Confrontation for the Sake of Love

Good morning. We're going to be moving shortly into the passage that Gene read for us here. And before we do that, however, we want to just want to give you a last heads up about signing up for the electives. If you've been taking Romans, you've got one quarter left. Stick with it and stay the course. For those of you who have been in the other electives or have not signed up for any, we have one last time here to sign up for either the Principle and Principles of Grace or the Sermon on the Mount, which will, each of those will last for one quarter. And all three electives running Sunday morning will be finished up the end of September. So anyway, just ask that you take advantage of that.

Now, in this passage, one of the things that we want to bring it to, we've used this chiasm, which is a mirror image in writing. as a means of kind of seeing where we are and what's the pattern of Paul's writing. We're right here in this part where Paul is talking about justification by faith in his life. This morning we'll be looking at a part where he's telling about his life and it'll be the last part of Paul telling about kind of autobiographical portions of his life that demonstrate his point that indeed he is not responsible to the other apostles for being appointed to the sending of the gospel, nor did the other apostles have to give him the gospel because he received it directly from Jesus Christ. It will be the end of that account, but the beginning of this section of Paul's life and justification by faith. So this chiasm, this mirrored image in writing, is being carried out as we step our way through the book.

Alright, we'll begin at verse 11 and as we do that, one of the things we see as we go through this, Paul has several purposes in mind in bringing forth this account. It's in brief, it's only a few verses, but he's got a few different purposes in mind. He brings up this incident, I'll call it, with this fellow apostle. And he definitely means fellow apostle. Peter calls him here Cephas is the way we commonly say it in our English translations and the way we pronounce it. The Aramaic was Cephas. But Peter is the more commonly understood word, and it's the Greek equivalent. Both mean rock.

This is the last of Paul's accounts. We started in chapter one, and then now in chapter two, where he's giving kind of an autobiographical, this happened and this happened and this happened, not just to give his life story, although it's certainly insightful. Matter of fact, contains information we don't have elsewhere in the same form. But this is also a dramatic grand finale, because it's not just some little minor incident, it's a rather big one, and one with huge import, and the reason he brings it up. This verse here, verse 11 we're looking at, is a summary statement. It's in the following verses, 12, 13, 14, that he gives the detail. So I think it's important for us and valuable for us to look at it that way. the summary of here's how it all happened in verse 11 that we're looking at initially, and then verses 12 he follows up with here's all the detail about how that came about.

All right, now I think about this, we got two primary players in here, we got Peter and Paul. And interestingly, these are both guys who had more than one name. They had a kind of an Aramaic or Hebrew name and a Greek name. And Peter, yeah, this is the Peter who was by trade a Galilean fisherman. We say Galilean because he carried out his trade on the Sea of Galilee. This is the very place where the Lord called him to be a disciple. And the north end of the Sea of Galilee is where it certainly appears to be Peter's house is actually found and can be visited today.

Peter was certainly prominent among the 12 disciples, famous or infamous, for his bold statements. Sometimes they were glorious. Sometimes they were very unglorious. But Peter certainly spoke out, didn't he? Here he sees on what's called the Mount of Transfiguration. Here's the Lord and Elijah and Moses. And Peter comes up with a statement that's sort of like, hey, this is great, let's go camping. Here's Peter. He sees the Lord walking on the water. He says, that's cool, can I do that too? Sure. Oh, by the way, you have to continue believing and trusting. You want to keep walking.

Here's Peter, the day of Pentecost. By the way, about two months after he had said, no, I don't even know the Lord. the Apentecost, telling people the gospel. Very pointedly, telling all the Jews gathered there, you were the one who crucified the Messiah that God has promised for centuries. You were the ones. Amazing fellow. Both tragic denials and great stewardship. We see them both.

In addition to that, he was a leading spokesman among the apostles. Sometime back we went through the book of Acts and showed that from the very first chapter of Acts into about Acts 15, Peter is not prominent in every chapter, but overall a very significant speaker and key player in key events for the apostles. And it's interesting that after chapter 15, he kind of fades from the pages, but we still see him having continuing significance, as we've been studying and finished up today in the elective in 1 and 2 Peter. And finally, he was the one who gave the gospel of grace to the Gentiles.

We oftentimes think of Paul, and certainly that was his commission. But first time, first introduction, Peter, Peter was God's instrument. We see here Caesarea, which is a place of importance in several New Testament events. It was a place where, where you see here from an air photo, Paul was held as prisoner for about two years, that very place. And it was here in Caesarea where Peter gave the gospel to the Gentiles in the house of Cornelius.

Then when he went back to Jerusalem in Acts chapter 11, they said, I'll speak a little colloquially here, Peter, you've got some explaining to do, okay? You have a little bit of explaining to do because you really overstepped it. And so that's Acts chapter 11. You can read that if you care to. Here is, in verse 11, here's Peter, Cephas, Cephas to be a little more technically correct, came to Antioch. This is the place from which Paul had been sent. There's a little bit larger map.

This is ancient Antioch, biblical times and the time shortly thereafter. Interestingly, outside of scripture directly, But there is a tradition, so because it's outside of Scripture, it does not have the reliability nor the authority of Scripture. But nonetheless, there is a tradition that places Peter at Antioch from 47 to 54 AD. Roughly speaking, that says he was primarily in Antioch, so the tradition goes, from the beginning of Paul's first missionary journey to about two years after his second missionary journey. Interesting, huh? So the tradition goes, Peter met with the believers in a cave that was just outside of Antioch. And here are a couple of shots inside the cave. So fascinating. Here's the Jewish quarter where the Jews were situated there in Antioch. All right. Now, that's Peter. Here's this Saul guy, and one of the reasons I show this, think of both these men. Peter, who started off as one who said, no, I don't know him.

Two months before he declared the gospel to all the people gathered on the day of Pentecost. To now, a man whom the Lord has grown over some time and changed. And as we saw in 1 and 2 Peter, changed radically. wonderfully, marvelously, and graciously.

Then, to Saul, the Christian killer. Think about this, this man whose letters we were studying, if he had the opportunity today, before belief, would have us all dead. Isn't that amazing? That man was the one that the Lord transformed by his marvelous and amazing grace. That's Saul, the one who was the leading persecutor of the church.

He pressed for and approved death sentences. Stephen, the first martyr. Saul was there, holding all the robes while the people went at Stephen with the stones. Later on in Acts, he says, wherever I had the chance, I voted for death. The beginning of Acts chapter 9, where he came to the Lord, Saul, still breathing out threats and murder. Isn't that amazing? Threats and murder. Not just harm. Not just, I want to cause him a problem. He wanted people like us dead.

That was Saul. His conversion recorded for us after those rather stunning and awesome words that start Acts chapter 9. clearly show the Lord's work. The Lord stopped him on the road to Damascus there. And what is fascinating to me is the Lord doesn't say to Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting those believers? How does he put it to him? Twice, as a matter of fact. Saul, why do you persecute me? Isn't that amazing? The Lord takes the persecution of the believers very, very personally.

By God's grace and His mercy, and Paul in Galatians and 1 Timothy uses both terms, by God's mercy was given the gospel by revelation of Jesus Christ and the stewardship of that gospel. I mentioned grace and mercy here. We're going to be looking at the law and grace, and especially towards the end of the book of Galatians, mercy for some time to come, unless the Lord takes us home. And just to kind of give an illustration, and this is only a beginning, what's the difference between grace and mercy? They're very similar, but here's an illustration. Humor me for a minute.

Alright, let's say that you were on your way to church, and the speed limit out here I think is about 30, and the patrolman pulls you over and he says, do you realize that you were going 45? And you go, oh, yes. Now, here's mercy. A policeman says, I could give you one whopping ticket, but I'm going to let you off with a warning today. It is punishment withheld. Grace, on the other hand, does this. The policeman comes up to you and he says, do you realize you're going 45 in the 30 zone?

And you look at it and you say, yeah, yeah, I was. And he gives you the ticket. Ah, but here's Grace. You show up at the courtroom and he gets out his checkbook and pays the fine. And he says, by the way, what are you doing for dinner tonight? That's Grace.

Now, God had placed Paul and Peter, these two men, amazing accounts of the Lord's transforming grace in each of them, in a spiritual partnership. That's what we looked at last time we studied this. However, we have questions on the table. Think about this for a minute. Paul's given us here the introduction. to the rest of these few verses. There's only three left. But think about this.

What is Paul's intent in opposing Peter face-to-face? What is he thinking that he wants to be the outcome from opposing Peter? What does he want to have happen to that church there at Antioch and the other churches? where he is having an impact in what he says. And finally, and perhaps even most important for us, what is Paul's intent for you and me?

Right here. What does he have in mind? What's he thinking? So I want you to think about that. Hold on to that. Don't forget it, because we'll come back to it. Okay? Now, Paul's going to make a few points in this critical encounter, and I'm going to tell you that there's at least four of them I'd like to have us take a look at. First one is this.

This event that he's going to talk about, this incident, is going to bring about this point. The legalists, the ones who are proponents of the law of Moses for the Gentiles, Which if those proponents had their way, you and I right now would be living under the law of Moses.

Those proponents would say, Paul's got to get his story from Peter. Paul's got to get his authority from Peter. Got to go there because Peter is the guy. Peter is the one the Lord handpicked. Peter is the one who has been centered there at Jerusalem. And after all, Jerusalem's the place that's got the temple, and Peter goes to the temple, and so Paul's got to go to Peter. Paul has to have Peter's backing every step of the way.

That's what they would have said. Paul's going to give this account and say, uh-uh, nope, not even sort of. Next thing, Paul can make the point here that Peter, in this confrontation, this incident that we see here, did not end up standing by the principle of law, by the law of Moses being the reigning principle, but by the principle of grace.

Now, I want you to hold that thought. I want you to hold that thought because we're going to come back to that. But I've got to get through my numbers here, all four of them. Hold it in your brain, we'll get there. Principle of law, principle of grace, important. Now, third point. Since the confrontation was open, what do you mean by that? In front of everybody. Since the confrontation is open, many could testify to the facts that Paul had confronted Peter. That would be valuable. is it wouldn't be just Paul's own testimony.

Think about this. Here is the group of churches, four of them particularly in cities whose names we see repeatedly mentioned, particularly in Acts, but elsewhere. So here are the churches in Galatia. Those churches could easily send someone to Antioch This is the Antioch, by the way, that's closer to Syria and down at the southern end, not the one that's up at the other end called Pisidian Antioch or Antioch of Pisidia.

But they could easily send somebody there because Paul did his confrontation of Peter. They could easily send somebody down there because this had happened fairly recently and say, I need two or three witnesses that will back up Paul's story. Do you have them? And he would. They could even, if they wanted to go to it, go to law and count on the two or three witnesses to verify Paul's account. Fourth point, standing by the law as a means of salvation or of life. Not just are you saved by law, but how do you continue after you're saved? was not something by which a believer could be justified, but it was what?

What's the last phrase in verse 11? It was condemning. Isn't that something? They were saying, boy, you've got to follow the law of Moses. You're going to want to be justified. Justified meaning declared righteous. Paul's point, and he's going to elaborate on this further, Paul's point, the law Allowed condemnation. 2nd Corinthians chapter 3. The law is a ministry of condemnation. A great point would be made here. Now, what about this word condemned? There's a little bit of a head scratcher possibly here. Paul wrote these words to the believers in Romans, and of course the Romans elect have studied this not too many weeks ago. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

What? How is it that Peter stands condemned? Isn't Peter in Christ? Why? Have we got a Bible contradiction? Is it all going to blow up in our face? Probably not. Believers cannot be condemned in their eternal position in Christ. In Christ, you cannot be condemned. If you want condemnation in this church, I can't help you. Sorry, you have to go somewhere else. But, in our eternal position, though we cannot be condemned, and by the way, I don't mean that just mostly or sort of. Absolutely, no condemnation. They can be condemned in their daily condition, and one of the ways that that can happen, you want to know how to be condemned? Of course everybody wants to know how to be condemned, right? Take on the law. Easy. Piece of cake. Take on the law. That's how you can get it. You get all the condemnation you want, in your condition. It will not condemn you eternally, if you're saved, but You can experience the ministry of condemnation if you want. 2 Corinthians 3. You can experience the ministry of death if you want. Just grab law. Any law will do. Grab some of it, grab all of it.

On page 4 of your handout, I had to put it on page 4 in order to not get things too out of arrangement here. Page 4 of your handout, There's a listing after an initial introductory paragraph. There's a listing of the principle of law and the principle of grace. I'm giving it to you now, but I want you to keep hold of this. There's that introductory part and then the list. I have this picture in here because I want you to put it under your pillow and soak this thing up. If you have insomnia, just flick a little light on and read this thing.

Take it home because we're going to be taking more of a look at this. The principle of law and the principle of grace. So anyway, that's just kind of an introduction. We'll look at it more as we go along. They have this introductory paragraph, it's brief, and then the principles side by side. We'll be stepping our way through it.

And the significance of this chart will have meaning certainly in the current Romans elective. It will have meaning in the elective on grace that starts next week. It will have meaning in the Sermon on the Mount elective that starts next week. So, boy, it can hardly be more relevant. All right. So I'll let you soak that up through your pillow. So we've taken a look at verse 11, now let's step on to verses 12 and 13.

Prior to the coming of certain men from James, he starts off there. He, that is Cephas, Peter, used to eat with the Gentiles. Let's take a look here. Now, the parts of it I would like to focus on initially, for prior to, this time, he used to eat with the Gentiles.

What's been Peter's pattern? Peter, since that day, recorded in Acts chapter 10, where he actually was with Cornelius, and ate there, and in fact stayed there with other Gentiles, eating Gentile food. Eating Gentile food, living right next to Gentiles. for any righteous Jew of the era, unthinkable. But Peter had been doing this for years.

He did it while Paul was only a young'un in the Lord. He used to eat with the Gentiles. He had been behaving like this, seemingly understanding. that the Gentiles were not under the law. And in fact, he, though a Jew, was no longer under the law either. It happened this way. Here's Peter.

He preached the gospel to the Gentiles. I have circled on there Joppa, and then to the north of that, Caesarea. And that's where Peter traveled from and to in order to introduced the gospel to Cornelius. And then he went back to Jerusalem, in Acts chapter 11 it's explained to us, and then explained to the others there gathered, the apostles and other leaders in the church, gathered there and explained to them why it was that he had introduced the gospel to the Gentiles directly and even stayed with them and ate with them.

Gentiles. To give us some kind of a time frame, here roughly 40 AD is the time frame for Acts chapter 10. And now, about not quite a decade later, here is Paul writing this letter. So for some years, up until this incident, most likely, for some years, Peter had been right alongside the Gentiles.

But now, now, came an issue that had to be confronted. Now we have this line here, the coming of certain men from James and then when they came. This coming of certain men from James does not mean that James had sent them, hey you go and give the law of Moses to these people. It means rather instead, rather than being a representative and appointed by James, but rather they came from this founding church in Jerusalem. where James was certainly a key leader, and you could expect that.

He was the Lord's brother. Now, just in case you're interested, we have a supplemental handout on the cabinet to the right. This addresses the question, did Jesus have brothers and sisters born of Mary and Joseph? And that's a question that people in the church from time to time ask. If that's an interesting question to you, feel free to take advantage of it.

Now, let's press on to the last part of verse 12. He began to withdraw and hold himself, here's Peter, began to withdraw and hold himself to Luke fearing the party of the circumcision. So the end of verse 12 tells us a couple of things, at a minimum.

And the first one is what Peter began to do, notice the way Paul puts it, what he began to do, and the second thing, why he did it. What he did, what's the motivation? What's causing Peter to behave this way? Peter was one who could, as we pointed out before, speak boldly and he could be intimidated. This is one of these times where he was intimidated.

The intimidation came from the legalists. In Israel, in Israel, the legalists were going along with a general cultural movement that said this, the Messiah will come, boy is this blind, The Messiah will come when we get rid of or circumcise all the Gentiles in Israel. That was one of the things that they thought. And so here are these guys with that mindset coming up, and they're going to pressure Peter, and Peter knows it, and he begins yielding to them.

The words he began to withdraw are in the imperfect tense, and that doesn't mean that Paul was imperfectly tense, okay? It means that it was an ongoing process in the past. His withdrawal was progressive. He didn't just suddenly, hey folks, I'm going over here, you'll understand.

No, he just kind of slowly slid, no, I think I'll pick over here, and then just kept moving farther and farther away from the Gentiles and situating himself And often in a separate area with the Jews and others began to follow. There was a drift in that direction. Verse 13, the rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. By the way, how many of you like hypocrisy?

Not so much? Yeah. Neither did Paul. And actually, once the others understood, don't think they did either. Let's take a look at it. This doesn't appear to be something that Peter announced. It doesn't appear to be something that he sat down and talked with the other Jews about.

Hey, we need to kind of move in this direction. It appeared to be something where he quietly succumbed to the pressure. Ever been in that spot? Under pressure? He quietly succumbed to it, knuckled under the pressure. And others began playing an unspoken game of follow the leader. Here's Peter, drifting off into separation. The others, oh, Peter's doing it, I guess I better too. Crowd psychology is its worst. I understand it's pure myth, but it's sort of the lemming phenomenon. Once the separation gained momentum, others joined in the silent drift, the pressure. In fact, I think what they just recently studied in Romans 12, being conformed, pressured, being subjected to the pressure. This was not the Holy Spirit's work. This was a worldly pressure. Barnabas, The one who traveled with Paul on his first missionary journey, who was with Paul at each one of the churches that Paul was now writing to.

Even he was getting sucked in. The one who had been a believer before Paul was, and had actually come forward and introduced Paul to those in Jerusalem and said, he's okay. He's with me. But more than that, he's with the Lord. That, that barbless. Paul saw through it. He was there. And my guess is that whether he saw it suddenly or whether he said, hey, there's a drift going on here. One way or another, it became apparent. He said, ding, whoop, we've got a big problem here.

And it's not a dinky one. So verse 14, okay? We've got this underlined thing here, not straightforward. And Paul is not being minor and nitpicky about this. Not straightforward. Verse 14 here goes like this. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, Paul saw it. Paul recognized it.

I think that's something possibly for us to ponder here, is just recognizing things in our lives. And certainly the Holy Spirit is going to be one pointing out things in our lives that just need to be dealt with. This is part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And it was certainly a ministry through Paul, wasn't it? Paul saw it. Paul was about to do something about it.

Within the church, and by church I mean all of those who believe from Acts 2, the day that Peter, who's just about to get confronted, that Peter presented the Gospels on the day of Pentecost, to the day when the Lord takes us all home. That's the church. To the day of the rapture.

We live under the principle of grace. Paul saw through what was taking place here. These people are slipping out from underneath that principle of grace. The ethnic difference under those living under the principle of grace, the ethnic difference between Jew and Gentile, impacts our position in Christ, not one iota. And what does the Lord call us to? Conformity in our condition, in our daily condition to our eternal position, where we have been placed with Christ, in Christ, seated with Him there in the heavenlies, and all the blessings that go along with it.

Ephesians 1.3. We are entirely blessed under the principle of grace. We walk by the principle of grace. We fellowship with the Lord by the principle of grace, 100%.

Paul saw this. He says, what's going on here is not consistent with that principle of grace. Here we saw in verse 13, Paul called Peter and all those that followed, even Barnabas, a behavior, they call them, you're in a behavior of hypocrisy. Two-faced. You have something that is not consistent here. It's not straightforward. Here in this verse, he says it's not being straightforward about the truth of the gospel. That's the way he puts it. Think about this.

Paul, as we're going to see him put it straight out, Paul could have dealt with this privately. Could he not? He could have said, I don't want to embarrass Peter. I don't want to cause a problem here, so I'll just kind of see him privately about this and we'll deal with it.

And there are certainly many things that ought to be dealt with that way. But there's a reason. We mentioned one of them already for dealing with this out in front of everyone. It was an issue that everyone was being sucked into. It was one that Peter needed to have seen right in front of everyone and understand. Paul spoke the next words we're going to see and hear to Peter, but everyone needed to learn this lesson.

Not only the Jews, that they no longer separate, but even the Gentiles, that they not feel under pressure. Right? So now we get into the last half of verse 14. Here's Peter who had for years lived alongside the Gentiles, now moving and drifting in a place of separation, publicly at least, in the group situation where they would eat together, bowing to the pressure, succumbing to the pressure, being conformed to a mold, separating himself. The unstated message, but boy was it getting clearer by the moment.

The unstated message to the Gentiles is, unless you follow the law of Moses, we've got to separate. The legalists, the Judaizers, the ones who were proponents of the law of Moses, were getting their way. And Paul saw that that was wrong, very wrong. The message was, live like a Jew or we can't eat with you.

And I'm not trying to be poetic. The body of Christ was being divided by the behavior of Peter and by following the leader, others as well. You can contrast that, if you would, to Ephesians, the last half of chapter 2, where the Lord explicitly is said to have died on the cross so that these two would be built into one. One building, one household, one family of God. One. Peter was making a very grave mistake.

So what happened after that? You know, in this instance here, Paul doesn't elaborate on how this thing was resolved. Isn't that interesting? But I think the implication is there. He didn't say, it was a disaster. Peter yelled at me and punched me in the nose. We got in a big fisty cuss and both of us ended up with black eyes, like a couple of people here. Anyway, no, he didn't say that, did he? He didn't say that.

The implication here, and as we'll see shortly, the indication that we have from the rest of the New Testament, is that this was resolved not just resolved and so, okay, we'll get along. It was resolved marvelously. It was resolved godly. What could have been a massive blow-up was resolved in a way that glorified the Lord. We have certainly other implications and indications from scripture, many of them in fact, that things were resolved quickly and in the end, these two maintained and continued to talk about their spiritual partnership. That was clear. Here's some instances.

Shortly after Paul wrote Galatians, Peter and Paul were both present at a meeting recorded for us in Acts chapter 15. Peter spoke openly, as it's recorded, in support of the things that Paul taught. We don't want to call these Gentiles to be under this law. We haven't even been able to bear the burden. Paul and Barnabas took the letter to Antioch, the very place where this incident took place, and said, Gentiles are not under law, and Jews and Gentiles are not to separate. They're one body in Christ.

One Lord, one faith, one baptism, as Paul put it in Ephesians 4. Seven years later, Paul wrote about Peter, Cephas, four times in 1 Corinthians. And in fact, there is no evidence of any ongoing rift, and he urged that the rift be healed up and mended. Here is what Peter wrote about Paul, and there are three points I want to bring out here in 2 Peter 3, particularly verse 15 and 16. Notice when he first refers to Paul, what does he say?

Our beloved brother Paul. He doesn't say our brrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbr What does that say? One, Paul does have some wisdom, and you need to listen to it. And I, having been opposed by Paul, can tell you he's got something valuable to say.

And not only that, the wisdom was given to him. It's not Paul's to brag about. It was a gift from the Lord. It was grace given, as Paul says repeatedly. And finally, Peter acknowledges that what Paul wrote was indeed scripture. Understand it as that. See it as that.

Now, later on in Galatians, we're going to run into a word in Galatians 6.1, and it has to do with this passage. Because remember the questions that we asked that we left on the table?

What was Paul's intent? What did Paul have in mind for this confrontation with Peter. Did he have in mind, man, I am really going to put that guy down. I'm going to really put that guy out. He is going to be under my foot. Is that what he had in mind?

Not even sort of. He writes later on in this book of Galatians about restoring a brother who has, it says here, trespass. The word means to fall alongside the path, to fall off of it. To fall alongside and off of the path. What do you do? You throw a rock at him. You walk by? No. Restore. His intent was to restore Peter to his ministry. Restore Peter to a place of living out the truth of the gospel. Not a power grab. Ever heard, oh boy, this is something. I'm glad you're sitting.

Ever heard the words church politics? I'll just go ahead and say it for what it is. Church politics, as it's typically thought of, is of the world, the flesh, and the devil. There is zero intent of the Lord that there be church politics in the church. with one exception.

In Philippians, chapter 1, Paul writes to the Philippians and he talks about conducting yourselves, I think that's in 1.27, that word is polytheoumi, it's behave as citizens. Where? Of heaven. Chapter 3, he's going to tell them you're citizens of heaven. Chapter 4, he says, talks about the believers whose names are in the Book of Life. The Book of Life is the list of citizens.

So that's the one exception to church politics. That's the only church politics we want around here, is politics that's all about our heavenly citizenship. That's great politics. We can handle that. The rest of it, terrible. God never intended church politics in the way that it's often thought of.

This word for restore here, this translated restore, is used in Matthew chapter 4 verse 21 for James and John, the apostles, as they were called by the Lord, mending nets. The nets are torn, you fix them. You take the tear and you heal it up. It was used in medical literature today for taking a broken bone and setting it right. Setting broken bones. Putting it back together for healing.

The word there is translated, restored as katartizo. And we'll be looking at it, of course, again. And we don't mean, it's not, sound like a cat artist. That's nothing for me. Katartizo is a word here that is used of the disciples manning nets. And guess what?

Peter was one of those along the Sea of Galilee that was certainly among the things he did was men nets. He knew about this restoration process. Here's another one. Dr. Luke here in this artist's depiction is pictured setting at Artizo, broken bones and then doing as best they did in those days casting it. And so there is a preparation for healing. That is the process that believers are to be about.

And whatever analogy helps you understand it better, that's great. But that's how the word was used. And that's what Paul was doing with Peter. He wasn't there to say, boy, I'm going to punch Peter's lights out, but good. I'm going to put him down and he will never speak up again. No. He was looking for restoration. Now, what does this mean for us? How about for you and me?

God's grace, and Peter's certainly a demonstration of it, but Paul's not done telling. As we read this book, he's not done telling us. God's grace is the reigning principle. They saw it in the Roman study, all through chapter 5, and especially towards the end. This grace in which we, what? Stand. The grace in which we stand. The reigning principle. Not any law. None. Law does not help. It is only a contaminant. All grace. All grace for all of us, all the time. For believers, it is the spiritual air we breathe.

One of the other points that Paul certainly makes here, because remember it said he saw it, he recognized it for what it was. Discerning grace from law. That's one of the reasons for that page four in your handout and we'll continue to address it. Discerning grace from law. Key thing. Paul saw it. He wanted to not wipe his brother out. That's a ministry of condemnation. That's more law. He wanted to restore his brother. and the rest of the believers who had followed him.

To discern law from grace. Guess what, folks? It's restoring to discern law from grace. Isn't that neat? It's a restoring ministry for us to discern law from grace. And for us, right here, among us, these people who we're sitting with and we're here with in this room, The goal of dealing with anyone in this church who stumbles, in whatever manner, is restoration. That's God's intent. Restoration.

That's what Paul had in mind. He didn't want to punch Peter out. He didn't want to wipe him out. He didn't want to take him out. He wanted to restore him. Peter, I'm bringing this up before you because I want to restore you. to a place of grace, the grace in which we stand.

1 Corinthians 1.10 is another passage that uses this, be made complete. And guess what? This made complete is katartizo. Here's the church at Corinth. They are divided. One wants to follow Peter, another Paul. Another, another, another. Divided up in different ways. Paul urges that they be healed up. Set the broken bones, mend the knaps, heal up the wound. That's the call.

He did it here by discerning law from grace and lovingly restoring his brother. Isn't that marvelous? Isn't that wonderful? All of grace, all the time, for all of us. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your marvelous grace, grace that is indeed amazing, astounding, amazing grace. We thank you for it. Thank you for the lesson here and the graciousness of our brother Paul and our brother Peter. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.