The Danger Within

Galatians chapter 2, and we're gonna be looking at verses 11 through 14. And the title of the message this morning is Walking What We Believe. Walking what we believe. Raise your hands, guys.

How many of you in this room would say enthusiastically, And honestly, I believe the gospel. OK, that's most all of us. Put your hands down. How many of you have this past week, always behaved consistently with gospel truth?

Raise your hand. OK, mine is the only hand up apparently. none of us. So, this message is for all of us.

We're gonna learn about walking, what we believe. We've learned up to this point of Galatians that it's absolutely essential that we believe right, right? that we are sound in our theology, that we get the gospel right, and we've also learned that we need to be discerning. anyone who comes up to us and says, I'm a brother in Christ, give me a hug.

Well, we might hug them, but we don't automatically assume that everyone saying their brother in Christ is indeed a brother in Christ. We learned last week that they're actually false brethren. and one of the ways that we know whether someone is a true brother in Christ or not, is what do they believe about Christ? What do they believe about the gospel?

What do they believe about the way of salvation, through Christ? And if we get this wrong in our doctrine, Then it affects our eternal, destiny. So it is important. We've learned this up to this point.

It's important that we are right in our thinking, right in our believing, right in our theology. We're going to learn today that it is also important for us to be right in our walk, right in our walk. In fact, let me, show you something here on the screen behind me. The word orthodox, we hear that word a lot.

What does it mean? Ortho means what? Right or straight? An orthodontist.

makes our teeth straight and right. Orthodox. The word dox is from doxos, a late Greek word that means opinion. So to be orthodox is to have a right opinion, a right belief, right doctrine, right thinking.

And so we've learned we need to be orthodox. I want to introduce a new word to you that I do not expect to be just common vernacular amongst us, even after this message, message, and that is that we also need to be orthopodos. Ortho means right, podas means foot or walking. We need to be right believing, but we also need to be right walking.

and we actually see this root word orthopodos in chapter 2, verse 14, where Paul is watching Peter and it says in the New American Standard, he says, when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, literally, that's ortho. oh, they were not walking straight. They were not walking right with regard to the gospel. And guys, it is easy for us to like just obsess on, right doctrine.

We've got to think right and is this other person, is he thinking right? and we do need to be concerned about that. But sometimes we can be concerned only about that, and we don't look at our lives and say, What about my life? Am I walking in an orthodox fashion?

When I was training for the ministry at one of the educational institutions I attended, there was one professor. Great guy, taught my historical theology class and, taught a class on contemporary cults where we looked at orthodox theology and he drilled us in that, and then we looked at movements, today that claim to be Christian but really, are not, and they are characterized by false teachings. is fatally flawed and that damned souls. This teacher was extremely sound in his theology, in his doctrine, and was very discerning and even helped us to be discerning about false teaching that is out there.

I was saddened two years ago to receive news that this very man was caught in an adulterous relationship. Now does that make him a worse sinner than any of us? No, it doesn't. But what it does show is that during this season of his life he was orthodox in his belief.

But he was not orthopodas. He was not walking consistently with what he was believing. And what? This happens to me.

It happens in all of our lives. In the last week and a half. I have had to seek forgiveness from 4 people in our church for not walking consistently with what I believe. Last Saturday, confessed two sins to the elders that I had allowed to have a grip on my heart on Tuesday of this week, sat down with one of the elders and just laid it all out for him and said, Look at this, and to let him ask whatever he wanted to ask.

And as I'm verbalizing these sins. I'm shocked by what I'm saying, and I said a couple of times, this is so stupid. I, how can I do this? This is not even what I believe.

This is what I believe, and yet this is what I'm doing. And as it's coming out of my mouth and I'm feeling the shame and the embarrassment, and the shock of it all, I'm, I'm reminded once again of how I can be orthodox. I can believe this and yet turn right around and behave exactly contrary to what I do, honestly, in my heart believe. And so we need to bring these two together.

Let's be orthodox, but let's also be orthopodox. And what we're going to learn today in a little story of an incident between Paul and Peter is going to teach us volumes about how to bring these two together and the need to bring these two things together. Now, real quickly, guys, because we're going through a book, all right, can I just take a minute to just show you the flow of thought? Is that OK, OK, even if it's not, I'm going to.

Beginning of the book, Galatians 1:35, Paul presents the gospel in 6 through 10. He condemns all other gospels 11 through 24, which is the end of chapter 1. Paul defends his gospel and his His apostleship. And then in chapter 2, verse 1, all the way through verse 10, last week we saw that Paul took the time to show the agreement of the Jerusalem apostles with his gospel to Gentiles.

He tells us, I went up to Jerusalem. I presented the Gospel to Peter, James, and John, to the leadership there. And man, they saw no problem with it. And they actually didn't contribute anything to me.

They saw that God's blessing was on my ministry and they also extended the right hand of fellowship, and they basically Said we are partners with you, Paul, in this gospel. And so he says, I want you to know that I and Peter, James, and John are in complete agreement on the gospel and the gospel specifically that I preach to Gentiles, which is that you don't have to become a Jew in order to experience salvation through Christ. Well, Paul at this point, having established this, knows that he needs to take care of one matter and do a little bit of cleanup.

And that is Paul knows that there was a public incident sometime prior where he and Peter had a disagreement and it was aired publicly and it had to do with the gospel.

Paul knows that the Galatians have heard about this and that they heard it from the Judaizers. And the Judaizers who were preaching a false gospel were putting their own spin on what had transpired in the disagreement between Paul and Peter. And so Paul knows that some of the Galatians are going to be thinking, OK, great, you, Peter, James, and John, you say you all agree, but what about that fight that you and Peter had over in Antioch some time ago? We've heard about that, and it doesn't seem like you guys are fellowshipping and friends and in total agreement.

So what would you say to that, Paul? So Paul, knowing that this is in the minds of the Galatians in verses 11 through 14, actually, he explains the incident. He explains this disagreement that occurred between him and Peter in Antioch. And let's read this explanation.

This is so fascinating that Paul would actually air this in verse 11. But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him. To his face because he stood condemned, for prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles, but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision. The rest of the Jews who were there joined him in hypocrisy with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy.

But when I saw that they, Peter, Barnabas, and the Jews who were with him, when I saw that they not straightforward about the truth of the gospel. I said to Cephas in the presence of all, if you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like the Jews? That's as far as we're going to get, today, and the way we're going to break the sermon, down this morning is we're going to take time to look at what Peter did. as it unfolds in this narrative, and we'll learn some things from Peter's actions, and then we're going to see what Paul did in response to what Peter did, and we'll be able to learn much from Paul as well.

All right, so first of all, what Peter did, let's focus on the 7 things that are revealed here that Peter did as this incident unfolded. The first thing that Peter did is he visited the Gentile church of Antioch. That's actually very significant. And by the way, guys, is that a good thing?

Yeah, that's a very good thing. Verse 11, but when Cephas came to Antioch, Peter would have come from Jerusalem to Antioch. And by the way, just to make this more vivid for you, I did a drawing this week. This is an artistic rendering.

An artistic rendering of Peter on his way from Jerusalem to Antioch. And if you look in the bottom of the map you find Jerusalem. Peter would have traveled from Jerusalem, that's where the Jerusalem church was, in Jerusalem. And, he, that was his base of operations.

He was a leader of that church, and the Jerusalem church was 100% Jewish, OK? But Peter traveled from Jerusalem and he went up to Antioch. The Church of Antioch has a really interesting history, and I don't want to belabor this. You can read this in Acts 11:20 through 26.

the Jews were scattered away from Jerusalem because of persecution that had unfolded, in connection with the stoning of Stephen. And just a lengthy time of persecution. And so believers in the Jerusalem church were scattered everywhere. And we learned in Acts 11 that they went to foreign cities, but when they went to foreign cities, they preach the gospel, but they preach the gospel only to Jews.

However, some of the saints in Jerusalem and Judea went to Antioch and they preached to Jews, but also they preached the gospel to Gentiles. And Gentiles were like, so just believe in Jesus. My sins are forgiven. I don't need to get circumcised.

I don't need to become a Jew. No, just believe in Jesus and you will be saved and become a child of God and have your sins forgiven. And many of the Greeks, we learned, many of the Gentiles were believing in Jesus. And so the Antioch Church was established.

It was the first predominantly Gentile church in the history of Christianity. And by the way, the name Christian. we learn in the book of Acts chapter 11 that it was in Antioch that Christians were first called Christians. All right, so this is a predominantly Gentile congregation, and Peter, a Jew, a leader of the Jerusalem church, leads Jerusalem and he visits this predominantly Gentile congregation.

That is a wonderful thing. And by the way, we shouldn't be surprised that Peter would do this because God has really matured Peter in his understanding of salvation going to the Gentiles and the unity that now exists between Jew and Gentile. They are one in Christ. You guys know in Acts 10, Peter's in Joppa at the home of Simon the tanner, and he's on the rooftop waiting for dinner.

His stomach is growling, and he falls into a trance, and all of a sudden this sheet comes out of heaven and it's full of all sorts of unclean, crawling things and unclean animals, and he hears a voice from heaven from the Lord saying, Arise, Peter, kill and eat. Now imagine that being said to a Jew who's been kosher all his life, and Peter said, Not so, Lord. I have never eaten anything unclean. I'm not going to do that.

And the Lord said, Don't ever call anything unclean that I have declared clean. And that happened 3 times. It took some doing, and Peter protested to the Lord. But then after the sheet was drawn up after the last time, some men came from Cornelius' house, who was a Gentile, an uncircumcised Gentile, and said, Is Peter here?

Because there's a man, Cornelius, who would like for Peter to come. And preach to him. Well, Peter had now been prepared by the Lord, and he just comes. The men come and Peter's like, Sure, I'll go with you, because the Lord had prepared them.

He goes to Cornelius's house and there's Cornelius, this uncircumcised Gentile, and his family and all of his household and servants and so forth. They're all gathered together just ready to hear the way of salvation through Jesus. And when Peter gets there, he says to them in Acts 10:28, You yourselves Know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him, and yet God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean, and that is why I came without raising any objection.

He then says this, I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation, the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.

Of Him Jesus, all the prophets bear witness that through his name everyone Jew and Gentile who believes in Him receives the forgiveness of sins. That is the gospel. And so Peter introduces himself that way and then he begins to tell what happened to Jesus. He died, he was raised and ascended, and so forth.

And then he says, and now it's being preached that everyone who believes in Him will have forgiveness of sins as soon as he mentions the faith word. And Cornelius's household, they're just waiting. Just, just tell us this. What did he do?

What did he do? Now tell us what we need to do. And as soon as Peter mentions that statement about believing in Jesus, all of a sudden the spirit fell. And they started speaking in tongues.

why? Because as soon as they heard that statement, they all believed. They all believed, and they received the Spirit. And if you read the narrative carefully, It says that the men who were with Peter, the Jews who were with Peter, were amazed.

Peter was not amazed. It doesn't say that he was, but the men who were with him were amazed because God had prepared him for this. And so Peter says, we've got to get these guys baptized because they've received the Spirit the same way that we have. And so this amazing thing happens there.

But then eventually Peter makes his way back to to Jerusalem and word spreads of what has happened and look at what the Jews do in response as Peter returns to Jerusalem. Acts 11:2, when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those who were circumcised took issue with him, saying, You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them. Rather than praise God. They're going to quibble about the fact that he visited with and even ate with uncircumcised men.

Well, Peter then defends himself. He's like, I don't care what you think. Here's what happened. Here's what God did.

Who was I to stand in God's way? He told me to do this. I did it and And there's nothing I can do about it. And he, he wasn't afraid of those who had a problem with him doing this, and he gave a wonderful defense of it.

And by the time he was done, people were like, OK, salvation has come to the Gentiles. And so Peter has already learned this lesson about Gentiles being able to be Saved. And so here he is. He leaves Jerusalem and he goes to this predominantly, Gentile congregation in Antioch to hang out with his Christian brothers there.

And when he's there, we're also not surprised to learn in Galatians 2 that he ate with Gentile Christians. Paul says in verse 12, for prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. Literally he was eating. There's a continuous tense.

He didn't just have one meal where he sat uncomfortably. I can't wait for this to be over, but I need to do this to show my unity. No, he was enjoying meal after meal while he was there with his Gentile brothers and sisters in the Lord. So this was his customary practice to eat with Gentiles.

And what's really fascinating to me. is because here's a question. All right, he ate with Gentiles, they're eating un-kosher food, but did Peter eat only kosher food? If he did, that'd be fine.

I'll eat kosher food. You guys can eat your own kosher food, but hey, we can fellowship at the table. The implication in the passage is that Peter did not just eat with the Gentiles, but he ate like the Gentiles. In fact, look at what Paul says in the middle of verse 14.

If you, being a Jew, are living like the Gentiles. He's not saying you're just associating with them. He says, Peter, you are living like the Gentiles. You were living like the Gentiles before the men from James came down to the church of Antioch.

And so the implication is that Peter was not just eating with his Gentile brothers, but he was eating like his Gentile brothers. And so when they passed the pork, he was like, OK, I'll take that, and he was just fitting right in and and just acting like a Gentile, just relishing the unity that he enjoyed with his Gentile brothers and sisters in the Lord. So he ate with the Gentile Christians and even he ate like the Gentile Christians. This is an incredible thing.

Is that a good thing? All right, so far so good, but now the music changes in this drama and a minor key is struck, and we know that something is heading south here because the next thing that Peter did is he withdrew from the Gentile Christians. He comes to Antioch, predominantly Gentile. He's eating with and eating like Gentile Christians.

And then he withdraws. He pulls away. Look at verse 12. Prior to the coming of certain men from James, he was habitually eating with the Gentiles.

But when the men from James came, he began to withdraw. Literally, he was withdrawing and holding himself aloof. The tense of the verb for withdrawal indicates that it was a process. He didn't just get up real quick when he saw the men from James.

And step away, it implies that it was difficult for Peter to pull away, and it took a little bit of time. It was a process of pulling away. And I can just see Peter eating with the Gentiles, and all of a sudden he sees these men from James and he recognizes them and he's like, I gotta get, I gotta get away from these Gentiles. And he's like, Hey guys, I, I need to go take care of something.

And they're like, Well, where are you going? we'll go with you because we're having a great conversation. can we go with you because what was it that you were saying to us, man, we want to finish this conversation. Peter's like, No, listen, I really need to go.

Are you sure? And it's a process of pulling away and no doubt all the more difficult because he in his own heart is grieved and reluctant as he is doing so. And not only did he withdraw from the Gentile Christians, but number 4, he was holding himself aloof from the Gentile Christians. And again, this is a continuous.

type of idea. He withdrew from the table, where he was fellowshipping with them. And then after that, he was trying to maintain this aloofness and the implication is it was not easy to do. And I can just see some of the Gentiles saying, hey, Peter, we saved your spot.

Why don't you come back and, and eat with us and we can finish our conversation on the grace of God and the unity that we enjoy in Christ. And Peter's like, No, I, I can't. I really need to stand. My back is like really hurting and, oh really?

Well, we'll come over and stand with you. We'll bring you your plate. And, no, actually just go sit down. You need to, you need to sit down and I'll just stay over here because I'm, I'm focusing on something and I don't know, but just, but Peter had to work to keep himself peeled away from these Gentile believers who loved him and who enjoyed fellowship with him, but he didn't.

And just, just in an ongoing rejection way, he withdrew and then maintained this withdrawal, holding himself aloof from the Gentile Christians. That he was once fellowshipping with a few moments earlier. Well, why did he do this? The 5th thing he did was he feared the circumcision.

He feared the circumcision. Look what it says. verse 12, at the end of verse 12, it says that he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision. Now the word party.

is we don't normally associate party with circumcision. The word Party is not in the Greek text and so literally it's just he feared the circumcision. So this could simply mean he just feared the Jews. In fact, that's my leaning on how to take this, but it could mean that he feared the Judaizers, those that insisted on circumcision for salvation.

But let's just take it literally for what the text said, and that is that he feared the Jews. Now the question that this raises is, who were the men from James that would provoke this fear? Some say that these were bad guys who were Judaizers. They were men who were associated with James, the leader of the Jerusalem church, but, and they claimed to have authority from James, but they really had not been authorized from James.

But these are bad guys trying to add to the gospel. Others say that these are actually good guys who were legitimately sent from James, but even though they were good guys and legitimate Christians, they were of the legalistic sort because they were underdeveloped. In their theology with regard to Jew, Gentile relations and the unity that they should enjoy in, in Christ. think about it, the Jews and the A Jerusalem church, all they ever saw were Jews when they gathered for worship, when they had table fellowship.

It was just Jew fellowshipping with Jews, and so they might have believed certain things conceptually about unity and wow, God's doing this over in Antioch. Praise God, we can support that. And but they're not forced every time they gather together to really flesh out their theology with regard to this. The best analogy I can think of is, is someone, living in the Southeast, for example, who all his life only attended an all-white church.

That person may believe things biblically and conceptually about the unity of all believers, but that person has never been put into a situation where he is forced to really flesh that out. and so like, like a person who is attending a church that has a really healthy racial and ethnic mixture would be forced to, along with all the history in our own nation that has created animosity between the ethnicities, someone in a racially diverse church is forced to actually flesh out what they believe conceptually, more so than someone who might.

Conceptually agree, but they've only attended a white church and all they've ever seen were white people in church all their life. And so no doubt there were many Jews in the Jerusalem church who might have said, yeah, I believe this, I believe this, but when they actually see it with their own eyes of a Of a Jew eating with Gentiles, and a Jew eating like Gentiles, it's like an offensive thing to them.

And they don't retrain themselves overnight. And so the, the idea might be that these men from James were godly men from James who were just by virtue of their circumstances in Jerusalem, were very unpractised and undeveloped when it comes to, fleshing out their theology with regard to Jew and Gentile fellowship and unity. Other commentators also suggest that there's an element to where maybe Peter isn't fearful of these guys from James as much as he's fearful of the Jews back in Jerusalem who are now maybe going to hear about what he's doing.

And understand that the Jews in Jerusalem are a rapid bunch of people at this time.

In fact, they're going to almost tear Paul in two when he shows up at the temple because of Paul's association with Gentiles and the message that he was preaching about Jew and Gentile unity. And so Peter might have been fearful for himself here, but he also may have been thinking, man, if word gets out that I'm behaving this way, Then how are my brothers and sisters in Jerusalem going to be treated by the unsaved Jews? they might now be persecuted because they're being led by Peter, who's up in Antioch, living like a Gentile.

And so who knows what all was going through Peter's mind, but we do know that he was fearful.

And one writer says Peter's fear of the circumcision party seemed to have outweighed entirely any consideration he may have had for his Gentile brethren. And the thing we need to do as we read the story, guys, is we do need to try to put ourselves in Peter's sandals. What was he thinking? Because it resonates with us.

We all do the same thing on different levels, behaving inconsistently with our gospel beliefs. But to understand the severity of what's happened, we need to put ourselves in the sandals of the Gentiles who were sitting at the table. And they're like, Man, everything's cool, and the apostle Peter from Jerusalem is fellowshipping with us, and man, this unity is great, and we're saved by grace through faith in Christ alone. And now all of a sudden Peter just shuts down towards them and he removes himself from the table.

And when these Gentiles come up to him later and say, Hey Peter, can we finish talking? and he's like, no, he's just cold towards them. What would you be thinking? Suddenly now the Gentiles are like, OK, I get it.

There's, there's something defective about us. And though Paul has said to the contrary, we're not complete apparently, and maybe we should be circumcised, maybe we should start eating kosher, maybe we should become Jews, and they're feeling this rejection, no doubt at all, in a way that's unsettling to them. What intensifies this even more is the sixth thing, and that is that Peter not only separated himself and held himself aloof, but he led other Christians astray by his actions.

Other people followed him.

Look at this in verse 13. The rest of the Jews. So this Antioch congregation, that was predominantly Gentile, but it had Jews in it that knew the Lord, they have been enjoying unity for months and even years. There's never been an interruption, in Their fellowship and unity with one another, but now all of a sudden these men from James come and Peter gets up and removes himself from the table and holds himself aloof.

Eventually the other Jews are like, they see the men from James and then they observe Peter and they're like, we better get up. And so they get up. And they follow Peter and Paul says, even Barnabas, who traveled with him on his missionary journeys where they ministered predominantly to Gentiles, even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. And now imagine yourself being a Gentile.

You're at the table enjoying fellowship with Peter and the other Jews. That's the way it's always been in Antioch. And now Peter gets up, you sense he's being cold, and little by little the other Jews, they all have something else they need to do, and they get up and Disappear and Barnabas gets up and disappears and then there's a point where you as a Gentile start looking down the table. To your right and to your left.

And it dawns on you the only ones sitting at this table are Gentiles. And there's the Jews segregated. and separated from us. And so this is very impacting to them.

And the last thing that Peter did, and this sums up His error is Peter failed to walk straight with his face toward the gospel. Verse 14, on the screen, it says verse 13, but it's actually 14. Guys, please draw your attention. To verse 14, Paul says, I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel.

Literally I saw with my eyes that Peter and Barnabas and the Jews that they were with and that they influenced were not walking straight. With regard to the gospel. I want to give you a literal translation of this, even the preposition. They were not walking straight toward the gospel.

That's the literal translation. They were not walking straight toward the gospel, and you really got to think through that. Like what does he mean by that? You would expect him to say not walking straight according to the gospel or consistent with the gospel, but instead he says not walking straight toward.

The gospel, but understand that that preposition translated toward, it's the preposition pros, OK, pros, and it denotes direction like in John 1:1. In the beginning was the word and the word was pros. God. In other words, he's depicting Jesus and the Father as not just side by side with each other, but here's the Father, and here's Jesus, looking into the face of the Father.

As the curtains open on the Gospel of John, there is Jesus in the beginning was the Word and the Word was toward God. He's staring into the face of his Heavenly Father, who is also gazing. At him. There's relationship.

It's the direction that Jesus is facing prior to his incarnation that John tells us about as the gospel unfolds. And so you put that together with this, and here's his point. He's saying Peter and those who followed him were not walking straight with their face toward the gospel, OK? What we learned from that is this, this is gonna, this is my valley of vision, but this, this represents the gospel.

this is the way we need to walk every day. The gospel is in front of us, and then we walk. OK. But here's what we do a lot of times, yeah, I believe the gospel.

And then we walk and it's not right in front of our face, and when I do that, I walk crooked. Do you? Here's another thing that we do. We get up in the morning and an anxious thought immediately puts itself in front of our face.

And we get out of bed and it's right there, and we just start walking. And we walk crooked, don't we? Or maybe an offense that someone has done against you, that you are angry and bitter about, you get that in front of your face, and you just start walking, and you walk crooked, don't you? And when that's happening, yes, you believe the gospel, but it's not in front of your face.

And so you don't walk straight. And so Peter had gotten his eyes off of the gospel and instead allowed fear to be there, and with that fear in front of his face, he started walking, and Paul observes that Peter is not walking straight with his face towards the gospel. And I really want to challenge you guys with this because again we can be totally orthodox in our theology, but we need to take one additional step, and that is take that theology, stick it in front of our face, and walk.

We need to take the gospel that is the core of our theology, put it in front of our face every day.

We pick it up, we put it in front of our face, and we walk. That's simply another way of saying preach the gospel to yourself every day, several times a day. You might find Yourself in a really bad marriage, severe marital difficulties, and there are so many offenses and things that are just vying to be in front of your face. And it's easy to go through the day with all these things in front of your face, making you walk crooked.

But even in a difficult situation like that, you take the gospel, you put it in front of you, the gospel that says, I am a sinner, but Christ died for my sins. So that I might be forgiven and be made a child of God. I deserve hell, but instead, I have this forgiveness. I have this grace.

I have this relationship with God. And also, I look at the gospel, and I realize that if God did not spare His own Son but delivered him up for me, how will He not also with His Son freely give me all things in this circumstance? I also know from the gospel, it tells me that because I'm justified and bound for glorification in heaven forever with God, that God will work all things together for my good and for His glory. I have this in front of me, and I will walk.

And what, my spouse has offended me, and I am angry about that. But God has forgiven me of even greater sins that I've committed against Him. And so I will give this grace. You see, when we're looking at the gospel, We can walk straight.

When we're not, we walk crooked. Maybe there's someone in your life that you're ready to give up on. You've already written them off. You're holding yourself aloof from them.

Go to the gospel. That tells you that God had even more reason to write you off. And banish you to hell, but he didn't. He sought you.

He found you. He saved you. You were filthy scum as a result of your sin, and he washed you clean and made you his child. If you're looking at that, how could you write a brother or sister off because of some wrong that they have done against you?

This is very challenging. I remember a number of years ago counseling with a guy, a married man. He and his wife ended up getting a divorce. but he sat in my office and about ready to pull his hair out, he just said, Milton, I try to pray.

I try to see Christ in front of me. I get up in the morning and I try to speak to God and to pray, but every time I do so, my wife's face is right there. And I can't get her face out from in front of me. At the end of the first service where I had shared this, a guy came up to me and said, That is my problem.

He says, my wife's face is always this woman has wounded him and sinned against him in grievous ways. And her face is there and it's so easy for him to take her face and have it in front of him and then walk. And he walks crooked. Instead of taking the gospel.

And preaching that and then walking straight, that's not easy to do. But it is what we must do if we're going to walk straight, and Peter took his eyes off of the gospel that he believed it was no longer in front of his face, and fear was there, and he walked with his face towards his fear, and so he walked crooked. So that's what Peter did. But what did Paul do?

Let's look at how Paul responded to this situation. the first thing that Paul did. He saw that Peter was not walking straight toward the gospel. He was not walking straight towards the gospel.

Look at this verse 14. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel or they were not walking straight toward the gospel, here's what's significant to me. When Paul looked at this situation, he didn't just see Jews separating from Gentiles. He gave it an interpretation.

He said there's a gospel problem here. He interpreted it rightly as fundamentally a gospel problem. And that is they're not walking with their face towards the gospel. And guys, we need to be able to do the same thing.

When if you're trying to help two brothers in the Lord in the church, or sisters that are fighting with one another, maybe there's anger and bitterness. Do you just see two people fighting or do you see a gospel problem? Parents, if you've got 2 children in the home, and, and, and, and they're fighting with one another, do you just see two kids that are fighting with one another? And all they need to hear is, guys, stop it.

So I can watch TV in peace. Do you just see two kids fighting or do you see a gospel problem? We need to become skilled at tracing things back to the gospel. And when we see a problem, other people may just see two people fighting or someone having marital difficulty, but you look at it.

And you see there's a gospel problem here. This is a gospel emergency. That's what Paul did. He saw that Peter was not walking straight with his face toward the gospel.

Secondly, Paul stepped in and actually opposed Peter to his face. In verse 11, when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face. And then also in verse 4. He says, When I saw that they were not walking straight toward the gospel, I said I spoke to Cephas.

And so here's Peter in a moment of weakness, which we all have, who the gospel gets set aside, fear is in front of his face, and Peter's walking with his face toward fear. He's walking crooked, and Paul gets right in Peter's face and says, Peter, he gets in between the fear and Peter. And says, Peter, look at me, look at me. Here's the gospel, and that's what he does.

Here's the gospel. Follow this. That's exactly the role that Paul plays in Peter's life in this instance. Paul doesn't look at Peter and say, look at him.

And this guy is an apostle, and look at what he's doing. I can't believe this. Do you see what that guy's doing? can you believe the guy's an apostle and look what he's doing.

Does he even believe the gospel or not? Well, I don't know. Paul, have you talked to Peter about it? No, I haven't, but man, I just can't believe he'd do that.

You ever done that? when we see a brother in sin, it is, it is very easy to go to someone else. And to talk to someone else about that sin rather than to go straight to that brother to get in their face and love. And to help them and point them back to the gospel to go to someone else, that's the easy way and that's cheap.

But to actually go to the person to their face, driven by love and by the truth of the gospel, that is more difficult, but that's exactly what Paul does out of love for Peter. He didn't write them off. But look at this. He says in verse 14, when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas, who is Peter, in the presence of all.

So you might say, Well, why would Paul confront Peter publicly instead of privately? Aren't we taught in Matthew 18, go to your brother privately if he sinned. So why would Paul go to him publicly? Well, understand.

namely that in this situation, Peter's not the only one who's sinning. Peter has been not walking straightforward with regard to the gospel, but other Jews have followed him. All of the Jews now in Antioch have followed him, and even Barnabas has followed him. And so Paul, he's speaking to Peter, but what he's saying, he's really saying to all of them that are gathered there, and he wants everyone to hear this statement that he is about to make so they can be challenged and helped by it.

So Paul is actually rebuking this whole group rather than just Peter, but he speaks directly to Peter because Peter is the leader. He's the one who has led these individuals astray. Peter's act was public. And others were with them.

And so Paul wants to speak to, to all of them. But there's another reason that Peter confronts, or Paul confronts Peter publicly in this situation, and that is this, because Paul, 3, wants to expose Peter's right behavior. Now that seems confusing, but let me explain it. Paul wants to say what he's saying to Peter.

He wants to say it loudly, because he wants everyone to hear what he's about to say. He's going to rebuke Peter, but Peter also has done some right things, and Paul wants to rat him out and expose that. Look at what he says in verse 14. And here's the gist of it.

Hey Peter, and by the way, the men from James can hear this, all right. Peter, if you being a Jew that you are, are living like the Gentiles, like you were doing before the men from James came, eating with the Gentiles and eating like the Gentiles, how you were doing that before these men came? See, he's wanting to expose what Peter was doing that was right. He wants the men from James to know, hey, the Peter you see right now is not the Peter that we all saw before you guys arrived.

So he exposes his right behavior, and that's one of the reasons that he did this publicly. He wants to tell on Peter. About his good behavior that he was doing. And if, maybe a teenager is, somewhere in a public place and they're reading their Bible and they're a little sheepish about it and they're just kinda, but they, they want to be in the word, but they're wondering what people might think and, and then people show up and they take their Bible, put it away.

But then a brother who sees that. He says, Man, I just noticed what you did. You were reading the Bible, weren't you? What passage were you reading?

And, That's what Paul is doing to Peter here, exposing his right behavior. But that's not all he wants to do. The 4th thing that he does is he exposes the message that Peter's wrong actions conveyed to Gentile Christians. He basically wants to say to Peter, Hey Peter, you have spoken volumes.

Through your deeds. Verse 14, If you being a Jew, are living like the Gentiles and eating and dining with them, enjoying fellowship with them. Like you have been doing, and you've not been living like the Jews. How is it that right now, that the men from James come, you are now essentially compelling Gentiles to live like the Jews.

Now, probably when Peter heard that he'd say, Paul, I, I would never compel Gentiles to live like Jews. That would make me a Judaizer. I would never tell Gentiles you need to be circumcised and you need to eat only kosher food and that you actually need to become a Jew. I would never preach that message.

That is heresy. And Paul would say, Peter, I know you would never preach that with your lips. But you have just preached that message by your deeds. Because here's what the Gentiles are thinking as Peter moves away and the other Jews follow him and Barnabas, their pastor, moves away from them and disassociates from them.

They're sitting there going, OK, there's something defective about us. that maybe they've been afraid to tell us. And maybe we do need to be circumcised and we do need to become kosher and actually do need to become Jews in order to really be non-effective and worthy of fellowship and therefore worthy of God. Peter's an apostle.

The premier apostle of Christ and he's disassociating from them. The Gentiles no doubt were like, does this mean Christ disassociates himself from me? So there is something wrong with me. And this is going through their minds, and Paul is privy to this, no doubt, because maybe some of them even communicated this to him.

Paul, do we need to, should we get circumcised? Should we? Is there something wrong with us? Because look at what they're doing and disassociating from us.

Peter would be horrified at this thought, but Paul is saying your actions have preached a heretical message. Now again this doesn't make Peter any worse. Than us, does it? Parents, we teach our children in the Word of God, it says that God loves us.

God is sovereign. He's in control of every detail of our lives, and God, because we are saved through the gospel, works all things, all things together for our good and, and for His glory. And isn't that great, children, that we can have these truths. And then later that day, something goes wrong.

It's like, oh, this always happens to me, and we just fall apart and we flip out. And through our actions we are saying, children, what I taught you this morning is absolutely not true. God is not in control. He does not love us, or he at least does not love us enough.

He's not going to work this out for our good. All of us can be guilty through our actions of preaching a message that is contrary to what we actually believe. And that's the message Peter has preached to the Gentiles by his deeds. A 5th thing that Paul does by way of challenging Peter is he challenged Peter's hypocrisy.

He challenged Peter's hypocrisy. He uses the word hypocrisy twice, once in verse, or actually both times in verse 13. He says the rest of the Jews joined Peter in hypocrisy with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. Now what's interesting, guys, is we normally think of hypocrisy the other way.

We normally think of a hypocrite as someone who's really a bad guy. But who acts pious and good, and he's using good behavior as a front to conceal the fact that he's really in heart a bad guy, right? And that is a hypocrite. The hypocrite or hypocrisy Paul is talking about is someone who in his heart is wanting to be guided by good and godly principles.

But he forfeits that and sets that aside so as not to offend anybody. A great example would be a teenager at school. you're hanging out with some friends, and they are using profanity and coarse jesting, and they're telling a dirty joke and everyone's listening with rapt attention. And in your heart you're grieved.

You're like, I would rather be anywhere other than here. And I hate this, and I really should say something to rebuke this guy. But then the guy finishes the story and everyone's laughing and you're like, yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one.

You're a hypocrite. You're a hypocrite. In your heart, the truth, and what you should do. But you don't do that.

So that you don't offend. That's hypocrisy. Peter knew the right thing to do. In fact, he was doing the right thing when the men from James came.

He was governed by his fear, and he stopped doing the right thing so as not to offend. The Jews, that is hypocrisy in a way, as Paul recounts this story. He's complimenting Peter. He's saying, guys, Peter's not a heretic.

He believes the truth. He had better principles inside of him that in a moment of weakness, he just did not have those in front of him and he was being hypocritical. OK, if Peter was really a bad guy and that's what Paul wanted to say, he would not say Peter was being hypocritical. He's saying Peter had truth inside of him, but in this moment of weakness he behaved hypocritically rather than according to who he really is.

In his heart of hearts. Well, the last thing Paul did is, and this is interesting. The last thing Paul did with regard to this incident is he told the Galatians about it. What do you think of that?

He told the Galatians about the incident, and you go, Wow, now that is enlightening. I am moved by Paul's example. So Pastor Milton, does this mean that I get to go tell everybody about all the people that I've ever confronted over sin issues? Can I please?

And is that not the example that Paul sets for us? Well, understand guys, Paul has to tell them about this because they've heard about this. This was a public incident. And if theoretically, they have not heard about it, they will hear about it.

No doubt it will get through the rumor mill. These believers almost certainly have heard about this, and they heard about it from the perspective of the Judaizers. And so Paul needs to set the record straight and to, to explain it, to tell what happened, and to put the right and the godly and the inspired spin on it. And keep in mind too that as Paul is telling the story, he's not just telling bad stuff about Peter, he's saying, hey, he came to Antioch.

Where Gentiles were, he ate with them. Because he's a gospel believing apostle, but when the men from James came, he got overtaken by his fear and separated himself from the Gentiles, and in doing that, he was being hypocritical, meaning he, Peter's better than that. And in his heart of hearts he violated his conscience in doing this, so there's compliments all over the place with regard to Peter. Paul is showing great discretion and great care to give the Galatians perspective on what actually happened.

And by the way, how would Paul know that Peter was governed by his fear of the circumcision? Peter told him Paul, I gotta confess to you, man, you're right. You're right. But when those guys showed up, I got afraid.

Afraid of whom? Afraid of the Jews. And so Peter would have shared this with him. That's how Paul can speak confidently to the Galatians about this.

So this created no permanent rift between Paul and Peter. In fact, in 2 Peter, Peter speaks in a very complimentary way about the apostle Paul and his writings and his epistles. so anyway, this is Paul's perspective on what had happened. Just in closing, guys, some of this we've already talked about, but, let's just run through these.

What we can learn from this. Number one, we can learn that it's possible to be orthodox in our words and yet not in our actions. That's what happened to Peter. It is possible we should learn that our actions can speak just as loudly as our words do.

Be sobered by this, guys. Be sobered by this, parents. We can learn that our actions have influence on others, especially if we are leaders. We're doubly accountable because people look to us for leadership, and so our influence is more broad.

And so we need to be all the more careful. We also should learn that the fear of man can often be the cause of our failure to live what we believe. Maybe someone doesn't know the Lord and you need to share Christ with that person, but you're afraid. So here's your better principles, your belief in the gospel, and yet, instead of the gospel in front of you, your fears in front of you.

And so you don't behave according to what you believe. We can also learn. That there is a biblical place for confrontation in the Christian life. Do you guys really believe that?

Do you really believe that we need to be walking straight according to the gospel, but also out of love, we need to keep an eye on our brothers and sisters. And when they are caught in a trespass, as Paul is going to talk about in Galatians 6, and something else in front of their face and they're not walking straight. That we actually can get in their face and that's a very good thing because in getting in their face we're coming in between them and whatever it was that was in front of them.

And we're like, hey, look at me.

Here's the gospel. Now follow this. That's how we love one another. I need you, when you guys see me walking crooked, to get in my face between me and whatever it was that was leading me astray.

And you need me to do that. We need each other to do that in our lives. And so there is a biblical place for loving, humble, yet truthful confrontation in the Christian life. We also learned from this that we never grow past the possibility of committing former sins.

Peter did this in Galatians 2. Has he ever done this thing before? See a Galilee, storm. He's frightened.

Jesus is walking on the water. Peter says, Lord, command me to come and I'll come. And Jesus says, come. Peter stumbles out of the boat.

That's an amazing thing. Amazing faith. But then as he's walking towards Jesus, he turns and he sees the wind and the waves. He took his eyes off Jesus.

Jesus was no longer right in front of his face. Now the wind and the waves are in front of his face. And what happened? He began to sink.

And as he's sinking, he turns back to Jesus and says, save me, and Jesus saved him. So Peter's done this before. The night before Jesus was crucified. He says, all of you disciples are going to betray me.

Peter says, I'll never betray you. I'll never abandon you. I'll never deny you. Jesus said, you're going 23 times.

All of the disciples fled away from Jesus except Peter, who followed him from a distance. That's that's boldness. That's courage. But then he's warming himself by a fire and a servant girl, a girl.

Say to this grown man, hey, are you one of his Disciples, no, no, I don't know what you're talking about. Then a little bit later she's looking at him and I'm sure you're one of his disciples. You were with Jesus, weren't you? No, I don't know what you're talking about.

And then a little bit later, Someone else says you were with Jesus. You're one of his, aren't you? And Peter almost literally says, May God strike me dead and damn me to hell forever if I am lying when I tell you I don't know that man. He was governed by a fear.

And so Peter had a fear problem, but what? Christ forgave him, appeared to him after his resurrection. In a personal appearance that I would love to have been a fly on the wall to hear that loving exchange from Christ and Him and granting forgiveness. Peter gets the Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

He's preaching in front of thousands and just bringing the truth with serious heat, and he's willing to stand before the Sanhedrin, and they threaten, and he's like, we can't stop speaking what we've seen and heard. There's incredible boldness and anyone looking at Peter would have thought he's passed all of that now. Fear will never get its grip on him again. And yet here he is in Antioch.

And some men from James come down. And fear gets the best of him. How many of you have ever in your life thought you were past something? Only to discover That you weren't.

Has that ever happened to you? Doesn't that stink? So we need to be humbled by the fact that we never go past the possibility of committing sins that maybe we thought formerly that we were done with, and when we do stumble. Into those same sins we can be thankful for the cross and the forgiveness that is ours.

We also learned here that we owe it to our brothers to speak face to face with them about their non-orthodox behaviors, rather than writing them off, or talking to others about them behind their back. Let's look to the Lord in prayer. Lord, I, I am so thankful that you do not conceal this quote unquote dirty laundry. Even amongst the apostles.

Because it makes them human, not only in the gospel accounts but even in an account like this. Paul himself, who divulges this incident about Peter. is the same guy who in Romans 7 confesses to the world, the good I want to do I don't do, and the evil I hate I do. I've got a sin principle within me.

The St. Paul says to the world, I am the foremost sinner of all. We are all a mess apart from Christ and even in Christ, Lord, we so often, we believe right, we want to do right, and yet the good we want to do, we don't do. We're sobered and we're saddened by this, Lord, but oh, we are so thankful for the cross.

That you, Jesus, Do not wait until we are perfect to be our best friend. But you are our best friend today. And it is that friendship. That transforms us to become more of what we long to be and you want us to be.

Thank you for saving us, for the daily application of your blood to our many sins. Even each day And may this grace so consume us and be so in front of our face that that is what controls our walk. Rather than fear, rather than lust, rather than anger, rather than bitterness, rather than hate. Rather than fleshliness, rather than greed.

or materialism Or drugs? Alcohol, pride. We believe your gospel. Teach us to keep it in front of our face and then to walk.

Street. And teach us to help one another to do the same. We ask these things in Jesus' name, and all God's people said,