Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / September 29, 2024 | Galatians - A Gospel to Fight About

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September 29, 2024 | Galatians - A Gospel to Fight About · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was reminded recently of we have all of TBC's budgets going all the way back 85 years, and our very first budget that we ever had had a line item for coal.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just reminded, you know, not only how things have changed, uh, but also how the ministries have grown, which is a blessing.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, also how the Lord has provided over those 85 years for this church.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I expect that that will continue to happen.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: I have all the faith that it will.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I do just want to make you aware of what's going on here and uh want to thank you, those of you who give financially to the ministries of the church, so that we can continue to lead people to life in Christ and grow in that direction.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: So let's go ahead and uh bow our heads in prayer.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you and Lord, we we give all of this up to you.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: It is yours anyway.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And um, Lord, we we ask that you would just enable our church uh to, in one sense, fulfill the financial obligations that we had set forth to do this year.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: But God, also to carry out your will to the best of our abilities.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: God, we we recognize that church is not exclusively about money, and in fact, it is far more about the message that you have given to us through the cross.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that you would bring people along who might be able to support our mission financially, and God, that we would continue as a church to steward those resources well and to do it well in the future.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um Lord, we thank you once again for the cross, which defines all of these things and puts them in their proper order.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we just pray, Lord, that TBC and this great congregation would just be a place of fellowship and unity in your name.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Moving on to Galatians, um we, if you were here last week, it's gonna be really helpful because we're it's a bit of a two-parter today, though it does stand alone.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: So let me kind of recap really quick what happened last week.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Last week we began Galatians chapter 2, and Paul uh went to Jerusalem to meet with the pillars of the Christian church.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is Peter, James, and John.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: They got together because in the early church, um, really the infancy of the Christian faith, there was a huge debate.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: This huge debate was okay, we know that the gospel message has gone to the Jews first, but now God says that it has gone out to the Gentiles or the non-Jews.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: How do we do that?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And what does it look like to do it well?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a lot of debate because there was a group, a very strong and tenacious group in the early church, often called the circumcision party, don't know if they picked that name, but often called that, who were focused on bringing people into the Christian faith, but also making them follow all the Jewish laws, or many of them.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can guess which one was at the top of their mind.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: So as they do this, a problem develops, which is Paul, who has been ministering for over a decade in a place called Antioch, which has a lot of Gentile believers, people who are strong in their faith but aren't, didn't grow up Jewish.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: He's been preaching a gospel message to them.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: But he knows that there's conflict, there's sort of trouble in the waters, and so he goes back to sort of Christianity HQ, Jerusalem, to settle things over.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, Okay, Peter, James, John, you guys are sort of the the heads of the church right now, especially Peter is.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And um, let's make sure we're on the same page.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Are we preaching the same gospel message?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because, as Paul would say, the gospel I've received from the Lord is that we are not saved by works.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: It is not a matter of the things that we do or our good actions that saves us.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's our faith in Jesus Christ alone.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: That is the thing that saves us.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: There aren't all these hoops to jump through.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: We have freedom in Christ.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're not slaves under the law.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: And Peter, James, and John, they agree with him.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: That was last week.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so they they head out from there with this amazingly important decision.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: They said, We're united on the gospel front, but Paul, you're gonna head out and spend more time with the Gentiles.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be the main evangelist to them, and Peter, you're gonna be the main evangelist to the Jews.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is the most effective way for worldwide evangelism that we can kind of divide it up.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: It seems to fit your strengths the best, but most importantly, we are preaching the same gospel message.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so last week the main focus was hey, we need to overcome differences amongst our body so that we can proclaim the unity of the gospel message, which is invites in everybody and shows no favoritism.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's a beautiful message for us within the church.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful message amongst all churches, and in fact, it is a great message to those who are unchurched.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel brings us together.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: But, but, as we get to the passage this morning, things are changing.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And there's this particular situation that comes about in Antioch, which is where Paul has been ministering for all this time.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Peter goes to visit him.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And when Peter goes to visit, things are going well for a while, right?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then they begin to go south.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And they have a huge conflict that comes about because Peter, Paul says, is reverting back.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Old habits die hard, and he is beginning to create that division between Jews and Gentiles again.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where we're at.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And by the end of the message this morning, what I want you to see is there's kind of a balance that takes place.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: That as Christians, we, I think our first foot forward amongst those who say that they trust in Jesus should always be one of unity.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: But that there are certain times that come along, and increasingly so when the gospel is threatened, that conflict becomes both necessary and good in the church.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's kind of where we're at.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Galatians chapter 2, verses 11 through 14, that's where we'll spend all of our time this morning.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: But when Cephas or Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: For he regularly ate with the Gentiles before certain men came from James.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: However, when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, because he feared those from the circumcision party.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Then the rest of the Jews joined his hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: But when I saw that they were deviating from the truth of the gospel, I told Peter in front of everyone, if you who are a Jew live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel Gentiles to live like Jews?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: That last quote there sounds a bit like the who's on first sort of thing, but we'll get to it eventually.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: What I want you to understand, though, here is after the meeting in Jerusalem that we read about in Galatians chapter 2, verses 1 through 10, which corresponds to the book of Acts, chapter 11, after that meeting, some length of time passed, and Peter came to visit Antioch, where Paul was at.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is where Paul, it's kind of his home base.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, when he goes out on his multiple missionary journeys, this is where he starts out from.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so as Paul is ministering there, Peter comes to visit.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a huge deal.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is, Peter, I think without a doubt, is the most influential Christian in the early church.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so for him to come and visit a place like Antioch is big news, right?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: This guy, celebrity preacher status kind of thing.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: He has come, he is bringing us the word.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: He's from the headquarters of the faith.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome stuff.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Sadly, Antioch to this day bears very little resemblance to what it did back when it was Christianity was thriving there.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's a mostly Muslim majority community today.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: However, we do have one kind of site, which is St.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Peter's Cave Church.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's believed to be one of the earliest Christian churches in the traditional location where Peter taught when he visited Antioch.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: So the facade that you see there, it's most likely not what it was, but digging into the cave.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: The Christians were so pushed out, they're just like, we'll just go further into the mountain.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's where they're going to find their spot.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so, again, traditionally, church history would tell us that this was the location where these events that we're reading about happened.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: But Antioch is a huge city.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's like third largest in the Roman Empire.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's referred to as the Rome of the East.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's the capital of Syria.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's like 500,000 people.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: They're so wealthy that two miles of road is paved with marble.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so as Paul is ministering here, one thing that's interesting is that this church, almost without, I mean, it's not like Paul directed it this way, but by God's guidance, they are the perfect example of a congregation that has united Jews and Gentiles.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem, where Peter and James and John are ministering, almost everybody is a Jewish Christian, meaning they grew up Jewish, they are still part of that culture, but they trust in Christ as their Savior.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: When we get to Antioch, there are any number of different faiths and pagan religions that they might have come from, but the church is comprised of both groups of people, which becomes very important.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: So Peter comes in and he's living out sort of the gospel message that he and Paul just talked about earlier on in Galatians chapter 2.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, we're united, God doesn't show favoritism, I eat with you, you eat with me.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that might not seem like a big deal, Peter breaking bread with the Gentiles, but it's because we don't really, kind of like the circumcision debate, we don't really have a parallel example of what this, how important meals and breaking bread was for the early church.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Almost on a daily basis, they were sharing in the Lord's Supper together, they were talking about their faith in Christ.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're a persecuted community, and so this is one of the few places where they can feel safe and develop that connection.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so when Peter comes in, he's joining in these meals.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: But Peter has a history of God doing things in his life through mealtime activities.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Which sounds crazy, but let me kind of explain.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because it becomes important as we get to what happened here.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: So Peter is one of the disciples, right?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: He is properly an apostle, but he's one of the twelve.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so, first of all, Peter, who grew up Jewish, is exposed to the Mosaic Law, right?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: He is a Jew.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: He understands that as part of his faith as a Jewish man, there were certain foods he could not eat in order to distinguish himself as a part of God's covenant community.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: This happens back in the Old Testament, the Mosaic Law.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is where you, if you're familiar at all, you'd say, like, okay, we can't eat pig.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: We also can't eat desert hawks, because there were people doing that apparently, but mostly we can't eat pigs and other normal things as a way to separate us from those who do not trust in God as their savior.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Served a lot of great purposes, but now as we've moved forward in time, Peter finds himself a Jewish man who is faithful to the law under the teaching of Jesus Christ, who's his rabbi, his leader, and later his savior.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, who fulfills the law in every respect, does something very unique, which is that he begins to have these meals as a Jewish man with Gentiles and sinners, people who were very controversial in that time, like tax collectors.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so already Peter is realizing that the kingdom of God works a bit differently than he originally understood it.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so he gets this experience.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: He's a part of Christ's ministry where he's eating with all groups of people.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Makes the Pharisees really mad.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: So now Jesus, he dies for the sins for the world, and then he's resurrected, hope into new life.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: But then what happens is you've got a lot of people asking questions about what happens next.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: What now?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And what becomes apparent is that Peter and the other apostles don't really understand what it means for them to extend their Jewish but now Christian faith into the Gentile world.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: They've been separated from them for so long that to make that leap, it just doesn't really make sense.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so God uses Peter as the prime example, the first guy to really extend this gospel message out.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing that happens is in Acts chapter 10, Peter is um he's in Jerusalem, he's leading the church, and God gives him a revelation while he's having lunch on a rooftop.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you need to go and read the account in Acts 10 because it's so interesting.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: But God shows Peter and tells him three different times, hey, you can eat all the foods, okay?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can have whatever is is is you know, crawling, whatever it's on the ground, all the food is good to eat.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning, implying, this division between you and the Gentiles shouldn't be there any longer.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: You can go and eat with them.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: And Peter just, he kind of he hears it and he doesn't totally understand it.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: But then what happens is there's a knock on the door of this house, and a man named Cornelius, who is a faithful Gentile man, very unique role that he plays in the early church.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: He is a Gentile who has trusted in Christ, even though they haven't really been sharing the gospel with them.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Cornelius comes along and he's like, hey, God gave me a revelation too.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: He says I was supposed to come and knock on your door and ask you to come with us.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so Peter does that.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: He goes to Cornelius' household and ends up sharing the gospel with them.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Huge watershed moment in Christian history where the gospel is presented to Gentile people for the first time in sort of an intentional way.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then Peter does the scandalous thing and eats with them, and then watches God do a miraculous work, like basically a second Pentecost.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Acts 10, 44 through 48.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: While Peter was still speaking these words to the Gentiles, to Cornelius' household, the Holy Spirit came down on all those who heard the message.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and declaring the greatness of God.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Then Peter responded, Can anyone withhold water and prevent these people from being baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: He commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Then they asked him to stay for a few days.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can hear Peter's shock almost, as he goes, I mean, I guess God is going to extend it to them too.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: And Peter is like the conduit for this.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: He is the guy that God is using specifically to reach Jewish people, or excuse me, to reach Gentile people, and it is all coming through this gateway of eating a meal together.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: One other passage I want to share with you that deepens this history that Peter has is uh what takes place at Cornelius' household eventually spreads.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: The news gets out, as it should.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: And Peter is basically called into the offices of the head sort of Christians, and they're going, What did you do?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean you ate with them?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: The apostles and the brothers and sisters who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: When Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: How dare you, Peter?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Later on in verse 17, Peter says, If then, he's basically given in a defense the whole time, if then God gave them the same gift that he also gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, how could I possibly hinder God?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Great point, Peter, you can't, right?
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's going, like, look, I didn't believe it, I didn't understand it, but God used me to do this amazing thing, and now I can't argue with it.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel has gone out to the Gentiles.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: But you notice, you notice, who is the group that has had a problem with this from the very beginning?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: The circumcision party.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: These guys just keep popping up.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And they are the a huge um, I think enemy could be an appropriate word.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: They're at least an opposing group, a faction within the early church, where, reminder, they are saying, yes, you trust in Christ for your Savior, but you also must do these other things.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: So Peter has this amazing stand against the circumcision party.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, look, I mean, kind of proof is in the pudding.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, like, what look what God did.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: They've received the Holy Spirit.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: We can't argue.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Peter is once again brought back to this place that Christ had wanted him in, where he is sharing the gospel with Gentiles.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: He's eating with them, he's standing up for their part in the Christian community.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: But then, and now we loop back to last week.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you're still with me, right?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you're following this timeline, Peter is in Jerusalem, and though he has this great stand for faith in Acts 11, eventually, oh man, he begins to pull back.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: He begins to, by step and step, he begins to walk back his conviction that the gospel should go to the Gentiles, and that this gospel truly does extend to everybody in the same way, so that at the beginning of Galatians chapter 2, also in Acts 11, when Paul says he went up to Jerusalem, rather went down to Jerusalem, Antioch in the north, when he went down to Jerusalem, they had this conflict because Peter was once again sympathetic to the circumcision party.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: They had pulled him in by this point.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Man.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I want you to hear from me, if you just kind of got lost in all of that, what I want you to hear and see is that Peter is operating like a ping pong ball, okay?
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: He's this guy who started out, hey, we need to separate from the Gentiles.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, Jesus is hanging out with them.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, no, they shouldn't get the gospel.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, they do get the gospel message, and I should be eating with them.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this group of people says that I really shouldn't be doing that.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Paul says I should, and so I guess I'm gonna stick with him in the gospel message.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's where we leave Galatians 2, 1 through 10, is Peter's kind of back in the fold.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, most influential guy in the early church, Gentiles and Jews.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: For he regularly ate with the Gentiles, yes, before certain men came from James.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: We find out later, this is also in Acts 15, that the group that came from James, they're referencing a group from Jerusalem, this is the circumcision party.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: These guys, again, same group of people, though, that Peter has had history with that have been effective in pulling him back each time.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And we know from Acts 15 that this circumcision group came from Jerusalem saying that they had the authority of Jerusalem and of James, but that really they were lying.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so they come in.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, imagine, you're a new Christian, right?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: You don't really know what's going on between this huge debate.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: You just love Jesus.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then this guy comes in who walked with Christ, who was like with him on the Mount of Transfiguration, like all these amazing things that Peter has done, and Peter has been eating with you and bringing things together.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: He is, I mean, great at teaching.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then this other group comes in, and they have a slightly different message.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel is, yeah, about believing in Christ, but you who just grew up worshiping Zeus or Ares or any one of a number of different gods, well, now you need to be circumcised.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: You need to follow the food laws, and that sounds weird to you, but the big hanchos, they're saying that it's necessary.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so what they witness then is Peter slowly, slowly, slowly pulling back once again from the Gentile group.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like if you went to a bigger high school and you remember the like stress of going to lunch and having your tray and figuring out which table to sit at.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can think of maybe another group, it's kind of the cool kids who get one of your friends and start convincing him that he needs to go and hang out with them, right?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that you aren't.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, people that he should be hanging out with.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: You aren't a part of the cool kids group.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're making fun of you.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you just see your friend.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't happen overnight.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like they don't just go, hey, I'm going to cleanse myself of you.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: But they they over weeks and weeks they start hanging out more with this other group.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's what the Gentiles are experiencing here.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Paul has been hammering home.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, hey, you guys are part of it.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: You are just with it as much as the Jews are.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then this Jewish Jewish contingent comes in and goes, actually, not really.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: How devastating that would have been.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul's frustration with Peter, well, we can understand where it's coming from, but his big thing is he goes, Peter, you're being a hypocrite.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: This word comes in the Greek, comes from the world of theater.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And what he means and what he is saying is that, Peter, you are putting on a mask.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: You are acting like you have a role in a play.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is not really what you believe, but instead you are pushing this heretical gospel because you're afraid.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: And man, that is one of the hard claims that Paul confronts Peter with, right?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: However, when they came, he withdrew and separated himself because he feared them.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: He feared them, he was afraid.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Peter, not to rehash everything, but this is a guy who some of us can relate to.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: He ran hot and cold so often.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the same guy who was in the inner circle of even the twelve disciples, the twelve apostles.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: A guy who was the rock that Jesus was going to build his church on his admission of faith in him as the Savior.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: This guy who had such a strong personality also has many moments in his personal ministry where fear made him pull back.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: When Jesus walks on water, Peter's the guy who gets out of the boat and starts walking on water until he gets afraid.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: When Jesus is arrested, it's Peter who denies Christ three times because he is afraid of those who had arrested him.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Later on, when Jesus had returned for the 40 days after his resurrection, Peter and Jesus and John are having this conversation, and Peter gives Pete Jesus gives Peter the hard news that he's probably going to end up dying for his faith at some point.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: And Peter goes, What about John?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus goes, Don't worry about John.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: You've got your own thing to deal with.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: And here again, we can play sort of armchair psychologist, what was going on?
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Was Peter afraid of rejection back in Jerusalem?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: That he was going to be cast out of an influential group?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Was he worried about losing his powerful status as a pillar in the church?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Was he concerned that his reputation as the evangelist to the Jews, that that was going to be taken away from him because he was hanging out with Gentiles?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know exactly what it was, but he was afraid.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: There was not a good reason, as if there could be one, but there was not a reason that Peter had that satisfied Paul in the least.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: Paul just saw his friend slowly backing away, weakening, withdrawing, and separating himself from those he had been committed to say were part of the gospel and God's kingdom.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so the problem then here is Paul confronts Peter, and we get to the focus of the passage, right?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: And after all of this that we've said and talked about, you can just imagine the conversation, right?
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: They have history together.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: They've had these this same argument before, but now Peter is walking back on his word once again.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul goes, Peter, my friend, like you are the guy that God used to reveal the gospel to the Gentiles.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: You are the guy who agreed with me back in Jerusalem that the gospel is for them too, and we should specifically be eating with them.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: You are the guy that just a few months ago was eating with the Gentiles and brothers and sisters in Christ here in Antioch.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then they come in and you just start pulling back.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: You are not just undermining the gospel, but you are leading people astray.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: You are supporting a heretical and false truth.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, you are just turning people into Jews.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's all you're doing.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: My friend, what are you doing?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the tease.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: The tease is we don't know what happened next.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is where the story of this conflict ends.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is where it comes to its conclusion.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Chapter 2 continues on in a different capacity.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And apparently the whole point of Paul bringing up this story in Galatians or to the churches in Galatia was he goes, occasionally, this circumcision party that has infected your churches, it is worth it to get into conflict with them.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because they are turning people away from the Lord.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: They are preaching a false gospel message, and they must be confronted.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: I did it even to somebody like Peter.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: You should be able to follow in my example when the time comes.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Even though, as Paul would be saying to the Galatians, he says, even though I am absent, take heart from what I have done.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: You do the same thing.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, for some of us who really hate conflict, our anxiety is like bubbling over.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: We cannot imagine addressing somebody in this way, let alone doing it in front of other people.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Man, what courage Paul had.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: But I want you to think if you're somebody who struggles with a bit of conflict, I want you to think for a moment about what would have happened if he didn't confront Peter.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: First, he would have a broken heart.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: You and I have all had circumstances where we should have done or said something and later we regretted it.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Paul is an evangelist for the gospel, right?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: He is sharing the truth of Christ.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: And if he were to stand down in this moment as something so clearly wrong was being proclaimed, he would have never been able to live with himself.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: He would have carried that and it would have broken his heart.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, for Paul, who basically functions as the de facto pastor and shepherd of the church in Antioch, if he had not done anything as Peter comes in, and then the circumcision party comes in and they unite, if Paul had not done anything, those who were watching him would have just gone, I guess Paul thinks this is okay.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: I guess he's good with what's going on.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Even if he didn't expressly confirm it, I mean, by ex by him not denying it, it would have been his silent approval.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Third is that it would have been continued harm, and in this case to a friend.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: Peter was making a huge mistake.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Peter needed to be pulled back from the ledge.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Peter was wrong, and Peter was hurting people and himself.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if Paul had not done anything, who knows how long this might have continued or where it would have gone.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, this is undermined the gospel.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about this week in and week out, and frankly, it's a theme of the book of Galatians.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: But the gospel, the false gospel that was being preached by this group, it was hurting the faith of those who were in the Antiochene, the Antioch Church.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so the gospel message that Paul had been sharing with them over and over again, they came in and tacked on things to it, and all of a sudden the cross doesn't matter.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's a matter of works instead of faith.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Fifth and finally, it's only speculation, right, as all much of this is, but like, how much further would this have gone?
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you read in that passage, one of the devastating events that takes place is in fact not just that Peter brought people away, or that he pulled back from these lunches, these dinners, but that he brought all of the Jews in the church to follow him.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: So the entire church divides over this.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: And even as if we're kind of like talking about huge losses, Barnabas, a guy who joined Paul previously to go to Jerusalem and fight this thing, has now succumbed to it as well.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: You say, who is standing alone in the gap for the Gentiles?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's Paul, the guy who's like the most Jewish of them all.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: He knew the law better than anybody, and yet he was the one who said, Hey, they're with us.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so we say, what would have been the greater damage if this, if Paul hadn't spoken up in this critical moment in church history and just let it slide?
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Naturally, we this whole situation extends to us, right?
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: There is a moment for unity and there is a moment for conflict.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the difficulty is figuring out when they come and how to handle them.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Last week we said that, you know, there are many moments in Christian relationships and community and even disagreements over theology that we should be able to overcome for the sake of unity as long as we all proclaim the same gospel message.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: But now we come to a situation where Peter was no longer proclaiming for a time the same gospel message.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now to comfort you, we do know that Peter eventually repented of this decision, returned, he and Paul made up.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: Barnabas did the same thing.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: He and Paul went back out on another missionary journey.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, they reconciled over this.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: This conflict did not just cause the church to bleed unendingly.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually things were repaired.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: But we still have to ask the question like, how much damage was done just from what we're reading?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: The entire church split in two between Gentiles and Jews.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: That is a huge problem.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, it is anathema to the unity of Christ's church.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so, therefore, again, we get back to it was necessary for Paul to bring about this conflict.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: But why?
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because Peter was dividing and hurting the church.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, when are the moments when conflict within sort of under the Christian umbrella, if you will, because this is not a message about conflict of any sort and conflict of any kind with anybody, but when we're talking about those who say that they love and know Christ, when does conflict become necessary when they are dividing and hurting, right?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: When they are, and we might even add a third, when they will not stop dividing and hurting.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we say things that can be hurtful and divisive, but we recognize and pull back.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: But man, Peter was just, he was like a train that had gone off the tracks.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so it became necessary for Paul to do this.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: One way to think about this is that the idea that the Bible gives us of a church being a flock of sheep with a shepherd, right?
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul's role as the shepherd of the church in Antioch was not to leave the sheep and go out and kill every single wolf in the land, but rather, once the wolves came into the flock, he needed to deal with it quickly.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so I believe that this gives us an idea of a defensive posture when it comes to conflict, that the first foot forward for Christianity should be one of attempted unity and reconciliation.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: That if we if we say and believe that we're trusting in the same gospel message, right?
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: That there should be things that we might say are worthy debates, okay, but that we need to be able to overcome in order to have that unity.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: But then when the wolves do come in and the gospel begins to change, Jesus isn't God.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's more than one way to salvation, right?
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's works involved in this whole thing.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: When we begin to change and alter the gospel message itself, now the wolves have come into the pen and something needs to be done.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, to be quite honest with you, that's a one part of my job description, but it does extend individually to all of us as well, that we alert and recognize when these things happen, and because of the next point, that it might be you who is best equipped to handle this conflict, more so than me.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why is that Paul's conflict was effective because Peter was both a Christian and a friend.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I mean is that when we talk about Peter and Paul's history, these guys, we could say friends, maybe acquaintances would be better, but they've worked through some heavy things.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: They have a history of this specific conflict.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: There might have been other people in the church who opposed Peter, we don't know, right?
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: But who was really one of the only people and only people left who could oppose Peter and it actually make a difference?
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Paul.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't some uh random Joe, but rather it was the guy who knew him who had had these conversations before.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now again, we could say that it was part of Paul's job as the shepherd to do this, and sometimes part of my job is having conflicts where I don't know somebody particularly well.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: But what I want you to see is separate yourself from my job responsibility from a moment.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: What is your responsibility?
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: Your responsibility is that conflict is necessary when people are continuing to divide and hurt the church.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you talk about how it should be addressed, you say, well, it's most effective, perhaps if I'm in close proximity to the situation.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: Even though, ironically, that's the time when we don't want to do anything, right?
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: When it is a close friend.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: We neglect that we often have the opportunity and responsibility to address problems with those who are closest to us when someone distant might not have the same impact.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: I have this uh kind of morbid hobby, I'll let you know, of going on Facebook and reading the comments anytime the city of Topeka talks about construction projects.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: I just I can't look away.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's like everybody's so so angry, so upset.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: And uh thinking, I think, also that their comments on Facebook are going to change things, right?
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel for the poor sap who has to run Topeka's PR department, right?
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: Who has to deal with all these things, but it's not like they're forwarding all those comments to those who are making decisions, right?
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's not.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's just sort of like shouting out into the ether.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's really doing nothing except getting likes.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: And 17 likes isn't enough to change a uh construction project.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that applies when we talk about conflict here, is we say, well, who is best equipped and is going to be most effective at addressing those who have fallen short?
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it is those who have trusted in Christ and those who are close to the situation.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: As a final point, when it comes to Peter, you say, well, it's that he was a Christian.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is not that Christians are the only ones who handle conflict, uh, but rather that when Paul was confronting him, it wasn't a matter of opinion, right?
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: They were rooting the argument, or rather, Paul was rooting the argument in a foundational truth that they both shared.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: And how much more beneficial that was for the argument, for Paul to not just say, Hey Peter, I don't really like what you're doing, but instead for Paul to say, there's a lot of P names, for Paul to say to Peter, hey, we worship the same Savior, he said these things, you're supposed to be a light unto the nations, you've received a gospel, and you're not doing it.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: That hits differently.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: When we bring these two things together, I think the Lord calls us to seek unity with other believers first.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: I do think that's most important.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes the decisions they make force us to draw hard lines.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the nature of those decisions are what determine the lines, and when that happens, it's necessary to make a stand for what is right.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: So let me leave you with two quick examples, okay?
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: Where I think this kind of shows two ends of the spectrum.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: There are certain things that we disagree about under, you could say, like this umbrella of Christianity, that we need to be able to overcome.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: A good example and a serious example of that would be different ways of handling worship and music, right?
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: It has to do with the songs that are sung or instruments that are used or not used, has to do with maybe the length or the breadth, or there are a lot of different ways that Bible-believing, Jesus-loving Christians have decided that they want to worship differently.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: And though we might be able to say, like Peter and Paul did back in Galatians 2, 1 through 10, they might go, hey, maybe it's best if you go this way and I go this way, they were still able to say, we believe the same gospel, we trust in the same thing, we're going to reach people for that same gospel, and we're united on the cross.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, sometimes we focus too much on what might seem more trivial issues, and less so when churches do begin to divide over a gospel message that changes.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is where conflict happens.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, for instance, if somebody begins to say, Hey, you know what?
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: I trust in Jesus as my Savior.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that he's the Lord of my life, but I also think that my friend over here, who believes in another way to heaven or the afterlife or whatever, I think they're right too.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: And we go, okay.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now now we believe something categorically different about what the gospel means.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: You think that Jesus is a good idea, I think he's the savior, and those two things are not compatible.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thinking he's a savior is a good idea, but you get what I mean, right?
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: That those two things, like we can't preach, we can't share the gospel in the same way, because my view is that people who don't trust in Christ are not saved.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: Your view is that if they like the method they have chosen, that they're gonna be okay.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that hits completely different, and it's worthy to argue about that, particularly if they're trying to do it within the church.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so what this message leaves us with is not so much an exact blueprint of, you know, what to do when conflict arises.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's its own conversation, but rather that it is necessary when people continue to be divisive and hurtful, and that we might be most effective when we are closer to the situation, so that God would give us the courage to do it, and when we can rely upon a foundational faith that we share.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: That makes this moving through the conflict and hopefully into resolution.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: Peter pulled back from his position.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: Barnabas pulled back from his position because Paul was effective in what he did.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so our prayer here, as we'll go ahead and close, is simply that God would give us both the wisdom to understand when it's necessary and the courage to be able to do it when we're called when we're when required.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: God, I thank you for the unity even present here in our church.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, God, there are many people from different faith backgrounds that all proclaim Christ as their Savior, and what a testament that is to the gospel message and Lord, unity that can be found through the cross.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that you would give us eyes and ears to recognize when somebody is causing continued division and pain and hurt within your church, within your bride, Lord.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um God, that in those moments you would give us courage.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, that we would I pray for the leadership of this church and our elders that you would help us to recognize these things.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: But God, also for every single person who might have somebody close to them that is like Peter, treading close to the edge.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: God, help us to know what to do and say.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: And as you've promised so many times before, if we would just move forward in faith, your spirit would give us the words.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I ask in closing, simply that we might be able to understand rightly the way that you have called us both into unity and into occasional conflict for the sake of the gospel message both.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: To help us to balance that, Lord, in a way that is glorifying to you.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: We pray all these things in Jesus' name.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.