Dead Man Walking

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Don Filcek; Acts 2:11-21 Dead Man Walking

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Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service.
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We're currently studying Galatians in a series called Off the Chain, Finding Freedom in Galatians.
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Here's Pastor Don Filsack. This morning, we're going to be back in the book of Galatians, and we're going to get a glimpse of what kind of the way the authentic relationships look sometimes.
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You see the word authenticity up here on the wall. That's one of the things that we value. How many of you know that if you have an authentic relationship with somebody, not everything in that relationship always goes hunky -dory?
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If it's an authentic and a real relationship, then there's going to be times of struggle and strife. Would you agree with that?
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Have you experienced that? Now, if it's an inauthentic relationship, often it is just sugar -coated, right?
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And if it's inauthentic, then the negative things just get deferred to somebody else, right?
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Like you end up talking bad about somebody behind their back or something like that. That's the nature of inauthentic relationships.
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There's still conflict there, right? But they just don't know it. So, we're going to actually see in our text an actual authentic relationship between the
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Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter. Remember that Paul is continuing to share with us a short biography.
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He's going to let us get an inside look at a very heated conflict that occurred between him and the
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Apostle Peter. But that conflict isn't recorded in Galatians just to show us that arguments happen or to show us even how to argue.
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But it really is the topic that they're arguing about that is the main point that Paul is going to address here.
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And that is simply this, that the life that we live now as followers of Jesus Christ is no longer lived by Old Testament law.
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But it is now lived by faith in Jesus Christ. And that's going to be his main point. We're going to see in our text the scenario that the situation that arose that brought that to the forefront.
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According to this text, our righteousness comes from Christ. And we live in Christ, and we are in the process of being saved by Christ.
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Everything focused on Christ. So, I want you to open your Bibles, please, to Galatians 2. We'll read verses 11 through 21.
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You take the Bible that's in the seat back in front of you out. It's page 833. Real easy to find there. But we'll read
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Galatians 2, 11 through 21. If you don't own a Bible, please take that one home with you. I know it's just a paperback.
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I wish we could get everybody a leather one. But at this point, just having the Word of God, we want everybody to have a copy of that so you can take that one with you.
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But let's dive in and read Galatians 2, 11 through 21, the Word of God to us this morning.
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But when Cephas came to Antioch, this is Paul writing, but when Cephas, that is Peter, came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned.
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For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles. But when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party.
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And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.
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But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas, before them all, if you, though a
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Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?
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We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners. Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.
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So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law.
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Because by works of the law, no one will be justified. But if in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is
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Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not. For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor.
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For through the law, I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ.
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It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life
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I now live in, the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave
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Himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then
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Christ died for no purpose. Let's pray. Father, as we have an opportunity this morning to reflect on this text and to contemplate what it means to be crucified with Christ and to live by faith in the
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Son of God, I ask that you would motivate our hearts with gratitude because as Paul says at the end of verse 20, that ultimately it is because of your great love for him and because you gave yourself for him that he lives this life now in the flesh.
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Father, I pray that you would motivate our hearts as we come before you in worship, that what we sing would genuinely flow out of hearts of gratitude and thanks to you.
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Father, that you would be with us as we hear your word, that your spirit would convict us, would transform us and change us, and that where we see that we have taken the low road of law and not the high road of faith in you,
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Father, that you would change us and transform us. I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.
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Remember that any time during the message, you can feel free to get up and stretch out, get some more coffee or juice or donuts there.
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As we jump into the book of Galatians here in chapter 2, it's important for us to,
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I think, remember what's going on here in the text. Paul is responding to accusations of having preached a false gospel in Galatia, Galatia being south -central
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Turkey. He had gone around and planted some churches and started new churches there in that area, which was a
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Roman district at the time. And so far in chapter 1, or previously in chapter 1 over the last couple of weeks that we covered,
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Paul said, my gospel came straight from Jesus Christ. He said, my calling and authority came straight from Jesus Christ.
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And then last week we saw him explaining that the other apostles in Jerusalem who had spent their lives with Jesus Christ also verified his message and welcomed him as an equal in ministry.
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So can you see the logic that's flown through the book so far? He's being accused of preaching a false gospel and he says, you've got to understand that what
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I'm sharing with you, I got from the big guy himself. Jesus Christ appeared to me and proclaimed this message to me.
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And not only that, but then he called me to come to you Galatians and tell you the gospel.
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And all of those who lived alongside of Jesus Christ confirmed that message. Does that make sense?
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Do you understand what he's done so far in the text? But now we come to our text this morning and Paul explains some recent events in the life, in his life, that show that not everything was always unified between the apostles.
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A time when he had to take a strong stand on the truth of the gospel, even over and opposed to some of the leaders in the church who had at one point confirmed his ministry.
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You see what happened is sometimes, sometime after his trip last week, we saw him go down to Jerusalem and be confirmed by the apostles.
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Sometime later, Peter is going to come up to Antioch and visit Paul where he ministers.
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So it's kind of like, you know, you came down and saw me and kind of hung out with me and saw the ministry that's going on there.
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So Peter says, now I'm going to come up and visit with you. And we don't know all the time frame or exactly what was going on there.
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But Peter came up to Paul in Antioch and something happened that caused Paul, it says right, right off the bat in verse 11, to oppose
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Peter to his face. Now, if you oppose somebody to their face, does that sound like a derogatory thing?
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Does it sound like a positive thing, negative thing, you know, kind of, does that sound pretty intense? This is an intense passage that we're dealing with here.
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So right off the bat in verse 11, we sense a strong sense of opposition. Something has gotten between Paul and Peter.
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Okay, and they are, this is not a good thing. And to his face, there in the text, has both the notion of in front of him.
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So again, when we talk about authentic relationships, going to the source, going to the person that's offended, rather than going to a friend of a friend of a friend and telling them or going to a co -worker, can you believe what they did?
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Or, it's to his face. I mean, he's at least dealing with it right up front and not behind his back.
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But it also has a strong, he's getting up in Peter's business kind of meaning. Paul stands out as very passionate.
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If you study the life of Paul, you kind of get this fiery personality that he had. You get a feel for him.
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Passionate, extroverted, lionish kind of guy. He was tenacious. He was direct. Those of you who went through the book of Acts, would you say that those are accurate statements for the
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Apostle Paul? If you study the scriptures, you can, it's kind of cool because you can see their personalities kind of shine through their writings and through the things that they did.
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And we see, I think it's fair. I think when we meet, when we meet Paul someday on the new earth, we're gonna get a chance to see his personality.
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Obviously a redeemed personality, but get a chance to meet him face -to -face. But the phrase at the end of verse 11 is an unfortunately untranslated figure of speech.
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So it just, does anybody, like you read the end of verse 11 and it's like, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.
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Peter, what does it say? Peter stood condemned in the English Standard Version.
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Like that's, it's unfortunate that they didn't translate that figure of speech. There's a figure of speech in Greek called hyperbole, but it's not just hyperbole in Greek.
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We use it all the time. As a matter of fact, I just used it by saying we use it all the time. It's exaggeration.
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Do we use it all the time? Well, not literally. So I just lied, kind of, right? It's kind of like the same notion of,
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I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse. Well, could you really? Liar. You couldn't eat a horse.
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You'd die before you got halfway through it. I know it. Are you getting what I'm saying? But have you ever used that phrase? Do you ever use hyperbole?
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That's exaggeration, and it's a culturally understood thing that we use that, and I really believe that that's what's going on here.
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But just like the horse in the phrase, I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse, matters because of the size of it, right?
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Isn't that why we use that as an illustration? Because you couldn't really eat a horse. That's huge. The word condemned here stands in the figure of speech with intention and with purpose as well.
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I think Paul wants us to have in our minds that Peter was dead wrong. That's another phrase that we might use.
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Peter was dead wrong. As a matter of fact, Peter was dangerously wrong. That's the point that he's trying to get across here.
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Is Peter condemned? Is he going to go to hell now because he's done something? That's not what he's saying. But he's dead wrong.
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This was intense, what Paul and Peter are arguing about, and we'll get into it here in a minute. But verse 12 through 14 tells us a scenario that led up to this conflict.
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How many of you like conflict? Okay, a couple of you aren't being honest right now, okay. Some of us kind of feed off of like debate and kind of argumentation, and you kind of enjoy that kind of thing.
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Conflict might be a little bit of a strong phrase if you like that. That might be an issue. But some of you kind of tend towards that a little bit, kind of like to stir the pot a little bit, and some of you are reading this, and even as I'm talking about conflict, it's like, oh, is this going to get over soon?
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I don't even like hearing the word conflict. Peter came to Antioch. He was hanging out with the
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Gentile Christians. So this is a set -up scenario, verses 12 through 14. Peter came up, Antioch, hanging out with the Gentile Christians.
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Some of them said, hey, let's go out to Red Lobster. They went out to Red Lobster and had some seafood, okay, against the
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Jewish dietary laws. But they were eating some shrimp and some lobster, living it up. Went over to some friend's house that evening who were
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Gentiles, had BLTs because like the bacon won him over, and he was like, oh, that smells good.
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So he had some bacon. Some other guys invited him out on Sunday afternoon for a bike ride, you know, not supposed to travel on the
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Sabbath. But he was like, hey, you know, going out riding with my buddies. So he went out for a 20 miler on Sunday afternoon.
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Are you getting what I mean? Obviously, I'm embellishing a little bit. It's not right there in the text, but you're getting the point.
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I mean, he's actually eating with Gentiles, that which the Jews would not stand for.
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Those things which to their mind just was like total opposition to the law.
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In other words, he's exercising his freedom from the law in Christ. Now, is he sinning in what he's doing?
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No, there's some gray areas and some issues and even just understanding what Jesus did with the dietary laws, what happened in the book of Acts, understanding what
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Jesus did with the Sabbath, saying the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath, and some of those kinds of statements.
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So he's exercising some freedom in Christ. But now, enter stage left, some other men who come from Jerusalem, claiming to be sent by James.
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Now, whether or not, nobody can really tell now historically, whether they actually, whether they are claiming to be sent from James, or whether James really sent them, regardless, they're not, they're going to abuse their
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Judaism to some degree. And they were known as the circumcision party, according to the text.
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Not party like, woohoo, party, you know, but think like political party, okay? So this is the branch that they're known by.
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The branch of Christianity is they are actually called the circumcision party. Anybody have any guesses of anything that they would like to include in your faith in Christ in order to be saved?
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Their name kind of gives you a little bit of a hint here. We talked about how it's a reasonable question in that time and in that era, understanding the
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Old Covenant, why they're even talking about circumcision in this passage, because in the understanding, the initiation into a relationship with God for a young man was circumcision, and that's how you came under the covenant.
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And so it was a logical question for Christians in that era to be asking, do you need to be circumcised in order to be saved?
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That was, it was understandable that Jews would have had that question in their mind.
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And so just by their name, it's easy to assume that they believed that you must be circumcised. You must follow some of the
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Old Testament rules and regulations in order to be called a genuine follower of Jesus Christ.
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And so Peter, look at the text in verse 12, and Peter, motivated by fear, drew back and separated himself from the
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Gentile Christians. Now, this is a good old -fashioned shunning that Peter has put into play here.
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At one point, just a few days ago, he's hanging out with Gentiles. He's eating with them. He's fellowshipping with them.
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He's just having a good time with them, and then the Jews come up from Jerusalem, and he's like, I'm out. I'm just gonna hang out with my
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Jewish friends. It's as if Peter said, you're good enough for me, Gentiles, when nobody else is around, but when my people from Jerusalem show up,
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I'm embarrassed of you. Pretty ugly, right? Does that sound ugly to you guys?
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How many of you would sign up for a friend like that? Maybe some of us have a friend like that. Maybe some of us are a friend like that.
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You're good enough for me when there's nobody else around, but once my people come around, or once my friends come around, you're out.
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You got to be careful about that, right? But that's not the only issue. It's not as if Peter and Paul are at odds because, you know,
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Peter wasn't being nice. There's more at stake than that, and we're gonna get there here in a second. So many commentaries spent a few pages, and I read this week,
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I read a dozen pages this week, of commentaries trying to sugarcoat Peter's motives. Like, trying to paint him in a good light, because how many of you know he's like a pillar in the church?
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He's like one of the, like, some would call him the leader of the Apostles, and so he couldn't sin, right?
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So we have to sugarcoat or candy coat this to make Peter not so wrong. I think he was dead wrong.
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I love how Scripture is authentic about some of those things. They, the commentaries would say he was likely trying to preserve his ministry among the
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Jews. He was trying to be all things to all people. So when the Jews were around, he acted Jewish, and when the
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Gentiles were around, he acted Gentilish, and you getting what I'm saying? And so, you know, it's understandable. We can kind of dismiss a little bit about what
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Peter did here, right? But that ignores the obvious statement in the text as to why he acted this way.
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The text tells us why he shunned the Gentiles. What does it say? Fear.
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It was because of fear that he shunned them. Fearing others is going to lead us to compromise.
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It will. Maybe not right off the bat, maybe not the first time you defer to somebody, or maybe not the first time that you're, you're scared of what they might think that you're a
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Christian. Maybe that first time doesn't lead to compromise, but it will eventually. The more that we look to people for approval, the more we need people to like us, and that leads us closer to watering down our message and our lifestyle.
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Do you understand what I'm saying? The more that we need that person at work to like us, the less likely we are to share our faith with them for fear that we might offend, right?
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Are you, are you getting what I'm saying in this? Fear is a very powerful force in a human's life. Would you agree with me on that?
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If we let that creep in, it's going to change us. So I want you to seriously consider the role that fear plays in your life.
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What would you give up? What would you surrender regarding your faith in order to have the right people, the powerful people, the influential people like you?
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Think about that. I think that that's a challenge for all of us. It's a challenge for me. What would I be willing to water down?
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What would I be willing to jettison in regards to faith? How would I, how would I change my behavior? What would
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I be willing to do to hang out with them on Friday nights if they were the influential ones in my life?
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The ones who really could get me places. You're getting what I'm saying? I think Peter has let that creep, that, that notion, that concept to some degree or another creep into his life because we see that it was out of fear of these people.
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What power they held down in Jerusalem. What roles and positions they were in. Probably some of them having been on the
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Sanhedrin. Some of them being on the council, the who's who among the Jews down in Jerusalem. So Peter shunned the
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Gentiles, but it gets worse. If you look at verse 13, his example led all of the Jews to do the same.
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It says, and the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him.
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And look at the sin Paul is accused, that Paul accuses Peter of in verse 13. What is it?
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Hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is a Greek word. We get it straight from Greek. Hypocrite is a
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Greek word, and it means an actor. A play actor. It's a person who says one thing with their mouth, but does another thing out here.
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Are you getting what I'm saying? And that's what Peter has done. He said, we're all saved by grace.
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We're all brothers in Christ. We're all hanging out together. We're all having fun, but I'm gonna, now you're out and these
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Jews are in. So he says it one way, but then he does it another. How many of you know that that would be a pretty significant criticism of the church?
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Would you agree with me on that? If we were to poll people out in our community and say, what's wrong with the church in America today?
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How many of you think that hypocrisy would be in the top five responses from our community and from our world?
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I would agree with that. And yet according to this text, think about this, according to this text, even at the highest levels of Christianity, even early on, the accusation sticks from time to time, doesn't it?
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Do we match our own standard? Do we match what we're, the high calling that we're made to keep?
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We don't always. And I don't want that to be a downer, because as we're gonna talk through this, I mean, there is grace for us.
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Praise God that it's by grace and not by law and not by keeping and following and making sure that we're all up here. Otherwise, how many of you know none of us are gonna make it with God?
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It's by his grace and by his grace alone. And so that makes it all the more important that we're proclaiming grace, right? Because hypocrisy only looks like hypocrisy.
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If the main goal is the standard, is the law, right? If the goal is the law, and that's what we're proclaiming out in the community and out in our culture, and boy, you better not swear, and you better not do this, and you better not go to R -rated movies, and you better not, and if that's all that our co -workers hear of us, if that's all that our neighbors are hearing from us, then of course we're hypocrites.
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Because we don't match our own standards, right? So what do they need to hear from us? Grace. They need to hear that, no, no, no, no, you're missing the point.
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It's that I'm forgiven and that I'm washed by the blood of Christ, not anything that I deserve, not because I'm better than you.
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And he's willing to offer the same thing for you, freedom, an easy yoke, a light yoke.
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Not more burdens, not more heavy laws, not more heavy regulations on your life, but freedom in forgiveness.
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Do you see what I'm saying? Is that making sense? So hypocrisy was the accusation, and in all honesty,
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I love how authentic this text is, I already said that, but that this story occurs in Scripture gives me hope.
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Not that I delight in seeing Peter fail, not that I delight in this conflict, but that the fact that even
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Peter did fail shows the reality that we all mess up, right? We all have sins.
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And at the end of verse 13, even faithful, stable, wise, old
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Barnabas, the guy who first embraced Paul as a believer and said, you know what, welcome, his name,
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Barnabas, means son of encouragement. That's not his given name, that's what everybody in the church, that's his nickname, everybody called him
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Barnabas because he was always encouraging people, and even he refused in this circumstance to eat with the
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Gentiles, even he was led astray. The peer pressure in this situation must have been like crazy thick, like you could cut it with a knife.
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I mean, are you seeing how much pressure is being put on, how much fear can grab a hold of a life and change it quickly?
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That's what's going on in our text. But do you understand how dangerous this situation was in the early church?
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And I think that we can miss that if we don't think a little bit deeper about these things. It just looks like Peter being mean to some
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Gentiles. But if this doesn't get corrected and the Gentiles are pressured into following the Old Testament law to be okay with God, then nothing less than the very gospel itself is at stake.
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That's why Peter is going to respond with such harshness. So if you, I think another way of thinking about this is if you were to put yourself in this scenario and think from a
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Gentile perspective, Peter came into town, he's been hanging with you, you've been going to Red Lobster, you've been going on bike rides, you've been hanging out, and then all of a sudden the
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Jews come into town, and he leaves you. And I think one of two thoughts runs through your mind.
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Two similar thoughts, but a little bit distinct. One of two things. The first one, apparently this whole
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Christian thing just became a Jews -only club, and I'm out.
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I want nothing to do with this. I'm not going to go through circumcision. I'm not going to follow the dietary laws. I'm not going to become a
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Jew in order to do this. So there's the door and I'm going to find it. Okay, you hearing what
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I'm saying? That's option number one. Option number two in their minds, this whole Christian thing just became a
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Jews -only club, and I'm in. So I better start following the dietary laws.
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I better get circumcised. I better do these things. I better follow these laws and these rules and regulations. Do you see the problem with that?
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Either way for a Gentile is to defame the gospel of Jesus Christ by grace alone, right?
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Either way is an inappropriate direction. Neither one is going to reflect the truth of the gospel, and that's why in verse 14
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Paul says, but when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, they are no longer,
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Peter and these Jews were no longer living out the gospel. Notice this is about conduct here. They were not living out the gospel in front of them.
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Peter had messed up big time in this text. Would you agree? But Paul recognized the issue for what it was.
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The Jewish believers were living their life out of step with the gospel. The word that's used there in verse 14, not in step with, is actually a word that was used medically for limping, the inability to really bear weight.
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And so they were not bearing weight on the truth of the gospel. They were limping in their walk and in their conduct.
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It's not that they were not saved. I want to point this out. This text is not about how a person gets into the kingdom of God, but it is about conduct once in the kingdom of God.
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Everyone in the text is a follower of Jesus Christ, saved by grace, trusting in the cross of Christ for salvation.
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The issue at stake, look at verse 14, the issue at stake in the text is conduct. Some people out there want to tell you
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Galatians is a book primarily about your salvation. So you're saved by grace, but now you need to live in works.
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Have you ever heard that before? You're saved by grace, now you walk in works and you just go out and do good things and you make a bunch of legislations and rules for yourselves and maybe just follow the
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Old Testament law or follow this. That's not what this is about. This is a book about conduct, about now you are saved and you walk in that salvation, saved by grace, living by grace.
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And we're going to see Paul just make that abundantly clear when we get down to verse 20. That's going to be his main point. But it's about conduct, not just merely about the way that a person is saved.
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Is that making sense to you? Maybe you haven't wrestled with that, but some of you have. Some of you here I know have actually seen that and have heard that taught and have been in the middle of that.
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Or maybe you were raised that way where it was like, okay, grace is enough to save you, but now you've got to tack on a bunch of extra things.
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Okay, now you should call yourself a Christian. Now you need to do this, this, and this, and this, and this, and it's like a you know, ten steps or ten commandments to get okay with God.
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I thought you already were okay with God back at, let's talk, and that's what Paul's going to say here in a second. Let's get back to,
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I thought you were okay by grace. I thought that was okay. Are you not saved by that and are you not okay with God now because of that?
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The gospel is a way of life. If you are saved by grace, you are called to live by grace. And Paul is going to step up, get in Peter's grill, and let him know publicly.
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Because the stakes are high and the sin has been committed in front of everybody, in front of everybody he's going to make this address.
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Okay, and I believe the quotation, scholars disagree a little bit about this. You have to pick somewhere. Where does this quote begin and end?
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Everybody's pretty consistent that the quotation begins halfway through 14. I believe it goes all the way through the end of 16 where Paul is literally going to quote what he said to Peter.
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So let me summarize what he says in the presence of all here in verse 14. He says,
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Peter, now remember the Jews are there, the Jews that he's afraid, that Peter has shown fear towards.
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So Paul in front of everybody says, Peter didn't I just see you eating bacon and eggs this morning?
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Just before everybody got here, just before all these Jews showed up, wasn't that you eating shellfish the other day?
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You were living it up Gentile style before these Jews arrived. So why is it okay for you as a
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Jew to live like a Gentile? But now you're not even letting the Gentiles live like Gentiles. Are you getting what he's saying?
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Now that would have been crazy scandalous what he's saying here.
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Because Peter was trying to, how many of you know, you've been in this situation, Peter's trying to slide under the radar. He's like, oh if you guys could just keep it down for a little bit about the whole bacon thing.
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My friends are coming from Jerusalem, and if we could just get that out of the way, I'll have a BLT with you tomorrow when they leave.
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But right now, have you ever had conversations like that with somebody? Be honest. You had that conversation, someone told you
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I'm out of town, or better yet, that person that was a friend of yours in the past. Can you ixnay on the stories about college?
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Can you just kind of just tone those down for a little bit? You know, we got these inside stories or whatever, just keep that to yourself.
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Are you getting what I'm saying? And what does Paul do? He exposes him in front of everybody. He exposes
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Peter for the hypocrite that he's proven himself to be, and he's outright just declaring in front of everybody, you know what?
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You were just doing these things just yesterday, remember? And now you as a Jew, who were living like a
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Gentile yesterday, are now telling the Gentiles they can't even live like Gentiles today. This doesn't match up. In verse 15,
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Paul goes on in a somewhat sarcastic fashion, saying that since both he and Peter were born
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Jews, they of course are not like these Gentile sinners. He's kind of being sarcastic, and he's playing into Peter's actions.
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So for a Jew, the mindset was there were two types of people. There were lawful ones and lawless ones.
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Lawful being those with the law, guess who? Jews. And then there were lawless ones, or sinners, those without the law.
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Gentiles. Two types of people in the world. Those like us, and those that have a law, and those pagans who have no law.
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And so one of the, I mean it was almost synonymous in in Jewish history, during this era, during this time, to call,
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I mean you could call them a Gentile, or you could call them a sinner. Either way worked. Are you getting what I'm saying? It was just a title, a sinner.
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Oh, oh, you must mean the Gentiles. They considered them lawless pagans. And so Paul's saying, yeah, you know,
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I mean we were born Jews. We're not like these sinners over here. Paul's being sarcastic. Are you getting that?
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And he has a tendency to do that from time to time. Paul goes on to remind Peter that salvation doesn't come through the law.
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So he's like, yeah, yeah, we're not like those sinners, but wait a minute. Wait a minute, Peter. How does salvation come to a person again?
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Oh, you were saved by the law, weren't you, Peter? No, no, no, wait a minute. And look at verse 16.
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Three different ways that Paul reminds Peter that salvation does not come through the law anyways.
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He says, first off, a person is not justified by works of the law.
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Justified, being made right with God, declared righteous. You're not declared righteous because you kept the law.
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Works of the law, simply being deeds done in accordance with the law and attempt at obedience.
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You're not saved in that way. You're not justified by works of the law.
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Second of all, Paul says to Peter, we, you and me, have been justified through faith in Jesus Christ and not by works of the law.
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Do you see it in there? But by faith. And lastly, no one can be justified by works of the law.
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He says it three different times, three different ways to get his point across. There is no salvation through the law.
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The law is a diagnostic tool that simply points out where your error is, where you are broken.
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Now, how many of you know that parts of the law apply to you in a different way than they do to me? Like when you read the
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Old Testament law, there are certain sins that it points out in your life that are like, whoa, God, I'm doing horrible at this.
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And then I look at it and I'm like, I'm doing okay there. Right? As long as I just look at that little narrow portion.
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Are you getting what I'm saying? But the law as an entirety is like a diagnostic tool that actually we see our own sinfulness and it points us, points out our failures and our inabilities.
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But it does not save. It does not justify. Do you understand what the word justification means there?
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It's a declaration of righteousness, that you are now righteous and that comes by faith in Jesus Christ.
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Look at verse 16. I'll just read it, read the whole thing now. Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.
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So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law, no one will be justified.
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Pretty straightforward. It's ironic that this is the first occurrence of the two primary words in the book of Galatians.
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It's taken us all the way to chapter 2 verse 16 to actually see the words occur in the text law and faith.
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And yet that's what the book is about. It's kind of ironic. And he's been dancing around it and talking about it, but now he just is going to tackle it head on.
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Law versus faith. And I think it's important for us to all understand what the law is here that Paul is referring to.
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And I think we just miss this often. The law was not some arbitrary list of do's and don'ts given to humanity without a context.
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So it's like we can look in the law and we can know something about God, right? Would you agree with me on that? We can know about his holiness.
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We can know about his otherness. We can know that he's higher than us, that he has the right to even be a lawgiver.
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But it wasn't primarily written to you and me. And I want you to get this carefully in your mind.
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The law was not primarily written to us. The law was written to Jews in a specific context.
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It was given to God's chosen people as part of a covenant agreement between Israel and God.
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Remember the Exodus? They're going through the wilderness, all the water coming out of the rocks and different things, and the quail, and God providing for them, and the pillar of fire by night, and the pillar of cloud by day to guide them.
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And all that stuff is going on, and it leads them to Mount Sinai, right? The people of Israel. And they receive the law there.
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Now, it wasn't the Philistines that received the law. It wasn't the Amorites that received the law.
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It wasn't the Persians that received the law. It wasn't the Medes who received the law. It wasn't the ancient tribes of China that received the law.
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Who received the law? The Jews. The people of Israel, God's chosen people, who were meant to be set up as a model, as an example to all the other nations.
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And it was an agreement, a covenant between them. If they obeyed the law, then
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He would continue to bless them as their God. If they disobeyed the law, He would condemn them to exile.
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You remember that? Promises all throughout Deuteronomy, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
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All those laws that are in there. And it was about covenant and relationship between God and His people based on law.
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Relationship based on His choosing, and then this law that was set up. The law was binding to anyone under it.
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In its entirety. Just like we're not free to pick and choose parts of a lease agreement. How many of you know that?
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You sign a lease agreement, you're bound by the entire thing. You can't go, I don't really like part 9 here that says that if I break the lease early,
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I have to pay. So I'm just going to ignore that part. Right? You'd be in breach of contract. Right?
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It's the same way with the Old Testament law. It was an all or nothing kind of commitment. If you break a law in the
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Old Covenant, you are guilty of being in breach of the entire contract. Does that make sense to everybody?
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That's the way that it was given. So the law, the Ten Commandments, the dietary laws, the sacrificial laws, all the laws about leprosy.
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Have any of you ever read that in Leviticus? It's kind of crazy. Your house can have leprosy. Who knew? Just all of these crazy things.
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All of those laws truly represent an Old Covenant approach to God. All rolled up in this.
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Are you guys getting that? I want to make sure that we understand that approach to the law. That understanding that it was in context.
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A law given to a specific people for a specific time. And it was part of an agreement between the two.
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I think that that's valuable for us to understand. Because then in what way are we no longer under it? Because we're no longer
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Jews. So I'm going to need you to strap on your thinking caps. Because verses 17 through 19 are some of the most difficult verses in the
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New Testament to understand. Partly because we are very unfamiliar with this
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Old Covenant. That Paul was very familiar with. And second of all because Paul's logic sometimes is just dizzying.
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It's just hard. And so with that understanding of the law of it being a covenant between God and his people in the
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Old Testament. Paul has said that even Peter has found justification.
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That is right standing with God outside of the law in verse 17. Ultimately through faith in Jesus.
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And in verse 17 he says that all who are saved in this way aside from the law. Become equal with those lawless
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Gentiles. So what did he just call the Gentiles? Sinners. Do you remember him saying that earlier?
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And now he says we have proven ourselves to be sinners because we've been saved out from under the law. We've come out from underneath that law in order to be saved.
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And so therefore the logic that he's trying to dismiss. Is that if by accepting
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Jesus you come out from under the law. Then do you become a sinner too? And if so then
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Jesus is guilty of being a servant of sin. That's what he says in the text. Again just hard logic to grab hold of.
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But it's right there in the text. And so one could ultimately accuse Christ of increasing sin on the earth.
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Because when a person comes to faith they come out from under the law. Which makes them a sinner in the Jewish mind.
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But of course he says Jesus isn't a servant of increasing sin on the world. Because Paul says in verse 18 in essence.
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If we were to go back and rebuild the law in our lives. We would remember that it really points out that we already were sinners.
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Coming out from under the law did not make you a sinner. Coming out from under the law revealed that you already were a sinner.
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And that's what the law does. And if you rebuild it. If you rebuild the law up in your life again. And begin to try to live by law.
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What does it point out to you all over again? You're a sinner. If you begin to take up that Old Testament law and try to follow it.
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I challenge you to. Are you going to be able to do it? They couldn't.
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I don't believe we can either. And so it's just going to point out that we're sinners. And now Paul moves in for the kill shot.
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He declares himself dead to the law. This is him saying this in front of those who
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Peter was afraid of. And he's going to declare himself dead to the law.
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And he sets up an interesting paradox. That the law had a hand in releasing its power over him.
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That is through the law I died to the law. How is that possible? Through the law I became dead to the law.
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Again, I've got to preach what's here. And yet at the same time I know I'm going to lose some people.
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And this is going to be kind of confusing. But it's like within the law there was a self -destruct code written into it. And once that code came to apply.
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It's like a bomb set in the middle of the law. That once it is enacted. It obliterates the law.
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And that simple thing that I think Paul is referring to here. Is the sacrificial system. Remember you know the sacrificial system was part of the
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Old Testament law. That they offered the bulls and the goats and the rams. And they had all the sacrifices in the temple and the tabernacle.
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That's all part of the law. And it was through that piece, that portion, that code, that part of the law.
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That culminated in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That makes it understandable to us. That sacrifice is acceptable to God.
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That we were set free from the law. And he's going to point that out. That's going to be the context here about crucifixion. About death.
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About sacrifice as we move through the text. So does that make sense to you? Within the law was that concept of sacrifice and the sacrificial system.
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That culminated in the death of Jesus Christ. And therefore the law had a hand in our understanding.
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Of the way that we are now set free from the law. Because Jesus died for us and set us free.
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By both fulfilling the law in his life. And fulfilling the law in his sacrificial death.
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Anybody a little lost? I'm going to be honest. This was hard. Hard to put together.
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But ultimately through, suffice to say. Through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We've been released from the power of the law.
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Through the death of our great high priest. We have died to the law that we may now live to God. And so I'm studying all this.
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And I'm sitting in the coffee shop. And I'm trying to figure this out. And I'm wrestling with it. Early last week on Monday.
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When I'm just kind of like. The brain is churning over verses 17 through 19.
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And I'm struggling. And there's smoke coming out of my ears. And somebody at the coffee shop is like. You okay? Man I'm sweating.
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I'm trying to figure out. What is the logic here? I'm not getting this. And so somebody's sitting out there going. I got it the first time I read it. And I'm like.
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Okay. You're awesome. I was wrestling with it. I was struggling with it. What's the logic here
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Paul? What are you trying to get at? When suddenly I read verse 20. I was like. Okay. Maybe if I just go on a little bit further.
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I'll get it. And I did. Because look down at verse 20. It all snaps into focus.
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I. I. You. If you are in Christ. You have been crucified with Christ.
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That is the way that the sacrifice has released you from the law. I've been crucified with Christ says
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Paul. The sacrifice that has set me free. Was the crucifixion of Christ. In which I now partake in.
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It's as if I died on the cross with him. The old me. The old Don. Crucified on the cross.
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With all of my sin. Put to death. Done. And anyone who has put their faith in Jesus Christ for salvation.
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Has died. The old man has been put down. And I no longer live.
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But Christ. Lives in me. Christ in us. As Paul says in Colossians.
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Christ in you. The hope of glory. That's our hope. That Christ lives in us and through us.
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Now as a little kid. It just mystified me. Talked about receiving Jesus in your heart.
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It's not like there's a little Jesus in there. Pulling the strings. Calling the shots. Like if you took an MRI. You'd see him in there.
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Hi little Jesus. He's a little door in your heart. And he's knocking on the door of your heart.
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It's not like that. It's more of an ethical and moral living through me.
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That he is accomplishing his purposes and his will in my life. Through my decisions. Through my behavior.
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My life is now driven by the power of Jesus Christ. It's not intel inside.
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It's Jesus inside. And another amazing paradox. Is that the one who has died.
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And no longer lives. Are you seeing that in the text? Look at verse 20. I've been crucified with Christ.
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It is no longer I who live. But Christ who lives in me. Does he sound dead? Sounds like he's dead, right?
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And then he can go on to say this. And the life I now live. Wait, Paul. I thought you just said you were dead.
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Right? Well, I'm crucified with Christ. But am I standing up here? Anybody have any questions whether I'm alive or not?
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That would be weird. I'm here and I'm alive. So, he's saying the life
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I now live in this body. I'm still here. But the old me has died and the new me has been brought to life.
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And I live by faith in the son of God. A life that is ultimately then fueled by.
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Look at the end of verse 20. And this is the clincher. I think this is the key. A life of gratitude flows out of the end of verse 20.
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How do I live my life? That's ultimately what Paul is challenging Peter with in this text. You're going back to the law, buddy.
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How are you supposed to live the law? By going back to the law? Is that how you live your life? No. I live in the flesh.
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I live in this body. I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
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That's how I live. What does that look like? Gratitude. He loved me.
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He loves you. And how much does he love you and me? That he gave himself for us.
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That is the power in the Christian life. Not laws. Not rules.
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Not regulations. But gratitude. Thankfulness. How are we moving on and advancing in our walk with Christ?
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How are we taking on more day by day? Is it by adding on and tacking on more laws and more rules? And, boy,
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I've got my life figured out. And I've got this like a computer churning out laws.
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It's a relationship based on gratitude because he loved us and gave himself for us.
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In the context of this disagreement with Peter, Paul shows us the key to the
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Christian life. Our old self has been crucified and the power of Christ is working in us now to produce good works by his spirit.
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And when I am living, when I am living, and how many of you know that there's a difference? Like we're all living, but sometimes you're consciously living.
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Do you know what I'm talking about? Do you ever sit down introspectively and think about your life and think about what decisions you're making?
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At those times, sometimes at those times when we're tempted to make rules for ourselves, right? Sometimes when we're intentionally living that we might tend to set up rules and regulations.
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And I'm not saying that it's, I believe in the power of the spirit. It's okay for you to have a rule for yourself.
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If it's a rule for you to just not go see rated R movies, great. Have at that. The problem is then when we begin to legislate that for others and assume that that's the more spiritual decision.
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Do you get what I'm saying? But it's okay for you to have rules for yourself. But I think it's better for you to meditate and contemplate grace.
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That he loves you and that he gave himself for you in those times when you are living intentionally.
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That grace and an understanding that I walk by faith is the key. One of the greatest paradoxes in life then is to let go of the law.
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And to give up on approaching God through the safety net of regulations is the way to a deeper moral life.
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Isn't that a paradox? Doesn't it seem like the more rules that I set around myself, the more spiritual I'm going to become.
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The deeper my relationship with God is going to become. And yet that's not the case. Because what we really need is no longer not murdering.
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Thou shalt not murder. But what we need is set free to love. What we need is no longer just not stealing.
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But free to give to others. No longer just not committing adultery or lusting.
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But seeing others as children of God. Are you hearing what
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I'm saying? Laws sound like don't murder. A life lived in the spirit with gratitude to God looks like love for others.
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Law following looks like not stealing and trying to figure out exactly what not stealing looks like so I can get as close to that line as possible.
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Rather than a life of giving to others. Are you seeing the difference? Is that making sense to you? Paul concludes this rant with one final barb.
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I really do. I think it's kind of a little bit of a jab into Peter about what he's just done. But Paul kind of says,
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I don't nullify grace. Look at the very end. I do not nullify the grace of God.
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Kind of implying Peter did or has been trying to. He says I don't nullify grace because in essence that is what requiring the law does.
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If you require the law for the Christian life then you're nullifying grace. It implies that righteousness can be found through the law which makes the death of Christ worthless.
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What you're doing is you're pointing people to law. You're pointing people to rules. You're pointing people to regulations. How are they ever going to get the need for Christ out of that if that's the only point?
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A scary thought but it is possible for us to nullify the grace of God in the lives of those around us.
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Our lifestyle will either communicate that righteousness comes through grace, that is a gift, or that righteousness comes through works or human effort.
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If someone were to follow you around and just observe your day maybe from a distance, would you smell like grace to them or would you smell like works to them?
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Think about that. Do you proclaim our need for a savior or do you proclaim conformity to a standard?
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Would people see you as a proud law abider or a humble sinner who is saved by grace?
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Let's all take just a moment to be honest with each other. If you're a sinner, raise your hand.
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Okay. That was pretty unanimous right there. That's impressive. Okay. So those of you who just raised your hand, do rules work for you to legislate that sin that you see in your life?
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How do rules work? Maybe sometimes, maybe on occasion but probably not really well, right?
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I don't know if you want to break a rule, you're going to break a rule. I mean, just being honest. Okay. You know, you set it up there.
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Some rules that we make for ourselves, you know, I'm not going to watch any rated R movies and then you watch a rated
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R movie, you know. Do you know what I'm saying? I mean, putting these rules out there for yourself and then, oh, how well does that Internet filter work for keeping lust out of your life?
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Just in general. It might help with the computer. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
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Or how about those rules that you fashioned about your harsh words and anger? Oh, wait a minute.
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I don't even know how to formulate a rule about that. Any of you struggle with just saying a harsh word to your wife or to your kids from time to time or to your husband or whatever?
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Any of you ever struggle with a harsh word? How do you even make a rule about something like that? Okay, Don, I'm going to sit down and I'm going to make a rule.
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Don't get angry or if you get angry, don't be harsh. How does that rule even, has anybody here even tried to make that rule?
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Like, you know that it's wrong, right? You know that it's wrong to respond in harshness and aggression and without kindness or without.
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Are you getting what I'm saying? There are whole areas. I mean, our lives are so messy to begin with that there are whole areas that we don't even attempt to legislate but we think we can follow laws and get there.
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It's about the Spirit coming in and changing us, transforming us. Only grace is going to ever make
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Don Filsick righteous. Only grace. It's the only hope that I have. That God would bestow on me a gift, a declaration of justification.
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That you, Don, are acceptable in my eyes. That is one of the craziest statements ever.
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And yet he says that for anyone who is in Christ. You're okay with me. You're alright.
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Because of what my son has done for you, you're okay. When I do well,
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I say, praise you God, Jesus Christ in me. The hope of glory. Jesus Christ living in me.
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Myself crucified and you doing good things in me. And when I fail, it's simply that I've just brought back from the dead that old crucified self and I've fed him and I've given him some nourishment and I've let him have his way in my life and I need to reckon him, as Paul says in another passage, reckon him dead to sin and alive to God.
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That's when I fail. It's because I've revived that old man. And what about our children?
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Those of you with children here. If all we ever do is offer rules and regulations for our children, we can nullify grace for them.
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We can point out and bring them to the place where all they ever hear is rules and regulations and rules and rules and rules.
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Of course it's appropriate to have rules in our homes, right? Is that appropriate? Yeah. Some are just strictly for safety, right?
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You need some rules. But how do we use those rules? What's the intention of them in your household?
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If I can confess just a little bit as I've thought about that this week, I would dare say that a large number of rules in my household are about my comfort.
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Don't be so loud. Don't be so loud when Daddy gets home. Are you getting what
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I'm saying? What percentage of the rules that we would hold our family to are just out of mere self -centeredness and wanting my comfort?
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The rules just lend themselves towards that kind of thing. But when we have those legitimate rules in our family, like don't hit your sister, what do we use those rules to do?
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What's the purpose of that rule? Is it that they become nice, upstanding moral citizens?
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Is that what we're driving for? Or do we use those rules to drive towards the deeper need for a savior because that's what laws and rules ought to do?
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They're diagnostic. You know what? Let me show you what I just saw, son. I saw you club your sister over the head for a toy.
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Now, what that is in your heart is sin. What that is is you believing that you are chief in the universe and your sister comes second and that you deserved that toy more than anything.
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And let me tell you, buddy, I deal with that in my own heart as well. I see it in here, and I do it, and I'm going to discipline you because you've broken this rule.
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But you know what? Discipline now is so that you might come to understand that you need a savior, that you need something more than rules.
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You need something more than laws. These are here to try to keep you safe so you don't eventually murder somebody when you're 21, right?
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Okay? You get what I'm saying? But how do you use the rules in your family?
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What are they there for? Often self -serving. I fear that many solid Christian parents give our kids rules and then stop there.
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And it is no wonder in my mind that many kids walk away from the faith of their parents assuming that our faith was nothing more than rules because that is what we're teaching them.
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That's what we're constantly telling them and talking with them about, and that's what we're using in their lives.
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Well, we're not using them. That's the end in itself is law abiding rather than taking that a step deeper to grace.
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Are you getting that? You're hearing what I'm saying? And that applies across the board. That applies to our interactions with our coworkers, right?
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Some of you are here and you don't have kids and you just zoned out for a second. But when it comes to our interactions with those out in our community, is it that they think that what we want from them is that they don't swear as much or they don't tell dirty jokes around us or they don't do this or they don't do that?
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Is that all they hear? Or do they hear our love for them that they would experience freedom in Jesus Christ and the grace that He offers us?
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So let's take an honest assessment of our lives. Have you died to the law through the sacrifice of Jesus?
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Or are you nullifying grace by seeking a righteous life through works of the law?
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The good news is that it's already been done for us through the cross of Jesus. And we come to communion to remember that the cross is the place where the new covenant was signed and sealed in the blood of Christ.
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We take a cracker every Sunday morning to remember His body that was broken for us. We take a little cup of juice to remind us of His blood that was shed for us.
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And if you're here and you believe in Jesus and believe that He's Lord and have asked Him to save you, then take the cracker, take the juice, and remember that sacrifice that has bought us freedom.
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But remember that not everyone here takes communion, and that's fine. If you do not believe in Jesus or you have not yet asked
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Him to save you, I'd ask you to please just pass the juice and the crackers by, but take some time this morning to seriously reflect on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us.
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Let's pray. Father, I stand in awe of Your grace.
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I am so unworthy as a person who has sinned and broken rules and laws and has offended
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You and hasn't lived the way that You wanted. And not just breaking laws, but just not being the person that I ought to be and sometimes just not doing the good that I know
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I ought to do. So, Father, that Your grace comes down and has forgiven me and has set my feet already as a citizen of heaven.
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Even though I yet live here, You have declared me righteous, and You are going to complete it someday.
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Father, I praise You for that. And as we reflect on the cross of Jesus Christ, I thank You for that awesome sacrifice.
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And I ask that if there's anybody here who has not yet believed Jesus as Lord and asked
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Him to save them, that today might be the day where that would occur in their lives, that they would meditate and think about this great freedom that is offered through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.