart, that the form of teaching which I committed to you, and you have been freed from sin and now become slaves to righteousness." Before we came to Christ in repentance and faith, all we could do is sin because our heart was at war with God. Our deeds were but filthy rags. Paul says it in Romans three: "No one does good, no not one." I'm in bondage to sin. All I can do is sin.
But now in Christ, I'm broken, and I now have the ability to enslave myself to Christ, not to sin. So you can't go around saying, "I'm just a little boy who can't say no. The devil made me do it." You can't go along with that anymore. You are free from the bondage of sin. It's not the end of the struggle, by the way. Paul goes on and says, "The things I do, I don't want to do. The things I don't want to do, I do." So it's an ongoing struggle, but now you have the power of the Holy Spirit in you to begin to want to do the things of God. It's Him who starts that work in you and continues it. Part of that is to put in your heart the desire to please God, to be His.
Freedom from Death's Uncertainty
Here's the second thing: freedom from the agony of death. Freedom from the agony of dying—not the physical part of it, but from the unknown of that. We know Christians, we know people who love Jesus. Some die very quickly, some die over a period of time. I was talking about my father and the way my father died. To me, it seems like it'd be the way I'd want to go.
It was a Saturday night. He watched Lawrence Welk. He went upstairs and died. I always point out that there's no cause and effect necessarily between those two. My point is, he went. The doctor said for all practical purposes, he didn't even know what happened. Before he hit the ground, he's gone. Forty-five minutes later, they said he's dead. He could have died anywhere.
You know others who've been overextended over a period of time. But it's the uncertainty of what happens after death. It's not the end of the agony of dying. Some of you are going to die very quickly. Some of us may die in a very slow, arduous, awful, painful way. But we know that there's life after death.
Freedom from Eternal Condemnation
It's the third thing: free from the curse or free from the bondage of our eternal destiny. So now we're free from hell to heaven. I think about this regularly. I don't think about it very long because I'm not sure I know exactly how to answer it, and I'm not into wasting brain cells on stuff that doesn't matter. Though I spent ten minutes this morning looking at University of Iowa football recruiting for next year. I said to Neil, "Why do I put myself through this already? This is stupid."
That aside, here's what I think about. This is an amazing thought: right now, Susan is with Jesus. It is an amazing thought. I'm absolutely certain of that. I'm confident of it. I know she loved Him, gave her life to Him. He responded. He saved her. The Bible says to be absent from the body is present with the Lord. That's where she is right now. That's an amazing thought.
But I don't have to wonder. I've been to funerals where you go, "There's no way this cat's in heaven." Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. You don't have to wonder today. Here's what we know: unless Jesus comes quickly, all of us are going to die. Statistics on death are impressive: one out of one people die. So we know you're going to die. The question is, we know there's life after death—heaven or hell—but you can know today where you'll spend eternity. Do you know that? If your answer is, "I'm not sure, I think, probably, maybe," then I would say when this service is over, you get right up front to talk to men and women who'll be in the front of the room.
Freedom to Be Yourself
I add this as a fourth freedom because I think it's huge: you're free to be the person that God created you to be. So often, and we're going to see this, we're going to get there, trust me, when
Peter goes awry and now starts to act in a hypocritical way, motivated by this fear of man. You're free, and that's so much. We want to be what mom thought we should be or dad thought we should be, or we have some sort of jealousy, and we can't accept that God just gifts and deals with people differently.
The average size of a church in America, I don't know if you know this, is 75 people. So this morning, you have guys who are preaching to churches of 10 or 20 or 75 or 500 or 1,000 or 2,000 or 10,000—it doesn't matter. We humanly begin to grade that and think one is better than the other. If a guy's at a church of 1,000, he wants to have 2,000. It just seems to be totally unhealthy, but it seems even the church is not removed from this.
You have it in business or you have it in school, you have it in athletics, whatever it might be, where you just have this jealousy. This person has that—you have gift envy, talent envy. Just be the person that God's called you to be. Some of you He's made very talented, some of us are not. Some very gifted, some of us are not. You're free, you don't have to try to perform. That's the big thing—you don't have to perform anymore. Just be you.
The Leaders Affirm Paul's Gospel
After this, here's what happens now. Verse six: "But from those who were of high reputation"—he adds parenthetically, "what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no impartiality"—"those who were of reputation contributed nothing to me, but on the contrary, seeing that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised, for He who effectively worked for Peter in his apostleship to the circumcised effectively worked for me also to the Gentiles."
"And they"—that was a parenthetical insert again—"recognized the grace that had been given to me, James, Peter, John, who were the pillars of the church, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship so that we might go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised."
Here's what they're saying. When these guys heard all of this, when Paul uses that phrase in verse six, "they contributed nothing to me," what he's saying is, I presented them the gospel that I preached, and they didn't bring anything to the conversation. They didn't tweak it, they didn't add to it, they didn't change it, they didn't edit it, they didn't amend it. They simply said, yes, that's the gospel. They affirmed that.
By the way, their affirmation didn't make it the gospel—it was the gospel all the way along. But what now people are going, and again you have this, that Bible's always going to take place, but now what you have is this unified front as the gospel moves to the Gentiles, out from the Jews.
One Gospel, Different Contexts
So even as we're talking about the gospel that Paul preached, or we might use terms like Paul's gospel, Peter's gospel, James' gospel, John's gospel, I want to make sure we get this. It's not their gospel and there's four different gospels. It's the same gospel, but it may be preached in four different ways. You get this from the discussion.
Obviously, if you're preaching the gospel to the Jews, circumcision's going to be an issue. You know, right now, literally right now, we've got 300 kids plus up at winter camp. So you have kids in there that know Christ, some who don't. You're going to talk about all sorts of things, but you're going to present it in a context there that's going to be a little bit different than maybe if I'm sitting here with you all on a Sunday morning. So the issue is not that the gospel changed, the issue is that from person to person, in terms of application, the context changed.
This, by the way, is not hard. It's not difficult to understand. I'm watching Haley right now, primarily, Tyler too, deal with Braden in particular in the gospel—Braden's 6. You're not going to sit down and talk to Braden the same way that you would to a 16-year-old or a 26-year-old. But the gospel doesn't change. And that's exactly what Paul is saying.
So he's writing to the church. Remember the context. He's writing to this church that has been infiltrated by men who are saying, Paul's not an apostle, he's not genuine, he's not real, and he's preaching a gospel other than the one true gospel. And he writes back and says, that's not the case. Just to be clear on this, though it wasn't necessary, I went up and met with Peter, James, and John, all these other people. I told them what's happened here. I told them the gospel. And now as they sat and listened to it, their conclusion was, in fact, it is the gospel indeed.
Remembering the Poor
Verse 10: "Then they only ask us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do." They dropped in the practical aspect of this. Martin Luther wrote, "Next to the proclamation of the gospel, it's the task of a good pastor to be mindful of the poor." Then the commentator continues, "A gospel-preaching church does not forget the poor, especially suffering Christians around the world, but remembers to take care of them." And when it came to the poor, the apostle set a good example.
So we're talking here about poor, people who need stuff. I'm a middle class, white, conservative, evangelical. The problem with guys like us, though I'm not one of them, the problem with guys like us is they fall into this conservative Republican mindset that says, just pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Well, let me help you out, pal. There's a whole bunch of people who don't have any bootstraps to grab.
There's some people who need, just because of the stage of life and where they are, they need help. And some of them are fellow believers, and Paul is saying to us, help them. There should be a special place in here. It should be a safe place. Now, I'll go on, because I talk about poor in spirit, poor relationally, poor needy. We're a place where needy people should come. But he's also saying there's some, and the poorest among us, and again, they're all around us.
And let me tell you another thing he says. He doesn't say, check their green card before you give them a basket of food. It's the Good Samaritan. He said, you got a brother, a neighbor in need, you meet the need. But that's the point.
Now, I love it when I read, we love Luther, man. That ought to beat up a whole bunch of guys. We love Luther. Other than the proclamation of the gospel, it's the task of a good pastor to be mindful of the poor, the poor in our community, the poor in our area. And we got all sorts of ways that we can work through this. When I close today, I think I'll probably put more in there.
A Cataclysmic Confrontation
Let's look at verse 11, 12, 13, and 14. This is now at a cataclysmic moment. One author writes, this is without a doubt one of the most tense and dramatic episodes in the New Testament. Here, two leading apostles of Jesus Christ came face to face in complete and open conflict.
Here's what's cool to think about. These guys were both Christians. They're both men of God. They've both been forgiven of their sin through Christ. They're both received and are filled with the Holy Spirit. They're both apostles, both called, both commissioned, both invested with authority by Him, both honored for the churches with their leadership.
Another author writes this. This is an awkward moment. It was an awkward moment to say the least. It's always embarrassing when a fight breaks out at the church, but this one was a real doozy. For one thing, it took place at a church potluck where everyone is supposed to be having a good time. For another thing, the combatants were pillars of the church. It was Peter against Paul, two apostles in a face-to-face knock-down, drag-out showdown.
The battle was completely unexpected. The two men had been friends ever since they got acquainted in Jerusalem. The last time they were together, Peter had given Paul the right hand of fellowship. We talked about that before. That's that affirmation. But this time, Paul is opposing Peter right to his face.
The Scene Shifts to Antioch
When we get to verse 11, the scene changes from Jerusalem to Antioch. Peter's come down. Don't know why. Could be just curiosity. It could be to see his old buddy. Could be he's checking things out. It really doesn't matter. He came down.
When he came down, Paul says he stood, verse 11, condemned. That word means he didn't lose his salvation, but he was guilty of a sin by taking a position and an action he knew was wrong. That's why it's called, in verse 11, hypocrisy. It's not like the Judaizers in the gospel here. They came along teaching a false gospel. Peter came along, and he knew what to do. He just decided not to do it.
So I thought maybe take five minutes and look at each guy real quickly and ask the question, what did Peter do, what did Paul do? Why did Peter do this, why did Paul do this, and the result of that?
What Peter Did
So what Peter did, we see, is that he, in verse 12, used to eat with the Gentiles, but when they came, this is the men from James, the Judaizers, he began to withdraw from them for fear of the party of the circumcision. So what had happened in Peter's life is that he had shaken off any sort of the remnants of Judaism and the idea that somehow he would be unclean if he engaged with these Gentiles and were contaminated by eating with them.
So there's a wonderful movie. How many of you have seen or have a copy of the movie Peter and Paul? How many of you have a copy of that movie? Oh, good. One. That's so cool. That just speaks to me. I've recommended that movie, what, 100 times? That is so cool, that means so much to me to see that. We'll do it one more time. This is a wonderful movie. I think primarily made for television. And as you go through, you will be stunned how scripturally accurate it is. So you've got Peter, well, Paul is played by Anthony Hopkins.
And this scene is depicted in the movie. And in the movie, here's Peter, and he's eating and he's feasting. He's just eating this meat, and there's just stuff dripping all over him. It's a glorious scene. So he's eating with them, celebrating with them, rejoicing with them, singing with them, not just the Lord's Supper, but just eating together with them.
And then all of a sudden, the Judaizers come. And he begins. Look at the language here. He used to eat with them. There's that past tense. But now he began to withdraw from them. The word that's described there, withdraw, it means to forcibly, cautiously, timidly shrink away. He didn't just say, I'm out of here. I mean, it's hypocrisy, and he knows it, and it's embarrassing. So it's like, I can't come tonight. Tonight's not a good night. I get my nails done. I can't figure it out. Wait, I can feel the barometric pressure is changing. All of these things, over a period of time, he withdraws from.
Why Peter Did This and Its Results
Why did he do this? Well, he did it because he's afraid. He's insincere. It's not a theological issue here. It's fear of man that's driving him away. And the result of this is really catastrophic. Verse 13, the result is that Barnabas is even carried away with this. That's Peter, that's what he did, that's why he did it, that's the result.
What Paul Did
Here's what Paul did. He in verse 11 opposed Peter to his face, he stood right before him. I'm sure, because I know this, I'm sure there were people saying, Paul, it's time to be measured, so be careful, watch out. We don't want this going on, and he did it publicly, because you see that in verse 14, I did it before all. Paul, if you want to do it, why didn't you just grab Peter's side? And Paul's going, I can't do that, because the offense was public, I got to deal with it publicly. If it had been a private matter, we would have done it that way, and perhaps here we are 2,000 years later, we would have never even known about it. But he confronts him, why did he do it? Well,
He did it because the stakes were huge. He didn't do it because he's just a contentious guy. He did it, verse 14, for the truth of the gospel. It's the gospel, and then the ramifications of it in our life. He did it to break down these barriers that kept popping up, saying listen, Jesus came and shattered all of these things, and yet we keep putting them back in there again.
We can't say, this would be Paul's argument, we can't say that we're all equal, and then say we're not going to eat together. The result of it, we don't know explicitly, so now this is really dangerous. I'm going to see if I can tie this part together.
The Stakes of Peter's Compromise
Remember when I said that scene in Acts 15? If the Acts 15 Council of Jerusalem had already taken place, now Peter really looks condemned, because he's the guy who stood up there and said, wait a minute, they're like us. There's no second-class citizens here in the body of Christ. In terms of entering the body and treating them, there's no Jew or Gentile, male or female, there's none of these. Black, white, young, old. So if it's after that, boy, this had huge ramifications.
So what you see is, let's make sure we get this Peter guy. Here's a powerful guy, a pillar of the church. Here's what this shows you: anybody can fall. Anybody can fall into this, especially if you come back and make the point in a minute, if it's fear of men.
If this precedes the first Jerusalem Council, then what we can say is, boy, these guys really learned from this. They went through it, they're embarrassed by whatever it might be, and now Peter, and I keep forgetting, and Barnabas. Think about Barnabas. Barnabas is the guy that had worked side-by-side with Paul all the way through. Now they get to the very end of this, and he's going, I'm going to pull away too.
The Power of Fear
So you see the power of not just sin, but the power especially, I'm going to say, of just one particular issue. It's there in verse 12: it's the fear of man. He says that in this process, he began to withdraw from them because of the fear of man. He withdrew, and he held himself aloof.
Understand that these guys that came down from James really didn't have any authority over them. Couldn't beat them, or stone them, or lock them up. All they could do was put a little bit of pressure on him, humiliate him. Here's what John MacArthur writes: "The most the Judaizers could have done against Peter is ridicule and malign him in Jerusalem as their fellow Judaizers would later malign Paul. Peter's afraid of that, losing popularity, prestige, with a group of self-righteous hypocrites whose doctrines was heretical and his tactics were deceitful."
Peter was not unlike most Christians in finding it difficult to be consistent in spiritual commitment. He would show great courage and conviction and then stumble. He would staunchly defend the faith and then he'd succumb to the compromise. When he did that in Antioch, he played into the hands of the Judaizers who must have been elated to have drawn this great apostle into their camp by practice, not by perception.
What made Peter do this fear of man? This seems to be, by the way, his flinch. "I never knew Him, I never knew Him, I never knew Him." So we're coming back to this.
The Antidote to Fear
Now I'm done with Peter because it's fashion at this point to beat Peter up and just whip him. So let's not do that, let's beat you up instead. Because that's what motivates most of us.
Now I'm going to give you a principle. This is really important. If I were at winter camp right now, here's what I would say: Look up here. Look up here and get this. This is basic. Here you go.
I got my TV on this week. I got sound, I can change channels, I can see all the digital stuff, the volume. No picture. No picture. Now here's what I know: I am not a neophyte to television. I can call Cox. I can wait. "We'll be with you. Have you thought about extending your package? We'd like to sell you more, even though it's not working, the stuff we've already sold." I could do that. I could listen to somebody who would say, "Yes, Mr. Schroeder, this is Joanne, can I help you? Can you push this button?" I could go through all of that.
Or I can go over, I can unplug this thing, count to 15, and plug it back in. And 99 times out of 100, whatever was wrong gets fixed. But this is the first time I've ever lost my picture. But I know it's not the television because I can see all the other things. So I go over and I unplug the TV. One, two, three, fourteen, fifteen, plug in. And then I go and I get a cup of coffee and I move some stuff around and I read and I come back and, voila, a picture. Every time. Every time.
Unplugging from Fear of Man
Now, get this. What's that have to do with this? Hopefully this: Your flinch is to be afraid of man. When you are, unplug, count to 15, and rather than fear of man, plug into fear of God. That's the antidote every time.
So what is it? Everything that Peter needs, he has in the gospel. What are you afraid of man? What are they going to do? That's what Jesus said. Why would you be afraid of somebody else that can kill you, but after they do, they have no authority over you? So what are you afraid of?
Every time I act in a way where I'm afraid, I'm saying to God, I don't trust You. And I'm not advocating here. I'm not stupid. I'm not naive. I got the fact that it's a scary world. And you can pick all of those different areas. I got it. I understand suffering and pain. I've been through that. I'm not saying it doesn't hurt, but I don't need to be afraid of it, because He who began the good work in me will continue it to the day of Christ Jesus, and somehow He'll redeem His suffering. And while I may not even understand or ever understand why, ultimately, plug in, my good is glory.
So whatever, maybe you're sitting here today, and it's that fear of man, and that fear of man is so much. So maybe you're just a greedy little person.
The Fear of Man at the Heart of Our Actions
Greed. But why are you greedy? Well, you want more. Why do you want more? So people will think better about you. So when you're taking you and the kids—you're brand new to Redemption Church, and somebody ventures out and they say, "Why don't you come over to our house for dinner? Well, okay, bring the kids."
So as you're driving over, you stop right at the corner, and you say, "All right, listen to me. I'm going to tell you one time." You know the discussion: "I'm telling you, you know how to act." Why do you do that? Look at how pathetic you are. It's not for the kids' own good. You don't care about the kids. It's not about the kids. If it was about the kids, you'd be constant in that. If it was about the kids, you wouldn't have to stop. You'd go, "Hey, guys, let's behave." That's all you'd have to do. You are petrified that these people are going to see your kids misbehave and think less of you.
It's everything. It's at the core of all. Everything I unpack when I'm all done, most of the time, it's fear of man.
The Dating Game and Self-Deception
Here you go. You're dating. So in this process of dating, you have a date. But then you date again. You go, "Hmm, this might be good." Then you date again.
Now here's what happens. As you're dating and you really like the other person, rather than let them see who you really are, you're going to withhold from them because if they see who you really are, you know pretty confidently that they don't want to have anything to do with you. So you take all those attributes that might be okay and you make them great. You take all those things that are absolutely terrible and you minimize them.
The Freedom of Coming to God as We Are
So here you go. Is this repetitious? Yes. Do I say this about every Sunday? Sure I do. And I don't even apologize for it anymore. When I come to God, I don't need to play that game. I don't need to go, "God, boy, look at this. I'm in church. It's Sunday. He's droning on for the third week in a row about salvation by grace through faith. I'm going to be here next Sunday and the next Sunday and the next Sunday and hear this. God, I'm a heck of a guy."
Here you go. He knows you aren't. He knows all of those secrets. You don't have to. I got everything in Him.
The Only Opinion That Ultimately Matters
When ultimately when all this is said and done—now I'll just speak—I want my kids to love me and respect me. I really do. I want you to like me. I really, I mean I do. I don't sit and think about it. But I mean I want you to like me. I don't want you to walk around like, "Ah, he's awful."
But ultimately, not in a cavalier sense, the only one that really matters is what does God think? That's not a license to be a jerk.
The Gospel Is Always the Answer
So it's always the gospel. By the way, the study guide this week was particularly good. Keller writes this: "Paul is showing us that we are changed by the power of God when we bring the gospel truth to bear in every area of our life. Second, Paul is showing that we never get beyond the gospel in our Christian life into something that's more advanced. It's not just the ABCs, but the A to Z of Christianity."
It's always the same answer. It's always the same thing. Count to 15, fear of God. Almost always when you unpack your heart, it's fear of man. And God is saying, "I care."
Peter's Problem Is Our Problem Too
Let me give you just this a little bit. What's happening here too has a little bit of racism in it, a little bit of judgmentalism in it. One of the things that you would ask is, "How are you like Peter?"
Every year during February, I'll read a biography of Malcolm X. I'll read—I just was looking again—there's a guy named Stephen Oates who wrote a biography on Martin Luther King Jr. And he wrote one called "Malice Toward None" on Lincoln. I loved it. In particular, this biography on King. I'm a middle class, lower middle class, a middle class white guy in Davenport, Iowa. So I'm going to plead ignorance, but I don't know that that's fair. Here's what I do know. You can't read that and not be ashamed of the way the white community in this country treated the black community.
So when they say the most segregated hour in the South was on Sunday, that only adds—that's the very thing that Peter's doing.
When Politics Divides the Church
So we look around us. And in the church, I'm not sure we haven't elevated things way out of proportion. So you have evangelical Christianity so tied together with the Republican Party that you can't even separate them. So I will have people who ask, and they're serious about this. This would be exactly this issue applied to us. They would say to me, "Do you think you can be a Democrat and be a Christian?" I'd say, "Are you kidding?"
Now, I got the differences. You don't need emailing—my golly, I've earned my stripes. I'm a free market capital, yada, yada, yada. So forget your emails, okay? I don't need your—almost slipped there. Everybody's been waiting. Everybody's been waiting 20 years for that slip. That was close, okay? I don't need your emails. I got it.
"What part of illegal don't you understand?" Well, what part of "love your neighbor as yourself" don't you understand? There are political issues. I got it. But this thing has gotten really goofy, and I'm not sure how healthy it is. And I'm a big political guy.
Our Ultimate Priority
But here, I want you to see this. Let's say we lock down the border. Let's say we balance the budget. None of this, by the way, is going to happen. None of this is going to happen. Not one of these things are going to happen, even close. Not even close. Let's say we retool education. Let's say we do all that. We still got a nation where you got a whole bunch of people that don't know Jesus.
So I got it. I want those of you that are called, I want you to be in the political arena, wherever God calls you. Our ultimate issue here is to be really careful, because we're dividing over things like politics. A balanced budget amendment. God's view on—
a balanced budget amendment. What do you think God's view on a balanced budget is? I mean, I can come up with something, which is probably for it, but am I going to divide on that? See, that's what Peter was doing. These guys came along and said, "Wait a minute. Those are gentiles. Be careful. Watch out." Peter runs out of fear of man.
So all I say now here, by application, is what are those things in your life that are like that? Because they're all over. Because that's our flinch. That's always going to be our flinch. Fear of man rather than fear of God. Solution is always at the gospel. At the core of the gospel is the cross.
So if you're over in the conference center, Brian's going to come and close your service here in the chapel. Tim's going to come, lead you in communion, and then lead us. I had a chance to worship first hour, and I will tell you, we don't sit down. I guess Tim and the guys doing the music understand the passages we're going to cover. This music today, in terms of words, perfect way to end this service here this morning.
Let me pray as Tim comes. Father, thank You for this amazing truth. Put it in our life. Give us a courage to live in a way that's pleasing and honoring to You. God, thank You for the gospel. God, let our flinch be not fear of man but fear of You. Respect, honor. We pray that in Christ's name. Amen.