Called Out
Galatians 2:11-14 · Mike Doyle · Mar 17, 2019
Galatians (2018-20), No. 14
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261914176067

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

This morning we're talking about Galatians chapter 2 and verses 11 through 14. But to try to put it in context, let's do a little review. Paul is arguing about his ministry. He's saying to the Galatians, who are beginning to turn away from him in terms of doctrine, who he is, where he got his credentials, and why he's saying what he's saying. So the first argument that we talked about was back in chapter 1 where Paul based his argument on the fact that he got direct revelation about his information of the church directly from the glorified Christ himself. That he met Christ on the road to Damascus and he went into the Arabian desert and he was taught of the Lord new things about the church and primarily the heavenly character of what the church is all about. And then in chapter 2, when we started in chapter 2, he's basing the argument further on the recognition by the other apostles that he was in fact an apostle, that he was ordained of the Lord or called of the Lord to be an apostle to the Gentiles, but he was a real legitimate apostle, and he was being criticized by his detractors and the Judaizers that, well, maybe he wasn't really an apostle.

So now, in the verses we're going to look at today and in the next couple of Sundays, his argument is going to be based on the fact that he reprimanded Peter for Peter not standing up for the gospel. And it brings in a couple of things. One is, does he have the authority to do that? And who is he? And can he actually say something publicly against what we would call the number one apostle, who is Peter? Answer, yeah, he could. So, the first verse is that when Peter came to Antioch, he opposed him to the face, because he stood condemned.

And Sunday school we talked about condemning of sin in the flesh this morning was not quite the same thing, but he stood condemned. When Peter was up at the Jerusalem Council that Roger talked about last time, they agreed up there, he and Peter, Paul and Peter and James and John, that the Gentile Christians weren't to be bound by the law of circumcision. They worked to have that as part of the Christian principles. And Peter was all for that, stood up and said, yeah, that's right. But Paul opens up a question now in this verse, in verse 13 and 14, whether the Jews themselves should still be bound by the Mosaic law. Should they or shouldn't they?

There's a particular Mosaic legislation to which Paul has referenced here has to do with dietary restrictions and dietary restrictions placed on the Jews by God. Can they eat certain foods? Could they not eat certain foods? And obviously, I've told you before, we live in a neighborhood where, thanks to Courtney, there's a Hasidic Jewish group down the road. They sold them the building, and they're the type that wear the black coats and fedoras and, you know, they're very strict. Well, they really abide by the dietary restrictions of certain foods. They'll invite you over to eat at their house, but they won't come into your house, and they won't touch anything that you have.

But, you know, when God gave this restriction to the Jews, it was a really practical thing, because He wanted them to be physically well-being. And He wanted them not to be sick, so He put these dietary restrictions in. We do that today on ourselves, with different diets and different things, because we want to be healthy. But the other reason He did it was to keep them separate. from the other nations, what they would call the Gentile nations, thus preserving a clean channel where the Jews were bringing salvation or talking about salvation to the earth.

So, forbidden foods now, in this context of what's going on, are obviously on the tables of the Gentiles. And so a Jewish person could never accept a dinner invitation to a Gentile. Couldn't do it because of the food that was being served. So it kept them, as I said, it kept them apart as a nation from the Gentiles.

Now, but if you look back a little bit in Peter's history, what's interesting was interesting to me in this study. The history of Peter is such that, gee whiz, he certainly should have known better. If you look back at Acts 10 and 11, it's the story about Peter being on Simon the Tanner's roof, and he's praying, and the Lord, he has a vision of a blanket coming down out of the air, and it's got all of these foods on it.

And they're all Gentile foods. And the Lord says to him, kill and eat. In other words, you can eat any of these things. Well, typical of Peter, in verse 14, he says, but Peter said, by no means, Lord, I have never eaten anything that's unholy or unclean. Now, imagine Peter telling the Lord, I'm not going to eat this stuff.

I mean, that fits his personality, right? He's a little bit stubborn. But the voice came down a second time and a third time and says to him, what God has cleansed, you can go ahead and eat, and it's no longer considered unholy. And this happened three times to Peter. So if you start with that premise, well, he should know that this is okay, as this is a new thing that he's aware of.

So he's eating with the Gentiles in Antioch. And he went from Jerusalem up to Antioch, and he's hanging around with the Gentiles. He's beginning to say to himself, well, gee, these are just Christians, so I don't have to avail myself of the Levitical legislation. I can eat with them. And he is. He's hanging out with them. And so are the other Jewish people that are believers in the church at Antioch.

But then, here come these guys from Jerusalem, these Judaizers that we've talked about, and it says that they came from James, and they show up in town, and they begin to, they're observing what's going on, and I think they put some pressure on Peter, saying, what are you doing eating with these Gentiles? It's not a Jewish thing. Peter, you need to discontinue this practice. This isn't good. What does that tell us?

It tells us that probably the church in Jerusalem still abided a lot by Jewish laws. They still were doing it. They're saved by grace, but they're having a tough time getting away from the Jewish laws. A lot of us that grew up in denomination under some sort of law system, when you become a believer and you start to hear about what grace is, it's difficult to walk away from those traditions and those laws, those things that you've learned to do. We were talking before It's St. Patrick's Day, right? Big deal. If you're not Irish, what do you care? If you're Irish, you better have some green on, you know?

And then Leslie was talking about their neighbors with the ashes on their forehead. I remember every year, you know, we dutifully march out of class Go down to the church, and here they'd come, and they'd put the ashes on your forehead, and woe be the person that wiped them off, you know.

You had to show that, well, what does that mean? It's a tradition, or it's a legalism within the denomination that you're in that has nothing to do with grace. So I can identify with the Jews in terms of their being weaned away from this Jewish system because God gave them the system to start with.

So here comes this whole new thing that's different. It's very tough for them. I often marvel that there were 12 apostles, right? And Paul. It took 12 for the Jews and one for the Gentiles. Why? Because it takes a lot more effort and understanding to be weaned away from something than it does to start fresh and new. See that? So how marvelous is the influence of people's prejudice, of legal prejudice especially.

We all suffer from that, whether we realize it or not. I used to say that we all have this little black box behind our right ear that has our rules in it. And this is what we live by. We live by those rules. And even though God's grace is prevalent, we still refer to the rules.

So what happens? These fellows come down, and Peter is swayed away from the liberty that he has, and he stops eating with the Gentiles. And he is the chief apostle. And if he walks away, everybody's paying attention. Everybody knows. And so we might think that it's kind of a trifling act, but it's a big one in the eyes of God, and certainly in the eyes of Paul. Paul saw that it's seemingly such a little thing, but it was surrendering the gospel, and he couldn't let that go.

So this church in Antioch that was mostly Gentiles, it brought about a division in that church. You know, well, gee, there's Jewish Christians, and there's Gentile Christians, there's Irish Christians, and there's German Christians. No, they're not. We're just Christians. So, let's see if I can do this right here. First question is, why is this event regarding Peter so serious in Paul's mind? Because he's just referring to who you're eating with. That's really what he's talking about.

But he saw the truth of the gospel at stake here. And so, not only did Peter show a false and deceitful spirit about this, but he'd been boasting about his liberty in one moment, and in the next moment, what does he do? He conceals his previous walk had been, but he was establishing error. That's really what he was doing. Big danger here. He's destroying what he gave his right hand of fellowship to, by his actions. He forgot for a moment the lesson taught him on the housetop at Joppa, in Simon's house, in a statement concerning the Gentiles and the Council of Jerusalem. He forgot about that.

By withdrawing himself from his brethren of the uncircumcision, he was, as the Bible says, he rebuilt again what he'd already abandoned, which was legalism. And it really makes a difference to obviously the Apostle Paul, but to God too. He was putting himself apart from grace. And that is really a poor thing for us as believers to put ourselves apart from grace.

Now, have you guys ever done this? When I was studying this, Events in my life came back and I thought gee, you know, I've done exactly what Peter's done I've been in situations with people that may or may not have been believers and I hid my Christianity so I could fit in with them you ever done that Guys all have your heads down We all do that It's one of the what I what amazes me about this is how strong a thing is peer pressure is, whether it be in the Christian community or in the sphere of influence that you live in, the work environment you're in, the friends you have. It's a very strong, strong thing because we all want to be accepted. We all want to fit in. Well, so does Peter. And I think it's really interesting that God uses Peter to make this point. Of all men he could have used, I wouldn't have picked Peter. But Peter's the perfect guy because he's such a high-profile man in the church.

So the next question is, why should Paul admonish Peter publicly? Why didn't he just take him aside and talk to him individually? Well, Peter was acting as an apostle of the circumcision when Paul was speaking privately. You remember Paul's first visit up to Jerusalem 14 years before this? And he met privately with Peter and others up there, and they talked about doctrine and different things.

But this is a whole different matter. He's going to, in essence, call him out publicly. The foundations of grace were concerned here. And the same man, Paul, is as bold as a lion here, because he's going to call him out, and he's going to do it publicly. And Peter was going to face the music because he was condemned. Who condemned him? Was it just Paul? I think it was the group of Gentile Christians in this church.

I'm sure if someone came into our body of believers and came up here and started banging on you about here's the two laws that you have to obey. You have to be here at 730 in the morning, And you have to call in on Friday and tell us how you're doing for the week. I don't know, pick a couple of laws, whatever they are. You would say, wait a minute, that doesn't fit with who we are.

And all of your hands would go up and Roger's phone would ring off the wall. So Paul doesn't have any timidity about this issue. There's no compromise in his mind because it's about grace and law. And this is not merely a human caution about the matter.

The consideration has to do with Peter's character and the character of the gospel. Peter was looking at Christ in the glory of the gospel. Paul's looking at Christ in the glory of the gospel and Peter isn't. And so it's a field where Peter was particularly responsible to the Lord Jesus to maintain this truth.

If you're an apostle, you have to walk the talk. And Peter wasn't doing that. And he was failing at that. Therefore, the apostle stood on firm ground and he acted fearlessly. My impression of the apostle Paul was that he must have been a firebrand even as a Christian. If he saw something happening in the body of Christ that was away from, like he starts out in Galatians in the first chapter saying, if any other gospel is being taught or preached than what I preached, let him be accursed. That's a really bold statement.

But he follows through, and he follows through with Peter. So it shows here that Peter has tremendous authority within the church, but he didn't have any authority over Paul. Isn't that interesting? Paul, in resisting Peter, showed that he had not put himself under the other twelve apostles. And that's really important for Paul to establish his credentials, who he is as an apostle. And one of the criticisms, obviously, about Paul was the fact that he was getting his orders from the apostles in Jerusalem.

Well, this incident shows that, no, he wasn't. He could stand up to them. And the argument for Paul's apostolic independence had come from the highest level, that he could withstand Peter. So in Antioch, he faced him as a superior in connection with and character and courage. Paul showed courage, Peter didn't. But I have always loved Peter because he's frail.

You know, as great a man as he is, He's like Abraham. Abraham was God's man. But boy, if you follow his life carefully, you think, boy, he just messed up time after time after time. Well, Peter does that, you know, he denies Christ. He's restored. I mean, he's always sort of in trouble. But he's the greatest of men.

So He opposed him to his face, and he stood condemned. The point here on the condemnation is, this word means to know someone down or to, in a continuous fashion, to stand condemned. By who? Who condemned him? Well, first of all, I think it was the church, and it certainly was Paul. And I also think that the Lord was involved to some degree in this condemnation. So Peter has to be publicly judged. Very tough. Very tough. I hope you never have to publicly judge me. You guys are brutal, you know.

But it was something that Peter needed. And you know what? Peter knew he needed it. Because he accepted Paul's argument. He didn't rebut. He gave assent to this doctrinal position. One other point about Peter that's interesting, referring back to my denomination, men today worship Peter as infallible. They say that he was the first pope and that he never did anything wrong. Oh really? Did they read Galatians chapter 2, verses 11 through 14? Somebody cut that out of there. This shows that at least in this incidence, he wasn't infallible.

So, the only perfect man, the only perfect one, and the only one who walked a path without fault and without defect is the Lord Jesus. And all those who serve him have one job, and that is to point the way to him, not to themselves. To point the way to him. That's the job. Because he's the perfect man.

So, where would the church have been if we were built on the Apostle Peter and not Christ? Where would we have been? Well, we'd have kind of been in a mess. Now, in verse 12, 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 he held himself aloof Motivation fearing the party of the circumcision So Peter comes to Antioch where the church is mainly composed of Gentiles He's shown showed that personally he was so entirely delivered from the Jewish system and prejudices That he felt like it was fine to sit down and eat at any time with the Gentiles when however these guys show up from Jerusalem who are probably believers, but as we've talked about in the past, still under the law system, Peter succumbed. Peter succumbed. And he withdrew and he separated himself from the Gentiles. So what do you think is the root of Peter's behavior? We kind of touched on it a minute ago. We often, so often with ourselves, We have pride in the flesh, and we want to stand well in the opinion of others. We just do. I know I do. The fear of man always brings a snare. It always does.

And we soon see the humbling spectacle of the most prominent of the twelve apostles. For him to use the word slither away, and not eat with the Gentiles was really public, because everybody knows. Completely aside because of the coming of certain Jewish brethren from Jerusalem. Fear. Fear led him to do this and to take what we would say is a crooked path.

He no longer walked uprightly according to the truth of the gospel. By his act he ignored the unity of the Spirit. He denied the truth of the gospel and he brought in division among the saints. So the next time that I'm in a situation where I'm guilty of this, I have to remember that what I'm really doing is I'm denying the truth of the gospel. I'm denying who I am in Christ. I'm ignoring the unity of the Spirit. I am denying the truth and I'm bringing division.

The fact that he held the position of an apostle only added to his offense. One has said in the past, the more a man is honored, and in this case, there is true ground for respect, the greater the stumbling block to others if we fail. Very true. And the only way we stand is independence on the Lord. That's the only way.

Peter stopped being dependent because he was fearful. Now, in addition to that, the rest of the Jews joined him in this hypocrisy. So all the other Jewish Christians at Antioch thought, oh gee, Peter's ducking out, we better too. And they joined in this hypocrisy with the results that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy.

Now think about this Barnabas. He's a special man. The other Jews follow the leader. And it's surprising that they do. But in particular in Paul's heart, this guy Barnabas, he loves Barnabas and he's been working with Barnabas for a long time. And he goes with Peter.

And he had labored in the gospel with Paul for a long time. He's the one that went up to Tarsus and said, Paul, you need to come down to Antioch and help us out because there's a lot of people there now and we need people to help with the teaching and running of the church. And he said, okay.

He had joined with Paul in planting churches in all the areas of Cilicia and in Judea. around that whole area in Asia Minor. He'd been involved in all of that. He'd labored with such acceptance and blessing in every church that Paul helped establish. Of all the people, of all the persons that should be impervious to such action, it would have been Barnabas.

But he ducks out too. Same reason. Fearful of the Jews. When you think about Barnabas in the Word of God, in other places like Acts 11-24, the Spirit says he was a good man. He was full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. Barnabas was. Paul found a lot of comfort in this man, in his fellowship. And they were doubtless brothers joined at the hip because they'd worked together for so long.

His name means he's the son of consolation. But the problem was is that Barnabas sometimes was weak in a moment of crisis. He's also the one that Paul debated with about John Mark when Paul said, look, John Mark can't go with us on our next missionary journey because he abandoned us on the last one. And Barnabas stood up for John Mark, which ended up splitting their ministries where Paul went one direction and Barnabas went another. But Barnabas was a terrific man, yet He got sucked into this or he fearfully went along with it.

Again, without intimidating, we all are subject to that fear of acceptance or criticism by the peers that we hold esteem for. So, let's consider how solemn and how practical a thing this is. A simple manner of everyday life there may be virtual abandonment of Christ for the truth of the gospel. And when we do that, what happens? We lie against grace. We make a stand against grace. We talk about preaching the gospel or being a witness for Christ.

And our minds were thinking, well, that's verbally, so I've got to get all the language down right so that I can go around and tell people, like the guy down at Coors Field with the megaphone. You guys ever seen that guy? When you're walking out of the game, he's condemning you for going to the baseball game. But the gospel is preached by your behavior much more than what you say.

And that's the problem with this issue. as well as we bear in mind that in a commonplace act sometimes, in the thing that might seem to be of no comparative importance, God would have us look at things in their source, not just in the behavior pattern, as they touch the truth and the grace of God.

We're apt to make light of that, of what relates to God, and make what affects ourselves of great importance. In other words, What affects God, we push it down. What affects me is more important. But God and His goodness would have us feel deeply what concerns Christ and the gospel, passing by what affects ourselves.

Now, I wasn't going to tell this story, but I'm going to tell it anyway, because it's about me. When I was a young believer, maybe five or six years in Christ, and I was pretty vocal, and I had just gone to work for RE-MAX, and I was in an office with a bunch of brokers, and if you know anything about a RE-MAX office or a real estate office, there's a lot of pressure there to be worldly, put it that way. So, but, you know, I thought it was important that everybody in the office know that I was a Christian. And, you know, so I told everybody. And so they, we became friends with some of the, I became friends with some of the people there. But, you know, most of the really bad actors avoided me like the plague, right?

So we had a Christmas party first year. And it was one of those days where I had, I think I had about three Christmas parties to go to. And I had a couple of beers and a cigar. And I walk into my RE-MAX party with a beer in my hand and a cigar. And I remember looking in the face of the guy that I shared an office with and he said, Oh, you really are one of us.

You're not really what you say you are. You're really one of us. And that did it. That did it. I think that's probably why God let Peter do this. so that he could experience that. No, I really am not one of you. I may look like it right now, but now I'm ashamed. And I've never forgotten that. Because that guy's eyes told me, without ever saying a word, this is not who you are anymore.

You are a new man in Christ. So this behavior is always a test for us. It's a great test for the saints. when such men go astray, especially leaders. And you know, our pal Satan, he knows about this. He's really crafty this way. It may be better accomplished, it better accomplishes his unworthy ends. The personal qualities of such in their past faithful service and the place they have won and the importance of the hearts of the people that they serve, all combined to put the unwary off guard and therefore to ensnare souls.

If you start thinking that you're something other than what you really are in Christ, you're vulnerable. You're in trouble. It's not safe to follow even a good man, as many of our own days we can sorrowfully testify to. In a crisis like this, the eyes must come off of man, and it must be fixed upon the Lord Jesus Christ in order to arrive at sound judgment about your behavior, about our life, about who we are.

And thank God there was a guy like that in Galatia, and his name was Paul. And he stood up. And as painful as it had to be for him to rebuke Peter and Barnabas and the others, he did it. It had to be painful, not only to him, but to them. He said, but when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, under these circumstances, Paul rightly recognizing the truth of God was at stake. He saw the problem.

And it's a fatal point that he saw, that Paul says to Peter before them all, and here's what he says to them. Now think about this. I said to Peter in the presence of everybody, quote, if you being a Jew, which he was, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like a Jew? He couldn't have said anything that was more condemning to Peter. Paul reminded all of his Jewish brothers there on the ground in which they stood before God.

Had they found justification by living under the law? Had the law ever done anything for them but condemn them? Had not Peter and Paul and Barnabas believed in the Lord Jesus Christ that they might be justified by faith? Had they not both learned that by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified? Had they learned that? Supposedly they had.

The conclusion at the Jerusalem conference was they gave him the right hand of fellowship. Then why do you deny all this is what Paul is saying. and you try to put a yoke of bondage on the necks of the disciples and the Christians that you couldn't even bear. You couldn't even do it. So why are you putting it on them?

So in Acts 15.11, Paul said, but we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in the same way as they also. So, so fatal was this point, if allowed, that Paul says to Peter before them, if you're a Jew and you've acted like a Gentile, why are you putting the Jewish system on them? That would be very condemning. If you're a Christian and you're acting and living like a Christian, why are you forcing somebody else to live other than what you are? How do I say this? Peter had not maintained the rule of law as his life.

You know, we have, all believers have, I could say, a rule or a principle by which we live. Do we live by the legal system or a refrigerator list that says here are the 440 things that you need to do today and on the freezer doors that you need to avoid these? Or do we live by grace? Do we live by God's unmerited favor? Do we live by what God has persuaded us in his word, that who we are, and that we can trust him? So one would think that this legal thing was not what was going on in Jerusalem, but Peter had been enough away from it that he should know. So in closing, I want to review a little bit. Let's see if I got all the questions in.

Is this behavior by a leader a test for us? Yeah, it is. If you're going to test a leader, a Christian leader, you test him on this principle. Is he a legal person or is he a man of grace? That's the test. If he's a legal person, he's going to put you under bondage again and back into sin and force you to focus on how your behavior pattern is. If he's a man of grace, you're going to be free to focus in on the Lord Jesus. It's that simple.

And if you're aware of that, whenever someone tries to be a Christian leader to you, whether he be an author, one of those guys on television or whoever, look for the point in his language where he distinguishes between law and grace, if he ever does, and I always look where he stands or does he even aware of the fact that he was crucified with Christ. That makes us more safe from being under a legal system. So, a little review.

During his first and third missionary journeys, Paul had maintained to the young Galatian churches, and that's who this letter is written to, and certainly many of those assemblies were his beloved personal converts. Therefore, upon being away from them for a time, he was astounded to learn that they were drifting back, if not actually turning, away from grace to law. At least through the influence of the Judaizers, they were seeking to combine grace and law.

You can't combine grace and law. Once you put your toe in the pond of legalism, you're all in. They don't mix. You can't do a little law and a little grace. You're either all law or you're all grace. They're seeking to combine grace and law for their justification and their sanctification. So he writes this stern letter to them. And that's why this letter exists, because he knows this is a big problem.

So Paul was amazed, Paul's amazement compounded by grief in that the converts were not only turning against him, but they were also seeking to turn from grace of the Lord Jesus Christ back to the Mosaic law system. In order to establish his credentials as an apostle, he puts forward the following. He based his argument on his apostleship as a direct revelation, as we said at the beginning. He based his argument on the recognition as an apostle by the other apostles. And now he calls out Peter publicly. And it's an object lesson for us, but it also serves to show that who he is as an apostle, and as an evangelist, and as a teacher, and as a shepherd.

When we begin to comprehend as believers the vastness of God's grace and its ability to motivate our behavior based upon the fact that God loves us and His unlimited blessing towards us all the time, we can see what a devastating thing it would be if we even considered trying to live under any kind of a law system.

So in closing, I would say that grace is life and law is death. So let's close. Father, how we thank you for your word. How we thank you that you never hide anything about your disciples and apostles when it comes to the truth. And we pray that you do the same with us, that we would always, through all of your work towards us, allow us to behold the glory of the Lord Jesus and to operate and function under the principle of grace only. And we pray in his precious name. Amen.