When Pillars Fall

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Alright, so we'll change our attention now to the Word.
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Turn in your Bibles to Galatians chapter 2.
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And we're going to look at verses 11-14 to remind you of the context for those who maybe have forgotten.
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I know you guys go through a lot of lessons and maybe some of you weren't here.
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But beginning in chapter 1, Paul is defending his message, his gospel, his apostleship against those who would say his message is incomplete.
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We've identified this group as what's known as the Judaizers.
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They're the ones who say that justification is by grace, but you also have to be faithful to the law.
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And so, there is this command among the Judaizers that before you can truly be justified, you have to be a Jew.
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Therefore, you have to be circumcised, you have to maintain fidelity to the dietary restrictions, and you have to maintain fidelity to the Sabbath.
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These are all part and parcel of what it meant.
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In fact, that was the distinguishing mark of the Jewish person in the first century.
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And even to today, the traditional Orthodox Jew is really resigned to three distinctive markers.
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Circumcision is one and primary.
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The way he eats is two and secondary.
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And then what he does on Saturday, which they would call the Sabbath, is Saturday.
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So like if you go to Israel today, they have neighborhoods that you have to agree that you're going to be Sabbath observant, or you can't live in that neighborhood.
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Because you can't be out doing work and play on Saturday when everyone else isn't.
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And so there's rules about Sabbath observance.
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So those three things, obviously there are other things, but those three things are primary.
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Whether or not you circumcise, whether or not you eat kosher, and whether or not you observe the Sabbath.
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And so these people, these Judaizers, were trying to get the Gentile Christians to follow in this system of thought.
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And Paul is defending his message and his ministry.
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And that's what we've been studying all the way up to chapter 2, verse 10.
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Well, in chapter 2, verse 11, we get Paul's telling of a situation that happened between him and the Apostle Peter, also known as Cephas.
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And this situation is probably one of the most interesting, even though it's only four verses, it's one of the most interesting interactions that we have in the whole Bible.
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Because you have two men of great reputation.
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Two men of powerful renown.
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Two apostles in the church that come at odds with one another over this issue.
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And one rebukes the other to his face.
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And Paul, of course, is recounting the story so we get his side of the narrative, which of course is the true side, the Holy Spirit-inspired side.
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So I'm not saying it's Paul's side so it's somehow skewed.
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I'm just saying this is Paul's picture of what has happened, and we know that it is accurate.
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So let's read the text.
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We're going to read verses 11-14.
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But when Cephas 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.
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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 Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews? Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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And Lord, now as I seek to give an exposition of these few verses, I pray, Lord, that we would see the depth and breadth of the information that is contained herein.
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And Lord, I pray that You would keep me from error.
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For Lord, I know I am a fallible man capable of preaching error.
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And I pray, Lord, by the mercy of God, for the sake of Your name, for the sake of these men, and for the sake of my conscience, that You would keep me from error.
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And I pray, O Lord, that as we hear this situation, as we consider the idea of a pillar of the faith falling into sin in front of others, and what that means for the greater church and how we might understand that, I pray, Lord, that You would help us to apply this to our lives.
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Lord, to the believers, that they would recognize in this the need for repentance and restoration when we fall.
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And Lord, if there are unbelievers here, and I'm certain there are, Lord, that in this they would see the grace of God and the ministry of reconciliation which is available through the Gospel.
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And I pray all this in Jesus' name and for His sake.
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Amen.
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Alright, the title today is When Pillars Fall.
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And the reason why I've entitled it When Pillars Fall is as I was studying this and preparing to teach it, I want to try to come at this from the perspective of Peter and try to get into the mind of Peter and try to understand what would lead a man of God to fall into a grievous error and then how we should respond if such a thing happens.
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Because I want to tell you this, and you may believe this, you may not, but being a pastor is a very difficult thing.
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A lot of people joke about my job, and there is always the joke that, oh, well, pastors only work one day a week, they only work for an hour, ha, ha, ha.
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They spend all the rest of their time having coffee at old ladies' houses, and they have meetings that don't matter nothing, and they spend their whole life just sort of floating along.
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It's really not the case.
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Pastoral ministry is a difficult life.
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And I say that not to make myself into any kind of a martyr or anything like that, but to simply say, for those who have never done it, the expectations that are laid upon a pastor are unrealistic, they are potentially damaging, and they can lead to all kinds of severe emotional and psychological issues.
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And the expectation is perfection.
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People expect their pastors to sin not.
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They expect their pastors to be examples of godliness in every area.
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They expect their children to behave always and in every way correctly.
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And in the years of ministry, I've had things happen to me that have been not only painful, but just outright monstrous.
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My wife, we tell this story, and it was many, many years ago.
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There was an elderly woman in our church, and she came to my wife, and she said, you know, with that makeup, you look like a whore.
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Which is one thing if you've ever met my wife.
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My wife does not wear very much makeup at all, even if she wears makeup.
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She's just not a makeup person.
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So to have someone say something so outlandish, and why do you feel as if you can speak that way? Well, because you have an expectation, even though it's wrong.
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This past week, I read an article about a pastor who committed suicide.
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Not something that a lot of people expect.
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But it wasn't the first or even the second one that I've seen this year.
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It happens more times than we like to imagine.
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This man in particular was one who had given himself over to counseling people with depression.
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And I imagine why he did that was because he himself suffered from some form of depression, and he felt like maybe by helping people that had the same issues he had, maybe he could be some kind of a blessing to them.
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And just a few days ago, he came to whatever his issue was.
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I don't know him and I don't know his theology.
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I know nothing about him.
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I just know he leaves behind a beautiful wife and two beautiful children and a church with a lot of questions.
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The rate of depression among ministers is very high.
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Charles Spurgeon.
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Have you guys ever heard of Charles Spurgeon? Charles Spurgeon was called the Prince of Preachers, and yet he wrote extensively on the subject of depression.
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He called it the dark night of the soul.
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Martin Luther wrote some of the most contemporary writings on the subject of depression, even though he wrote almost 500 years ago.
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Well, it was 500 years ago.
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And he wrote some of the most contemporary in the sense of modern ways of understanding the mind and what causes depression and even things like lack of exercise and health and vitality can bring those things in.
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But I think, again, as I move on, what causes problems in the ministry and for ministers is expectations create pressure and pressure can cause people to crack.
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Well, today we're going to see someone who cracked under pressure.
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At least that's the way I understand this.
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And I want you guys to, again, I'm not trying to sympathize with Peter because I think he's wrong.
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Understand that.
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I'm not here to defend Peter.
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But I am here to say that pillars can fall.
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Remember, that's what Peter was called in our last study? Remember when Paul went to Jerusalem and he said, I met with the pillars? It was Peter, James the brother of Jesus, and John the Apostle.
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And he said, I met with the pillars.
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So this man is seen as one of the ones who is foundational in the church.
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We know who Peter is.
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We don't have to explain why this man had such a presence and such an importance.
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He walked with Christ.
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He was the one that Jesus restored by saying, do you love Me? Yes, you know I love you.
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Do you love Me? Yes, you know, Lord, I love you.
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Do you love Me? Then feed My sheep.
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He had a commission from Jesus Christ to preach directly.
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And Jesus had restored him from a failure that any of us would be, I think, frightened to have fallen into.
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He fell into the sin of denying Christ verbally three times.
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I don't know if that would scare you.
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That would scare me to death to deny Jesus with my own mouth.
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And that's what Peter had done.
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And yet, he was restored.
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But here comes another opportunity and Peter fails again.
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Even though he is a pillar, pillars can fall.
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And we see him fall, and he falls hard.
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So we're going to read through this.
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I'm going to give comments as we go.
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That's just my way of teaching.
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I sort of look at my sermons almost sort of like commentary on the text.
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And I'll stop and I'll make application as we go.
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But we're just going to go one line at a time.
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It's a very short section, so I'm going to spend some time breaking some parts down.
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If you are in a different translation, there may be some different words that you see, like in the NASB, the word aloof is used.
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And I'm going to mention that.
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It's not in the ESV, but I use the ESV.
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So let's begin at verse 11.
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It says, But when Cephas came to Antioch...
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Now, stop right there.
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I said I wasn't going to go line by line, right? But when Cephas came to Antioch...
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Okay, so what's happening? Paul had gone to Jerusalem.
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Paul had preached his message in front of the disciples at Jerusalem.
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Paul had received the right hand of fellowship, meaning they all agreed Paul was preaching the same Gospel they were.
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And they all agreed by handshake that they were going to be partners in ministry.
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Paul was going to go to the Gentiles.
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Peter was going to go to the Jews.
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And that was going to be their ministry model.
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So, Paul is now back in Antioch.
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Peter has come to Antioch.
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Peter's making his visit.
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And by the way, Cephas is Peter.
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It's just another way of saying the same name.
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Petra is Greek for stone.
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Cephas also means rock or stone.
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So it's just another way of saying that.
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So when Cephas came to Antioch, I, this is Paul speaking in the first person, opposed him to his face because he stood condemned.
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Now, just for a moment, think about the word condemned.
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What does Romans 8-1 tell us? That's right, brother.
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There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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And yet, Peter is in Christ Jesus and he stands condemned.
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Interesting thought, right? So we have to consider what this word condemnation means and how it can be applied in different circumstances.
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Because if you are in Christ, your sins are forgiven.
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Past, present, and future.
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Some people don't believe that.
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Some people only believe their past sins are forgiven.
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And I say, okay, so what do you do about tomorrow's sins? And they say, well, I have to ask for forgiveness and then they'll get forgiven too.
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So if you sin and you don't ask for forgiveness, you're going to go to hell? Well, I don't know.
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And then it kind of goes back and forth.
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Yeah, Jesus either took all your sins or He took none of them.
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He either took all the sins you have and will ever commit, or He didn't take any.
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Because we know this, He didn't take some of them.
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He didn't forgive some of them.
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So when Peter is called condemned here, this doesn't mean that his soul is condemned to hell.
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However, what the Word does imply is that he's wrong.
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He is, in fact, guilty of wrong.
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Can you be guilty of wrong and still be forgiven? Yes.
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That's the point.
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Peter is guilty.
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He stands condemned.
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Now what is he guilty of? We're going to see in a minute.
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But the point is, Peter has done wrong.
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As I said earlier, this is Paul's side of the story.
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But it is the truthful side because this is the Holy Spirit who has inspired what Paul's writing.
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So we can be confident that this condemnation is true.
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Peter deserves it.
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Peter is wrong.
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So Paul opposes him to his face.
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And I want to make a mention of that.
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Notice this.
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Paul did not oppose him behind his back.
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Most men are afraid of confrontation.
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Not all men.
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Some men love confrontation.
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They love to fight.
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They love to brawl.
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They love to argue.
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But most men would prefer not to confront.
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However, because we do have issues with one another, we tend to want to talk about it.
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So instead of talking to the person that we have the issue with, we talk to someone else.
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What's that called? Wait a minute.
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I heard a couple of things.
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I heard gossip.
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I heard something else.
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Backbiting.
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And I do think we can differentiate between those.
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Go ahead.
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Strife.
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Causing strife.
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Yep.
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It's not always necessarily gossip even though gossip is a part of it.
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Sometimes it is just backbiting.
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You have bothered me for a long time, but I'm not going to tell you.
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But I've got to tell somebody.
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And what do people always say? Well, you can come vent to me, brother.
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You know what that means.
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I want to hear all about it.
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I want to be the exit for your anger.
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And you just come tell me all about it.
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And we'll hate him together.
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We'll spend our time percolating in hate.
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So one of the things that we see here right in the very first line of this passage is an example.
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If somebody is guilty of doing wrong, go to them rather than going to other people.
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This follows the rule of Matthew 18 where Jesus said if your brother sins against you, go to him privately and tell him his error so that you might win your brother through restoration.
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Don't take and go to everyone else.
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Go to him.
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It's hard.
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I'm going to tell you I know it's hard.
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Because I don't like confrontation.
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I don't like fighting.
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And I especially don't like arguments.
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And most people, when you tell them they're wrong, they respond with what? A self-defense, personal rebuttal or a justification of their sin.
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They don't want to admit they're wrong.
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Matthew 18.
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Oh, I have to go back and look at the verses.
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But it's the passage on church discipline.
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I usually say I'm just misunderstood.
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Yeah, yeah.
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You just didn't understand why I did what I did.
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And that's the way we justify our behavior.
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So Paul is an example here.
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Someone does something wrong.
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You go to them.
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Now, some people think Paul is wrong here.
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Because they say Paul is a hothead.
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And they are reading into this text anger.
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And again, if you read it, I opposed him to his face.
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I guess you could think of that like a modern way of saying I got up in his face.
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You know, I got up in his grill or whatever the modern...
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I think I'm probably ten years removed from that one.
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But that was, you know...
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Got up in his dental work, whatever.
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You know, that's the...
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I used to be a security guard at a high school.
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And that was always...
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He was in my face.
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That was how the fights always...
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You know, that was the justification.
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You know, Mr.
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Foskey, I couldn't let it go.
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He was in my face.
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Right? And that was justification for fighting.
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So, we think of this.
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I don't see it as violently as some do.
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But it could have been.
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It could have been, Paul, what are you doing, Peter? Are you nuts? You know, it could have been that.
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But the point of the text...
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In fact, if you've ever seen...
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There's a movie with Anthony Hopkins where he plays the Apostle Paul.
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He plays the Apostle Paul.
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I forget who plays Peter.
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But the scenes in the movie...
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And Anthony Hopkins, you know the guy who played in the Sonnets of the Lambs? That guy is playing Paul.
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And he comes and he goes, vacillator! vacillator! You know, it really freaks out.
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And that's sort of the picture that a lot of people have of what happened.
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We don't know how it's happening because you cannot determine emotion from just the text, unless it says the emotion.
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It doesn't say it.
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All it says was, I opposed him to his face because he was guilty, or because he was condemned.
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He was wrong.
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As I said, I tend to think he went to him directly.
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I don't think he lost his temper.
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I think he simply said, you are wrong.
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And you are bringing other people down.
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And we're going to see that in a minute.
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He's not only wrong, but he's making other people wrong.
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And was he emotional? Possibly.
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But again, that's an inference, not a necessary inference.
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Yes? Vacillator means one who goes back and forth.
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Like vacillate means to go back and forth.
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A flip-flopper.
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Yeah, a flip-flopper.
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Alright, so now let's move on to verse 12.
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He's challenged Peter.
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He has said, you're wrong, you're condemned.
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Now verse 12 explains why.
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He says, for before certain men came from James...
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Remember who James is.
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James is the pastor of Jerusalem.
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So these guys are coming from Jerusalem.
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Now we see in other passages, these men are claiming to have James' authority.
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We see this in Acts 15.
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But they actually don't.
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So they're coming saying, we're from the Jerusalem church and we're here to be representatives of James and the other apostles.
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So just consider that as we go.
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For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles.
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That's Peter.
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Peter was eating with the Gentiles.
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Why does that matter? Well, for two reasons.
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One, if you eat with the Gentiles, you eat what the Gentiles eat.
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And the Gentiles didn't have a concern for kosher law, dietary law.
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So if you eat with the Gentiles, you're going to eat what they eat.
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In fact, in the first century, and even now in a sense, kosher food is separated.
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So if you eat with the Gentiles, it wouldn't even matter if you were eating kosher food.
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Your food is in the same vicinity.
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And there's a chance for cross-contamination.
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You know, what if the spoon from yours goes into the spoon of theirs and now you may be eating some unclean food, right? So the idea is there's the opportunity.
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You can't even have your food close because there's an opportunity for contamination, yes.
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I don't know what all the rules are, but I know that they wouldn't be able to eat it.
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And it's the same like in the Muslim world.
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Obviously, pork and everything else, you can't eat it.
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And if it touches it, it becomes unclean.
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So again, there has to be this sort of hard separation.
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So if he's eating with the Gentiles, he's eating what they eat.
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But he's also eating with them, which is very important because that was a social faux pas Among the Jewish people, you could not eat with Gentiles, not just because of what they were eating, but because of who they were.
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The Gentiles were unclean.
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So not only did they have unclean food, they had an unclean person.
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And Peter, when he came to Antioch, he was eating with them.
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Now I can't prove that he was eating pork sandwiches, but I have no reason to believe he wasn't because in Acts 10, Peter is told, kill and eat.
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And he says, I've never eaten anything unclean.
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And God says, what I've made clean do not call unclean.
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And therefore, He made all food clean.
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And so I believe Peter would have had the liberty to eat pork or shellfish or anything else.
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So when Peter comes to Antioch, he's living it up.
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He's enjoying fellowship with the Gentile disciples.
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He's enjoying the food that they have provided for him.
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And he's enjoying their company until the men come from James.
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It says, but when they came, that's the certain men come from James, when they came, he, that is Peter, Cephas, drew back and separated himself.
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That's where I think in the NAS it says he made himself aloof.
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Basically, the word aloof is sort of like stuck up or you might think of like somebody who's snobby.
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You know, sort of became snob.
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When these guys came from Jerusalem, he separated himself.
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He quit eating their food and he quit eating at their table.
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And it tells us why.
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The Holy Spirit inspired testimony tells us why he did it.
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It says he separated himself fearing the circumcision party.
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Now, very quickly, that word circumcision party, you know I've talked about the Judaizers? That be them.
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That's them right there.
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That is the Judaism.
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Because this is the group, the circumcision party are those who would demand circumcision as fidelity to God.
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And here they come in, sort of like the Torah police.
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And Peter sees them coming.
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Maybe he hears they're coming.
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And he divides himself from the Gentiles.
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What's that brother? No more sitting together.
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No more rubbing elbows with those Gentiles.
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Can't do that.
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Notice, what's that? And you notice the word here fearing.
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He feared them.
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He feared them.
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Now there are some people who try to alleviate Peter's guilt.
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In fact, if you go back to the early church, and by that I mean 1st, 2nd, 3rd century church, there's a lot of writings, there's a lot of commentaries that were written in that time, a lot of early church fathers write about the Scriptures.
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And some of the early writers really had a hard time believing Peter would do this.
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They really had a hard time believing Peter would fall this hard.
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And so they try to give him a break.
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One guy said, well, this isn't Peter.
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This is a different Cephas.
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This isn't Peter the Apostle.
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This isn't the main man.
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This is some other Cephas.
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There is no reason to believe that.
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There is no reason to believe this is anyone except for Peter the Apostle.
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Cephas is also what he's called.
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And we see this in chapter 1 and earlier in chapter 2.
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Cephas is named and he's identified as the Apostle.
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If it changes persons in midstream like this, it would make no sense.
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But again, you can see somebody trying to defend Peter.
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Ah, it's not him.
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It's another guy.
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It doesn't really jive.
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Another defense that's given, and this one I found humorous when I heard of it.
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Some people think he is acting like Paul and Peter got together and said, hey, you know, we're trying to explain to them this whole Jew and Gentile unification thing.
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What we'll do is Peter, you go out there and act the fool and I'll call you out and everybody will see it.
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And Peter's like, that's a great idea.
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And they're done and they go see it.
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Yeah, it's like, and cut.
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Again, there's nothing in the text.
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But you understand, people are trying to defend Peter's honor.
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They're trying to defend his person.
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You don't need that.
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If a pillar falls, he doesn't need excuses.
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He needs restoration.
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If any Christian man falls into sin, he doesn't need excuses.
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He needs to be restored.
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That's the point of what I'm trying to say today.
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When pillars fall, and they do, they don't need to be excused.
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They need to repent and be restored.
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Peter needed to repent, not be made excused.
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Another excuse sometimes people...
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And this is one that's pretty popular among conservatives.
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They'll say, well, what Peter was doing, Peter was concerned with the Jews of Jerusalem hearing that he was eating with the Gentiles, that they would be offended, and he didn't want to offend them.
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That's possible.
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But even still, Paul considers it a condemnable thing because he's willing to separate from the Gentiles because of the Jews.
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No matter what, he stands condemned.
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No matter his motivation, he's wrong.
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You can be motivated by something that you think is right and still be wrong.
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Amen? Amen.
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Alright.
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Verse 13.
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This is where it really gets bad because Peter has separated himself.
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He's afraid of the circumcision party.
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And the rest of the Jews, that being the rest of the Jews in Antioch, acted hypocritically along with him so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.
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Now, think about this.
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First of all, Paul uses a very heavy word here.
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Hypocrite.
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What is a hypocrite? Who said actor? The original Greek word, hypokrisis, means someone who does what he does as an act or a play unto others.
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That's why some of those people believe it was an act but that's not the way the word's being used here.
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What it is, is he's showing off for someone else.
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He's doing what he's doing as a show unto them.
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Who is Peter showing off for? The circumcision party.
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Because obviously he feels like he can't eat with the Gentiles because he was eating with the Gentiles.
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He feels like he can't eat their food.
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He was eating their food, but here comes these guys.
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Oh, now I've got to put on a show.
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Now I've got to put on my tie and put on my little penny loafers and I've got to get out there and be a good Baptist.
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Because here come the Baptists, right? Or whatever.
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I've got to look the part.
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You can't wear flip-flops to preach anymore.
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Right? You've got to be very serious.
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So you've got Peter accused of hypocrisy and it says the rest of the Jews joined in.
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And the one, remember this, the one guy who it seemed like was incorruptible.
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Barnabas.
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Remember Barnabas? Son of encouragement.
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The man who was a giver.
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The man who was an encourager.
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The man who the church trusted and he was loved by the church and he loved God's people.
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He was a fellowship, a minister with Paul.
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And Paul says, even my right hand man got corrupted by all this nonsense.
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Even my main ministry associate was drug into this nonsense by your misbehavior.
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So the rest of the Jews were hypocritical and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.
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Now again, have you ever heard someone say, I won't go to church because of hypocrites? Maybe you've said that.
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Maybe you yourself have said, you know, I don't go to church because it's full of hypocrites.
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Hypocrisy is real.
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And I think sometimes hypocrisy is based on false expectations as we've talked about earlier.
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People expect certain things so people behave in a certain way.
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It's really hard to be authentic, isn't it? You know what authentic means? Real.
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It's hard to be real.
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It's hard to be real with other men because you're afraid that they'll think you are less than you are or they'll think less of you than they should.
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Or maybe they'll think that you are worse than you are.
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So you try to make yourself better.
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You know in the first ten minutes of an interaction with a new person, most people lie like five times? Whether it's about their level of education, their job, how much time they've spent at their work, how much money they make, how long they've been married, all these different things because they want to make themselves something that they're not.
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And church is really bad about that because they think the expectations are so high.
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We can't be real.
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We can't be honest.
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So we have to put on a show.
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And that's what Peter's doing.
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Peter's leading the show.
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The Jews are following the show.
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And even Barnabas, a good man of God...
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Now I'm not saying Peter wasn't a good man of God.
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But what I'm saying, Barnabas, a man whose reputation was a man of God, even he's being led away.
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And Paul ain't having it.
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Paul is saying, No, sir.
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So this is where we get to verse 14.
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He says, But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the Gospel, I said to Cephas, Before them all...
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Stop right there before we even get to what he said.
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Notice it's before them all.
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Why is Paul making the point to call Peter out publicly? Because if you go back to Matthew 18, you'll notice that when someone sins, you're supposed to go to them privately.
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Why is Peter being called out publicly? Yep, that's it.
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He's led other people astray.
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What did you say, brother? Same thing.
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I also want to add this thought.
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A sin which is public usually requires public rebuke so that there is an understanding among God's people that this will not be tolerated.
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If a person sins publicly and no one says anything to them, that's dangerous for the church because people begin to think that's normal behavior.
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That's right.
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So in history, we've often had this sort of...
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It's a traditional phrase, but it's usually pretty helpful.
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Private sin requires private rebuke.
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Public sin requires public rebuke.
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Because if sin is public, everyone knows it, then it has to be understood that it's been rebuked.
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So I'll give you an example.
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This happened many, many years ago.
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I was a child.
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So this was many years before.
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I've been in the same church since I was 8 years old.
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Pastor of the same church I grew up in.
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But this happened before I was even there.
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This happened in probably the late 70's, early 80's.
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There was a woman in the church who was living with a man and they were not married.
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And it became well known within the church that they were choosing to live together outside of marriage.
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Rather than anyone going to her privately, it just became a point of gossip.
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So one day after church, this woman, very brazen in her sin, stood up before the entire congregation and said, I want you all to know I'm living with this man and we are not married and we don't care what you think and we're going to keep doing what we're doing and it's none of your business.
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And she sat down.
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And you know what the church did? Nothing.
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Now I hear that story because it's been told to me by those people.
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We've got people in our church who have been there 50 years.
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And they say, Pastor, how would you have handled that? I said I would have called her to repentance right then.
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I said I would have stood up and said you are sinning against God and against His people and you need to repent right now.
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Well, what if she didn't repent? Then we would move forward with the process of excommunication.
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Because that's what Matthew 18...
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Jesus' own words.
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If they continue in their sin, they are to be removed.
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You say that's harsh, but I'm not the one who made it up.
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Peter is getting a public rebuke because his sin was a public sin.
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Yes sir, you had a question? Yes, we would have removed them.
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We have a process in our church.
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When you come to our church and join our church, you sign a covenant saying that you understand that if you continue in sin after being called to repentance and you will not repent and you refuse to repent, you'll be brought before the church.
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And if you continue after even being brought before the church, that you'll be removed.
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Again, I could take you to Matthew 18 and show you Jesus said if a person sins against you, you go to him privately.
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If he refuses to repent, you take two or three witnesses and go to him.
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If he continues to refuse to repent, you take him before the church.
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And if even before being brought before the church, he refuses to repent, he is to be treated as a tax collector or a sinner, which at that time meant he is to be excommunicated.
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Because that's what they did to tax collectors.
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Have you ever seen that happen? Yeah, absolutely.
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And what do you do just as...
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It depends on the situation, honestly.
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But if a person is fully under excommunication, they would not be welcomed back at a regular worship service unless they repent.
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Now, I mean, we're not standing there with a police officer barring the door.
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But generally it doesn't come to that.
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Most people just leave on their own.
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But we've had a few instances in our church where we've began the process with the people in general.
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A lot of times they'll just leave because they don't want to stop sinning.
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We've had...
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I don't want to get too far into it.
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I do record these sessions, so I want to be careful.
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We have had people repent later and come back, but again, these are private matters so I wouldn't get too far into it.
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But I've seen people restored.
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I've seen other churches that have gone all the way through actually removing people.
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One in Mandarin Church actually made Fox News because the lady sued the church for defamation of character.
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And it didn't win, I don't think, but it was a big lawsuit and tried to drag the church through the mud.
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Again, it's just being biblical.
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It's not a matter of love.
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If you have cancer in your body, you get rid of the cancer.
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And this person is a cancer.
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They are damaging the body.
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Yes, sir? I didn't mean to go off on this subject.
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It's not your intention, you know what I'm saying, to break somebody's intention.
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And they refuse to...
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They're still supposed to be treated with love.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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At any point in the process, if they repent, they are completely restored.
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And the situation is put away.
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There's no gossip.
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There's no record kept.
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There is nothing that puts that person in a point of being held for that sin.
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Once you repent, it is over.
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And that's the hard part because some people have trouble letting things go.
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And so both sides have to be willing to go through with it.
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And if it's letting it go, you let it go.
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Alright, so I sort of took a sidetrack there.
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I didn't mean to, but it's a good question and something that's important.
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Because that's the situation.
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Paul is calling him out publicly.
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What if Peter would have said, no, I'm not wrong? Then it could have been a very serious situation.
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It could have been a situation where the apostles were divided.
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Thankfully, he didn't do that.
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Yes? Yeah, I would have just given him some emerald.
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I'm like, well, Peter, I'll rock the church.
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He doesn't think this is true.
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So Paul's testimony about the Gentiles being saved, you know what I mean? Yeah, exactly.
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So he had to go right then and there.
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You know what I mean? They were already trying to punish him for any reason.
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They've seen that Peter doesn't even think.
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And Paul's mission was to take it to the Gentiles.
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So he had to defend that right then and there.
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You know what I mean? Yeah, no, absolutely.
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And this whole thing, again, it had to happen publicly.
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It had to happen before everybody so that everybody knew that this is not going to be tolerated.
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This sin is not going to be allowed.
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Yes, sir, I see your hand up.
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Let's look at it.
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Go to Matthew 18 real fast.
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Maybe next week, I just need to come teach on this.
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Because this is a serious issue.
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Our church has been through several times of teaching on this because we want our people to understand.
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Every person who takes a new member's class gets a lesson in this.
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Let's read it.
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It says in chapter 18, verse 15, If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault.
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Between you and him alone.
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If he listens to you, you've gained your brother.
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But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.
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That was part of law.
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Verse 17, If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.
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And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
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Now stop right there.
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We're going to look at verse 18 in a second.
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But just for a second.
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A Gentile and a tax collector are ones who had already been excommunicated in the Jewish community.
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So that's the language Jesus is using.
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It's the language of excommunication.
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Verse 18, Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.
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Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
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Again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth on anything that you ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven.
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For where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I among them.
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Most people use that passage to refer to the church.
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Oh, well, there's two or three gathered.
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There's a church.
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That's not what the passage is about.
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That passage is about exercising discipline.
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The two or three mentioned there are the witnesses against the sin.
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What? That's verse 18.
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So you have verse 15 through 20.
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Matthew 18, 15 to 20.
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The point I'm trying to make is this.
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The whole binding and loosing thing, this is regarding church membership.
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The person is a part of the church and the church has come together and they have decided this person can no longer continue.
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They've made a decision and Jesus says, I'm there with them making that decision.
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I'm in the middle of it as a witness to their activity of discipline.
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You know why people don't know about this anymore? Because churches are afraid to do it.
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They're more concerned about how many people they have than the sanctity of the people that they have.
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They don't want to hurt people's feelings.
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I'd do anything to get them to come to church.
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I'd put on a clown show.
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I'd have anything it takes.
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That's not what we're supposed to do.
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We preach the Gospel and we let God draw whom He will in His way.
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But I do want to show you one other text since we have the Bibles open now.
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Because here's the other thing.
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We talk about Peter.
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Peter is what? He's a pastor, he's an elder, he's an apostle.
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He's all of those things.
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There is a different standard for an apostle, pastor, or teacher.
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And I want to show you.
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It's in 1 Timothy.
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Turn with me to 1 Timothy.
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There's a different standard because pastors and teachers are often the object of accusations and so in 1 Timothy 5, go to verse 14.
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And then go to verse 19 because I was wrong.
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1 Timothy 5.19 Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses.
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Now that goes back to Matthew 18.
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Don't even let somebody make an accusation unless there are two or three witnesses because anybody can accuse an elder by himself.
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There needs to be evidence before it even gets brought up.
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Verse 19 Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses as for those who persist in sin.
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That meaning the elders who persist in sin.
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Rebuke them in the presence of all so that the rest may stand in fear.
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Notice that.
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This again is the reason why Peter got rebuked before everyone because of the position he was in.
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Peter was in the position of an elder.
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He was in the position of an apostle.
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And when he sinned, he was worthy of public rebuke based on this one testimony.
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So here we have Jesus' words in Matthew 18 combined with Paul's words in 1 Timothy 5.
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We understand why Paul condemned Peter to his face publicly.
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And what did he say to him? Going back to Galatians 2.
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If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews? And by the way, that word Jews there, the last word Jew there, is the word Judaize.
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It can literally be translated, how can you force the Gentiles to Judaize? Or to become Jewish? That's the whole point of the book, guys.
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This whole issue is there are those who want the Gentiles to essentially become Jews.
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And Paul's saying, when you are with Gentiles, you act like Gentiles.
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When the Jews come, you act like Jews and you say we ought to act like Jews.
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You are wrong.
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You are a hypocrite.
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Yes, sir? If there was evidence, yes.
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If there was evidence, yes.
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Because the church would need to know.
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The church would need to know if their leaders were in sin.
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Now, if there was restoration happening, maybe not.
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It depends on the situation.
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Again, it all comes down...
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That's where if there's witnesses, that means it's known.
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If there's two or three witnesses, some folks know, it's got to be dealt with.
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Yes, and it does.
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That's what James 3 says.
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Not everyone should be teachers because teachers will be held to a higher standard.
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And like I said at the beginning, pastors are not perfect.
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James 3.
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Pastors are not perfect, but they are accountable.
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Peter was accountable.
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And the truth of the Gospel is worth rebuking anyone over, even the Apostle Peter.
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The Gospel is more important than my reputation.
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The Gospel is more important than my position.
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The Gospel is more important than anything.
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And Paul shows us that by being willing to call out even a pillar of the faith.
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How important is the Gospel to us? Is the Gospel the most important thing in our life? If it is, it will likely influence how we treat others and how we take stands and when we take stands and why we take stands.
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Again, no one is above rebuke when it comes to the subject of how we handle the Gospel.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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Thank You for the truth.
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May this message be one that's used to enlighten and inspire and encourage, but most of all, Lord, challenge and convict and even convert.
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Lord, by the power of the Holy Spirit, through the Word of Truth, we pray all this in Jesus' name.
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Amen.