The Confrontation (Galatians 2:11-14)

Well, good morning, I am sorry that Jim couldn't be here this morning because I enjoy his preaching

I really do and he Hopefully is getting better. He's been pretty sick. He told me this morning.

He's been sick most of the week So we do need to remember him in prayer as well as some of the others that might be missing this morning

So it is a privilege to be back again He asked me last Sunday, which is a little bit short notice

But thankfully I was already had been studying the passage that I wanted to present So this is our chance this morning to look at another part of Galatians So let's start this morning first by reading oh by the way

How many of you started listening to Christmas music this week? It's my favorite time and I am just glad that we sang this morning and we heard that wonderful rendition on the piano so thank you for that and It is a time that we can be thankful isn't it and I hope that your

Thanksgiving was as fun as enjoyable as ours was So let's read here Galatians again chapter 2 and we're gonna look at Chapter 2 verses the 11 through 14 a rather short section this morning.

Let's just read here In Galatians 2 verses 11 through 14 it says but when

Cephas or Peter Came to Antioch. I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned

For prior to the coming of certain men from James he used to eat with the Gentiles But when they came he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof fearing the party of the circumcision

The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy With a result that even

Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy When I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel

I said to Cephas in the presence of all if you being a Jew live like the Gentiles and not

Like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like the Jews? That's as far as we're gonna read this morning

There is more to his comments to Peter But we'll just read there for now And by the way, the the word for the young people that are taking possibly taking the count to the word is hypocrisy

I Didn't get into the bulletin. So we want to just let you know that let's let's just ask the Lord to guide us this morning

And in the study of his word, thank you so much Lord for Your word. Thank you that it is our guide.

It is our Words that we hear from you. It is your communication to us

And we pray that this morning as we look into this You will open our hearts and our minds to what you have for us to say and then we can learn from it

Thank you so much We pray for Jim that you will heal his body and so he can be back with us again for others anybody else

It might be away because they're not feeling. Well, will you pray for them as well Lord? You know that there are times are are are scary to some people because of some of the sicknesses out there

But we just know that you are still in control and you are protecting us Thank you so much in Jesus name. Amen now

I've often wanted to do this and I'm going to take the Time to do it this morning before we go in to these verses in Galatians I thought it'd be good to just clarify just a little bit for some people

That are always hearing me make some comment about the mon who we and and about Paraguay I thought specifically that I would just give you just a tiny bit of a background

Especially some of you that are that are new and and don't understand why I make those funny references sometimes

So I want to just give you that a little bit of background Nancy and I first went to Paraguay in Paraguay South America, by the way

Some of you don't even know where Paraguay is But it's right smack in the center of South America a small country and we went there under new tribes mission back in 1976 now the

And we stayed there until 2015 so you can count the time. I don't need to tell you but today this mission is called ethnos 360

It's still basically the same mission. They haven't really changed anything. The policies are the same the the out Reaches the same and their whole

Work is basically Among indigenous peoples around the world. So they work in we call we used to come

Indian tribes now It's not polite. So we call them indigenous people today but they are people that are isolated from cities and normally, they speak only their own language and The culture and the language of these people is quite different from the national people for instance in Paraguay We have the nationals which are called the

Paraguayans. They speak Spanish and they speak Guarani which are two languages. It's a bilingual country

But the Indian peoples the indigenous peoples are quite different from them. They're actually they speak their own distinctive languages in Paraguay, there's 16 different languages and Out of the 16 only three are spoken anywhere else like Guarani is one that's spoken also in Brazil and parts of Bolivia but 16 languages and out of those 13 of them are indigenous peoples and Most of the indigenous people do speak only their own distinct language.

No other language and It's changing a little bit because now some of those indigenous people are beginning to speak

Spanish or Guarani as well And that's because there's better transportation Civilization has moved into some of the areas and believe it or not most of those people have cell phones now so they can actually hear the news and Even though they don't understand at all.

We entered the tribe of the Manhui people in 1978 and we began living among them

After we had learned the Spanish language in the capital city and when we got to the Manhui we realized oh

Spanish doesn't help us one bit because these people don't hardly speak one word of Spanish So we were like babies and we had to learn we had to watch them

We had to take notes all the time. We had the in phonetics, which we were trained in in our mission training we had to learn how to make their language into a written language and And Like I said

Spanish didn't help us So we learned phonetics and use that and we puzzled over all the funny things that they did

We didn't understand them We had to learn the language to ask them why they did the things they do and believe it or not

They puzzled over us just as well They didn't know why we brushed our teeth and why we slept in beds and why we didn't sit on the ground and why we lived

In houses and we're always hiding from them. They said we found that later So that was some of the funny things, you know and we had no idea in those beginning days that Our job would be to take that language and write it down and teach them how to read and eventually the

Bible Would be translated we would be translating but God knew this didn't he? He knew us ahead of time, you know,

I could take hours I could take the whole time this morning, but I can't do that because we are gonna look at Galatians But my point is this

God gets the glory for everything that was accomplished down there among those wonderful people

The church was established in the New Testament was translated as well as some of the Old Testament But Nancy and I see ourselves as just tools in God's hands there were times

I wish I could have taken some of the glory for it and I used to think that I had a lot to offer

God and the talents that I had Well, God had to show me that it was really him God is the one who is building his church among those people and not me not us

I often just got in the way and had to learn and Speaking of building churches.

I just want to let you know that This was the the church is the people but they also need a building to worship in and a lot of people call that the church well, actually

I got word from our son Jeff that a group of Mennonite Farmers and ranchers in the area got together and decided they wanted to help the people and build them a new church

They had an old building that fell down and they built him this brand new building Beautiful church all brick and that's what they're meeting in now and believe it or not.

It's packed there's a renewed interest in especially the young people and they're they're all packing into this church twice a week to hear

God's Word and It's incredible but anyway I'll leave it for that if anyone by the way is interested in knowing more background of in pioneer missions is what we were doing or as possibly even thinking of making a career change themselves and Believe that God would like them to be a missionary

You can come talk to me I'd be I'd love to talk more about missions to you or they can go on the website of ethnos 360 look it up for themselves

If they want to know what what it's more about. So let's go on to Galatians Especially this chapter the last time

I spoke in our in August. We were talking about the great debate That's where we were where Paul and Barnabas went and Paul Talked about the problem that circumcision would be if it was if it was kept in the church

And this was the conclusion was that circumcision would not be preached to the Gentile people to the non -jews

Because it wasn't needed was it for one to be saved. You don't need anything else On a larger scope.

That's the whole thing. We have nothing that we need other than God's grace because it's all about him not about us.

Is it so the question was did it settle the issue? Did it settle the issue? so now we're beginning this next section here and At first glance,

I've read this over a number of times in earlier years and at first glance It looks like this has nothing to do with that debate or about the gospel about Paul's previous comments, it seems just like There was a there was a conflict okay between Paul and Peter and he just inserted this into this book for the

Galatians to read about And in fact years ago, I used to think when I when

I would read this that you know that Paul He was pretty arrogant and conceited to actually approach

Peter Who was one of the leaders in the church and a true apostle? That was my thinking earlier

Peter should be teaching Paul. I used to think However, as I begin to look into it deeper

I begin to realize that that there's something very important here that we have to understand about the gospel message and why

Paul was so adamant of keeping the gospel pure So let me just give you an overview here.

Okay? What we have here is Paul's example of how anyone can become deceived when they begin to fear what others are thinking and This fear can lead to a hypocrisy and legalism a person can preach one thing can preach on grace but then become living as If there's something else that needs to be added to grace

You know what? We all actually do this sometimes in our own hearts and this could happen with anyone that's of high

Reputation like like Paul labeled the other Apostles in this previous section Could even be a leading pastor like like Peter was

So that's the overview that's the kind of like the summary and I wanted us to first look at that and if Paul hadn't confronted

Peter that day and Rescued Barnabas so to speak the church might have looked very different today

So what is behind this confrontation is the very reason that Paul wrote the book to the

Galatians So that they too would not be deceived He wrote it to defend the purity of the gospel through faith alone and not not any work, so I Want us to think just a little bit about what exactly

Paul was up against as we get into the details And unpack this Paul was actually fighting what we would call false religion

And this would be Thinking that you have to do something so that God will accept you into his kingdom in a sense

It's kind of like I heard this illustration kind of like making your own fig leaves so to speak and this illustration comes from a message that John MacArthur preached and I really enjoyed how he how he put it an analogy of fig leaves

Paul John MacArthur said this he said false religion is The it began way back in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve immediately after they had sinned what did they do?

They sewed fig leaves together He says here to cover their nakedness and their guilt

This was their effort at covering up their sin and their guilt trying to do something so that God would accept them so Obviously sewing fig leaves together was not adequate was it and so God had to do something else well

That's what John MacArthur how he described it, so it was he called it fig leaves False religion sewing fig leaves together and creating our own righteousness

False religion, and you know this is a perfect example to of a passage in Isaiah Isaiah 64 6 that says this

Isaiah was actually showing what man's efforts are like he said for all of us have become like One who was unclean and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment

That's the NASB another translation puts it this way We are all like one who was unclean all our so -called righteous acts are like a minstrel rag in your sight

Oh God now, that's pretty graphic But it's a fairly accurate rendition of what this verse is of how

God sees our religious efforts like dirty rags So starting in the

Garden of Eden God began the true the lesson of true religion that man can do nothing about his

Sinfulness and man can do nothing to gain acceptance before God only

God can save us. This is why he gave Those skins the animal skins to Adam and Eve to clothe them to show them that only he could provide a way

Covering for their sin, and and he showed them that Something had to die Something had to die and that blood had to be shed that was the point the illustration and as We remember from some of Jim's passages in Hebrews That this is exactly his point as well

Hebrews 9 23 says this without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness

So God began this lesson with blood and with the death right there in the

Garden of Eden This was the beginning of this very long instruction period wasn't it? For around 4 ,000 years going through the bloodline of Abraham through a through Moses through the the covenants through the laws

Reaching right up to the time of Christ and it was about a sacrifice. It had to be made and it was about met the inadequacy of man's efforts and it was about the inadequate inadequacy of the first covenant the covenant of law and How Jesus Fulfilled and replaced it with the second sacrifice the new covenant again

Like I said, Jim has been showing us that so this is the lesson of true religion by God alone

Without fig leaves so to speak without our own efforts. So you as we study the

Old Testament We find that throughout this narrative of history that there's only been two religions only two religions

One is God's way and one is man's way But only one is true, isn't it?

Only one is true That God Provided the way through Jesus Christ through the sacrifice and the man has to come to God by faith

That's that's the point believing that he alone can save him And we know that this was also in the

Old Testament was accomplished by looking forward to Jesus Whereas we look backwards to Jesus And the other idea is a false religion because it's man's attempt and that's whether it was making an idol to worship

Believing that that idol is God or by appeasing the spirits Which is what the man who he used to believe

Everything had a spirit and so that's what they were trying. They were actually living in fear You wouldn't really call it worship

But it was a fear and that was their religion so to speak and they had to do with the spirits

What they thought the spirits wanted them to do. That was a false religion. It was the same thing and then also the

Jews They falsely thought that their own efforts at keeping the law Was what brought salvation?

So not only all the Gentiles and the native peoples around the world were involved in false religion

But so but so were many of the Jews Right up to the time of Jesus Christ and beyond Because they thought that they could make themselves righteous by obeying the law

By keeping the traditions and doing good things good works so they missed the whole point of God's lesson didn't they and many people did through This idea of laws and sacrifices to them.

It was just we had to do these things to make God happy So they missed the whole point that they were pointing to Jesus Christ.

Sadly. There were also some Christian Jews So -called Christian Jews in Paul's day that thought it was still about keeping traditions handed down by their their forefathers in addition to faith

So what these men were also involved in was false religion and many of the

Gentiles or excuse me Many of the Galatians were starting to Get come along with us to turn to get confused.

And that's why Paul wrote this book of Galatians. So I'm gonna break it down into five sections this morning

The first one is an outline is the summary in verse 11 The second one is the background in verse 12

The third will be the withdrawal and fear verses 12 and 13 And the next one is the hypocrisy that came from it in verse 13 and then the confrontation we'll end up with that So let's look first at the summary verse 11 again as I read earlier

It says here, but when Cephas or Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned.

I Opposed him to his face because he stood condemned now one question that I had when first reading this summary was

What on earth was Peter doing in Antioch? I thought Peter was back in Jerusalem Leading the church with James and John Because this is where he was when you had this great debate back in the earlier section that we looked at last time

He was one of the main leaders in Jerusalem, and he had actually given

Paul and Barnabas the right hand to fellowship. It says there So they had approved of Paul's ministry to the

Gentiles Whereas they were going to go to the circumcised or the Jewish community and we're not told in the scriptures

When Peter went to Antioch or the reason why but I I think we can logically conclude that he probably did this

Because he wanted to witness with his own eyes What Paul and Barnabas had been telling them about in that debate and as a church leader?

He went there to confirm all that that Paul and Barnabas had witnessed. However, this is only conjecture.

So it's actually not important But what is important here what is important over we do have

Recorded in this here that Paul had to oppose Peter to his face.

It says here in this verse 11 He needed to confront Peter face to face and this is important And we learned this is why

Paul had to confront him Because he was threatening to compromise the pure gospel message and the unity of the church

So he went to him to confront him and now Paul was not just defending the gospel message here but also

I believe it was to show the Galatians that he was a Not an inferior apostle see that's part of the first two chapters of Galatians he was defending also his ministry and his calling

Paul was not a inferior and He had no trouble facing up to Peter who was also an apostle and a church leader

So that and we also notice that that Peter himself is not infallible a preacher or a pastor also has it's just a man just like we all of us are he's no different and so Paul states here that because he stood condemned because he stood condemned and another translation says that he had clearly done wrong

And the third one says that he was to be blamed. So what? Excuse me.

What was the problem here? What was Peter doing? That was wrong So then we come to the second point the background verse 12 the answer that we need some more information is what this is

Verse 12 says Paul says here for prior to coming To the coming of certain men from James he or Peter used to eat with the

Gentiles But when they came he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof Fearing the party of the circumcision.

So Paul is giving us here the background in his narrative it's kind of like what if you ever watch a television series and You get a little bit of the action and and all of a sudden it stops and then you get

Now 24 hours earlier or now six hours or six hours or eight hours earlier.

It's kind of like that We back up in the time frame and I think this is what? Paul was doing the case of Peter.

It might have been a day or it might have been two days It might have been a week We don't know we're not sure but while Peter was there visiting the

Christians Paul says in the second phrase he used to eat with the Gentiles For the

Gentile Christians. So for a while Paul had Peter had no problem associating with the

Gentile believers Even was eating with them. They had their get -togethers They had their potlucks probably and they happily ate together just like we do sometimes they

Enjoyed each other and they all were one big happy family So there's nothing really special about that Sounds just like us, doesn't it?

But what was Peter going through? What do you suppose was?

Happening in his heart So for the sake of an illustration and you have to bear with me here because it's kind of silly

But what if you had gone to church in? Another church not this one but in a church and all your life you'd been taught in your old church that you had to wear a white shirt and in all the religious services because White is

God's accepted color Okay But when you arrived here at Kootenai Community Church You look around and you see that nobody is in fact.

I don't see anybody wearing a white shirt Nobody's wearing a white shirt. So you're taught then in that in this church that the color of clothes isn't important to God So you begin to wear a red shirt a nice red plaid one.

I Realize again, it's a silly illustration, but just imagine now that all of a sudden somebody comes through the door and You recognize him as somebody from your old church one of the elders from the old church

How would you feel a little bit guilty maybe you used to think

I don't have to wear a shirt But when somebody else comes in like that you might get the feeling of Being wrong all of a sudden and I think that possibly

This might have been us a little bit of a similarity what Peter was going through when he was fellowshipping and eating Maybe not we don't know again.

It's it's supposition, but just for the sake of an illustration We have to remember though What was

Peter's background before? He had likely been brought up from childhood and Taught that it was wrong to associate with the

Gentiles. It was Absolutely forbidden to eat with them

Both Levitical laws and Jewish traditions taught that God favored the Jews and that the Gentiles were unclean

So in order to be a good you All his life Peter had avoided any contact with the

Gentiles However, we do know also if we know the story well of Peter that there was one point where something had changed hadn't it?

From Acts 10 we were given the account that Peter had given a very we had been given a very special vision from God To teach him that there was no difference between the

Jews and the Gentiles So this vision was in preparation for his visit to Cornelius To preach the gospel and Cornelius was a

Gentile. He was a Roman. So in the vision God showed Peter That nationality wasn't important that all peoples are equal in God's eyes

And so he was learning also then that the church is an amazing example of this equality

Because all are one in Christ, aren't they? And that's where we are today There's no difference between believing

Jews or believing non Jews or Gentiles or anybody else for that matter. We're all the same Listen to what

Peter himself says during that great debate in Acts 15 He said brethren you know that in the early days

God made a choice among you that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and Believe and God who knows the heart testified to them giving them the

Holy Spirit just as he did also to us He made no distinction between us and them

Cleansing their hearts by faith That was Peter okay, and then Paul wrote later in Ephesians and this is where we read earlier this morning that In Ephesians 2 14,

I'll just give that one verse where it says for he himself is our peace who made both groups

Jew and Gentile into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall

So this was what Peter learned and Paul also taught on it later in Ephesians as well So Peter had been

Liberated from legalism Peter had didn't have to to worry about it There was no prejudice for a little while and he was able to fellowship and sit down with the

Gentiles and eat with him in Antioch with Paul and Barnabas and the other Jews Now thinking back to my illustration.

He was now able to wear Something other than a white shirt, basically And he probably thought that he could handle it

For a while, but what changed Peter states here in this verse 12 that certain men quote from James Showed up on the scene certain men from James and now if we remember from verse 9

James was one of the big boys He was one of the preachers there too in the Jerusalem Church where Peter had come from So all of a sudden in walks these guys and they see him

And you know it wasn't that James actually sent these where it says they were from James because but it was because James was a leader over the

Jewish Church and it was kind of like they were from him. So to speak with really they were just from Jerusalem so we can see from this that some of the

Jews Still believed that there were it was necessary to observe the

Jewish traditions and and Peter knew that because that's where he'd come from and In particular these guys might have all also had a hard time with the

Gentiles and so here they come They walk in and Peter sees them and I have a feeling his heart just sank

They see me eating with Gentiles. So this is our third point what happened what happened?

There was a withdrawal It says for a few days Here, excuse me here for a few days and weeks.

He had been Eating and worshiping and fellowshipping with these guys, but then it says here in the last part of verse 12 when these

These boys from Jerusalem showed up. He says he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof fearing

Fearing the party of the circumcision You know, that's sad that Peter would begin to pull away from the very people.

He came to visit wouldn't it? And it tells us why it says here. He was fearing this party of the circumcision

He was fearing those Jews and what they might think He was afraid of what the men from Jerusalem were thinking about him those that still had ties to legalism

He's afraid of the What they might think? What they might think and what they might say and so I'm sure he felt condemned.

So what was it? It was a fear of man, wasn't it? Fear of man and interesting the scriptures do warn us about the fear of man

Proverbs 29 25 says this the fear of man brings a snare

But he who puts his trust in the Lord will be exalted So we begin to fear man that is when we do it when we're afraid of what someone thinks of us

It's like a trap We get locked into doing what we think they want

And I see this again and again among people that I come in contact with they're worried about what others think of them so they dress or they act or they or they talk a certain way when they're around these people because they're afraid of what they

Might think if they say something differently They're worried that they might not come across as good to these other people in the eyes of their in their eyes

So they're trapped by this fear and they act the way they think the others are expecting

And I said as I said it happens. I even find myself worrying at times I Even before I got in this morning.

I was worrying about what you guys think about me Did I have the right tie on or whatever, you know, so we get into this trap ourselves and it is a trap

It sounds foolish, but we all do it at times We we need to come to realize that we are only to fear

God and not man When we do fear up what someone is thinking of of us.

It's almost like making that person Above God, isn't it?

It's like putting them up as an idol and putting God down We lift them up and we put

God down when we're thinking we're worrying about what they're thinking of us and only God can release us From this trap as we recognize it as sin and confess it

Acknowledge it. There's also the example in first Samuel 15 when

Saul Gave this interesting excuse To Samuel when

Samuel asked him what he was doing and why he heard the bleeding of the sheep if you remember the story and What did

Saul say? He says I did it because I feared the people he was afraid now

He disobeyed God obviously and there's more to the the problem. It was also his pride, but he did fear

Another example one that Peter himself we see from Matthew 26 and we're given in great detail that what happened when

Jesus was had been taken to trial in the palace and Peter followed behind and stayed in the courtyard and he was approached by a

Maid a servant girl and then by the soldiers and it states that he he Denied Jesus because of his fear

His fear trapped him into denying Jesus Thankfully, he was repentant of this and he went on to become one of the leaders in the church

But fear of man trapped him at that time. I also think of an example when

I was with the man who he people years ago Living with them one of my friends latinis was his name

He was still a very young believer at the time and he was asked by one of the missionary

Coworkers that we had there if he was done following the spirits if he was done chanting and done trusting in them and And he told the missionary he was through but we learned later on that he was still

Involved in shamanism and the reason for that was because his wife was pressuring him to still chant over their grandkids

Yeah, I don't know to me. That would be the hardest thing to live up to was to to be able to Say I believed in God and and be consistent in that early in those early days.

So for a time he was fearing his wife Over trusting God so he was trapped by this fear to go against what he knew to be false

He was still doing it. So see fear of man is a trap

So back to Peter I believe that what made this fear and withdrawal so sad that it was also the dabbling in the beginnings of false religion

Trusting that works or hope there was all about instead of trusting the Lord He was implying that the

Jewish traditions were more important when he gave into those thoughts He was acting out the idea that the traditions needed to be held up above the gospel and the

New Covenant So in a sense he was putting tradition and works Above God showing that he still needed to comply

There was another thing he was doing too. He was also in a sense. He was saying that There was two bodies of Christ There's Jews and there's

Gentiles And that was that was heresy and so this is why Paul had to deal with this

We also have another problem here that the NASB brings out It says that Peter not only withdrew and separated himself here in verse 13.

It says he also held himself aloof From the others and my understanding that also speaks of pride and that is sin as well

You know, I know that if I hold myself aloof from somebody It means that I think myself as better than they are and I wouldn't want

Anything to do with them and I think this was part of Peter's problem as well I think that's why that particular translation goes that way

You know, we can't trust or we can't judge Peter's attitude But I do believe it had something to do with it as well and there was some pride there

You know when we feel that we're better than someone else it is pride It's so easy to slip into this pattern that we often don't even realize it

For instance, sometimes I'm out driving in traffic And I get cut off by another driver

Or I see somebody run a red light and I we've all seen it. I find myself thinking

Look at him. I would never do that. I Don't know if you do that, but that's what

I think Thankfully the Lord and my wife Very gently brings me back to reality

And reminds me that I do the same thing sometimes So I have to admit that it is sin to think myself better than the other guy

They said aloofness is pride and very deceptive All right back to Peter So if this had been just him alone

Paul could have gone to him in private and and talked to him about it But it says here that the rest of the

Jews joined him in hypocrisy With the results that even Barnas Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy so we move on to our fourth point that of hypocrisy as a result of fear and We also see that there was a serious mob reaction here

It involved all the other Christian Jews who were there as well Peter says the rest of the

Jews also went along with him They joined Peter in it in the movement away from truth, and that's why it was serious

It wasn't just Peter But it was all of them Peter had caused a division among the rest of the

Jews Among the church there among the Jews and the Gentile believers, but most importantly

Paul labels this as hypocrisy This is hypocrisy. This is what is what most versions use for the both of the

Greek words There's two Greek words here one is and I'll try to pronounce these one is soo soo soon Oh poke for my and the other one is

Hoopoe creases now hoopoe creases is not hard because that probably where our word hypocrisy hypocrisy comes from But the first word is a little different in the

King James Version I got it and I found this was interesting the King James Version translate this first word supo soon.

Oh poke for my as The word dissembled it says here and the other

Jews dissembled likewise with him and so this word carries the meaning of acting deceitfully and hypocrite

Hypocritically in concert with somebody else so these other Jews who had been converted to Christianity when they saw how

Peter was acting they deceitfully went along with him and withdrew as well, even though they knew better as Did Paul as did

Peter? I mean They were making a statement that is now not okay to eat with the

Gentiles So it was deceit and it was hypocrisy and why would it be that why would why would this be hypocrisy?

Because they believed one thing but they were teaching something else by their actions

They were acting the opposite in other words Peter and the other Jews had first declared that their belief was the fact that There was unity in the church and what it should look like and that there was they were all one in Christ But then when they went the other way they begin

Paul gave into the Peter gave into the pressure of those other newcomers those circumcision guys and By following Peter's example all the others also were acting

Hypocritically as well and even Barnabas he says even Barnabas was drawn away It was Paul's good friend and companion and he was swayed by their hypocrisy as well and began to go along Everyone became two -faced in other words

They were all saying in effect that the Gentile Christians were uncircumcised and not worthy to eat with they were second -class people

And more importantly they were saying that they still need to go along with traditions They still needed to add something else to the gospel other than grace

It was a declaration of false religion. So do you see the full force of the problem here?

That's what it was So we have to have a confrontation This is the final point we can be assured that Paul couldn't let it go

So he says here in verse 14 when I saw that they were not being straightforward about the truth of the gospel

I said to Cephas in the presence of all if you being a Jew live like the Gentiles and not like the

Jews How is it that you are compelling the Gentiles to live like the

Jews? And he absolutely could not let hypocrisy go on He had to hit it right where it started and that was with Peter wasn't it?

He mentions all of them. Everyone was infected with this sin and this error They were not being

Straightforward about the truth of the gospel Paul says in other words. We know that the truth of the gospel is this

Christ abolished the law He abolished the hold of the law There's no more restrictions on what was clean what was unclean because all men are now one in Christ That's that was the truth of the gospel

But by his observing again the Jewish traditions and the laws it was like them saying that there was no freedom from sin

No drying near to God And it was like they were throwing the whole truth out the window and the unity of believers was no longer valuable anymore

They were flip -flopping between legalism and grace and this was hypocrisy so Paul had to confront him and he looks

He had to look him right in the face Right in his face. He had to get in his face As it says here in the presence of them all not only was it just Peter's problem.

It was the whole churches problem all of them and So he dealt with him like he would deal with a person who has fallen away

Like you Like Jesus taught there in Matthew in Matthew 18

This was a public matter And so they had to may had to make a public especially the issue of whether rights and tradition should take precedence over grace

So Paul's question to Peter was this in the NASB. He says if you being a

Jew live like the Gentiles and not Like the Jews, how is it that you compel the

Gentiles to live like the Jews? now There's a lot of implications in this question

And so I thought that I'd like to take it and paraphrase it just a little bit actually quite a bit

So saying it the way that I might ask it today if I were Paul So I can bring out some of the implications a bit more and I believe that Paul was implying something like this

Look Cephas or look Peter. He said it's plain for everyone to see that you're a

Jew But When you first arrived here in Antioch You displayed before all that you have the freedom in Christ to live like a

Gentile By your eating and your fellowshipping with the Gentiles You were acknowledging that the

Jewish traditions and the legalism have been abolished because of Christ and that's good. That's good

Peter. However More recently then you begin to fear what the religious Circumcision Jews were thinking about you and you begin to separate yourself from the

Gentile believers You started holding yourself up as better than them So you were making the statement that we all still need to live under laws and traditions and that the

Gentiles are unclean By your recent actions. You are now saying that everything in Christ everything that Christ did on the cross is in vain

You're also saying that the Gentile believers must adhere also to those very laws and traditions that you earlier said

Were of no effect so Peter You are a hypocrite said

Paul in a paraphrased version So that's that's the question and I don't

Find anywhere that we get a recorded response from Peter though. We do know a bit later that he did write

The books of his own books as well he was I Believe he listened to Paul in other words, and he recognized that he had been fearing them

He'd been fearing his peers and the sin of hypocrisy and of pride and I think he repented immediately I really do and I believe that the bond between the

Jewish and the Gentile believers was restored in Antioch because of Paul's Confrontation that day and the truth of the gospel and so they were restored

So we come to the end of the confrontation and then the next few verses the next passage

Paul goes on teaching more about this Believing Jews and the non -jews are justified solely by faith.

There are no traditions involved Oh, that's as far as we're gonna get today in this second chapter of Galatians But in closing

I wanted to to just make a final application something that I've been applying to myself as well in thinking about hypocrisy and Thinking about the fear of man

We need to ask ourselves. Is there any hypocrisy in? My own heart.

Is there any fear of man in my own life? Do I fear what I perceive others are thinking about me or or am

I claiming? That I am trusting God completely and I recognize him as sovereign overall and yet I'm living in fear of something possibly do

I Live in fear that I might get infected by my Kovat or something else or that I might run out of money

To pay my bills instead of trusting the Lord because he did say he would take care of everything didn't he?

Am I saying that I love my neighbor? And yet I haven't lifted a hand to help him the list could go on and on couldn't it because all of us have

We're all human and we all have a sin nature still and we all have problems with these Folk we are guilty of being hypocritical at times

I know I am we need God's Word continually in our hearts to reveal what hypocrisy is and what a lack of trusting

God is so we don't fear man and If it is if we do find it, we need to admit it as sin

Don't we and confess it so we can grow immature as the Lord wants us to so That's that part of Galatians.

Let's pray Or Thank you so much that we can look at your word and we can see it.

We can realize that it's not just for people many many years ago It's not just for those people, but it's also for us.

We realize that you teach principles to us From your word every day.

We pray that we will be faithful to read and study and learn from you and Take these things to heart.