It’s a Joy to celebrate Jesus together today. We’re gonna be looking at Galatians chapter two this morning. We’re in this series on Free for Good, and really the whole of Galatians is gonna emphasize our freedom in the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is a passion in the Apostle Paul for the gospel that we read in this letter as the gospel is being twisted and contorted, and ultimately at the risk of being lost in this church. And so he writes to them about that.

And so there’s some heavy doctrinal passages that are yet ahead of us. Today as we look at Galatians chapter two, the Apostle Paul is still giving evidence on why the message that he gave to them didn’t come from other people who taught him, but it came directly as a result of a revelation from God to him. It’s came as a pure, undiluted stream, and so he brings up this conflict that he has with the Apostle Peter just again as another example of emphasizing, I didn’t even get it from Peter or from other leaders in the church at Jerusalem. And this is an illustration how the gospel takes precedent over Peter’s authority and over even the relationship that he has with Peter that it’s of absolute first importance, this gospel that he brings them. So that’s what I read about today. If you’re conflict averse, you might be uncomfortable even reading these few verses. So, let’s stand as we read, Galatians chapter two, verses eleven through fourteen.

“But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came, he drew back and he separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. 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?'(Galatians 2:11-14)

May God encourage us through His Word today. Please be seated. Let’s pray. Father in heaven, we thank You that we are recipients of Your gospel, a good news that brings salvation to our lives, that grants us forgiveness of sin through the death of Jesus on the cross, that grants us new life through His resurrection, that grants us certain hope, through His ascension to heaven, His promise of coming again. And so, Father, I pray that You’d help us to lean deeper into the gospel as a result of what we learn today.

Lord, I pray that You’d free us from the desire to be approved by people and allow us to trust in You that, Your approval alone is worth sacrificing for and is worth keeping in constant view. And so help us, Lord as Your people to fear You and to love You more than we fear people or love people and their applause. And so, Father we pray that You’d help us to have clarity on Your gospel this morning, through Your Spirit and Your Word. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

There is a constant danger that every one of us faces, whether you’re young or old in the faith, and that is the danger of longing to be approved by people whom you consider important or significant, people whose opinions you care about. And, this danger, often strikes us suddenly in ways that we don’t expect and without warning. Here’s what the Scripture says about that danger in Proverbs. It says, “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe. So the opposite of the fear of man is trusting in the Lord and the fear of man lays a snare.

Now, you all know what a snare is. It’s a trap that springs suddenly and that takes the life of its prey. The prey just sort of walking along, sees some little bit of food, and then snap, that snare takes hold of them to take its life. And God reminds us that the fear of man lays a snare. The main idea that we’re gonna trace through this passage today is that the gospel is worth fighting for.

We see the Apostle Paul really confronting the church in chapter one, and now he recalls a story before them of him opposing Peter the Apostle Peter the one who is right at the center of Jesus’ twelve, the leader of the twelve, Peter. And he’s going to oppose Peter to his face, and he’s going to oppose Peter publicly. And why is he doing that? Because the gospel is at stake, and the gospel is always worth fighting for. And we know that Satan works to attack the gospel of Jesus both outside and inside the church.

We’re very familiar with external attacks upon the gospel. We’re concerned about them, and rightly so. But it’s the internal attacks upon the gospel that do the most damage. And so it’s necessary for Jesus’ church and every member of Jesus’ church to be vigilant, to be watchful for the gospel, both in our creed and in our conduct, that what we confess in our doctrinal statement is really important, but also how we live out that doctrinal statement is just as important if we’re going to protect the gospel and keep its integrity in our midst. So in Galatians chapter two, verses eleven through fourteen, Paul brings up a really dramatic episode in his life as well as the life of this church at Antioch, and he’s doing this again, to show that he’s not dependent on any other person for the gospel that he is proclaiming.

He wants the readers, the readers to know that the gospel he proclaims comes straight as a pure stream from God Himself. He says that Didn’t he in chapter 1? Look at verse 11 and 12 of chapter 1 with me. For I would have, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

This is a revelation direct from God to His chosen instrument in the Apostle Paul. God also chose other instruments, other apostles as well to reveal this message. He chose His own Son to take on human flesh also to reveal His message, but this message comes directly from God. To show how the gospel from God is greater than any man, Paul then briefly tells about this conflict that he has with the Apostle Peter regarding the gospel. He wants us to know that the gospel is not dependent upon human authority, not even a man of great influence and given great leadership in the church in Jerusalem, a man like Peter but the gospel is always God’s gospel and that every one of us who receive this gospel are stewards of it and it’s worth defending.

Even if it’s a Peter that is acting in a way contrary to it’s worth fighting for. So that’s Paul’s point here in Galatians chapter 2. So it begins this way in verse 11, But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. Now, as you read the Book of Acts, a book that describes the progress of the gospel in the world after Jesus ascends into heaven, the progress of the gospel in establishing churches through the power of the Holy Spirit, people living in darkness seeing great light, and the life of God comes in their soul as a result of the miracle of God working through His Spirit in them and through the proclamation of the gospel. As you read the book of Acts, you’re going to find two figures that are absolutely pillars in this early work of God to establish His church, and those two people in the book of Acts are Peter and Paul.

Now, there are other, people in the book of Acts that are worth noting, but people like Cornelius, or people like John, or people like Barnabas or Silas, but Peter and Paul these are the two pillars of this beginning work of God in the new church. So let’s ask the question, what’s the danger, then posed to this movement, this new work that God is doing in the world in the church? What is the danger of the two most prominent figures in this fledging church having a major public fight? What’s at stake? Well, basically everything.

That if this doesn’t get ironed out, that it is an absolute ruin to the church. The church will be fractured forever from its very beginning, and there’s gonna be people, “I’m with Peter,”I’m Paul,the church will never be one church, the gospel will be never one gospel that the church proclaims. And so the Apostle Paul tells about this event that takes place in Antioch, when Cephas came to Antioch. Before we consider why Paul confronts Peter let’s look at where. It’s at this city called Antioch.

And Syrian Antioch is located over 300 miles just north of Jerusalem. You can read about, the gospel coming to Antioch in Acts chapter 11. There were some, Messianic Jews from Cyprus who were likely on a business trip. We don’t know much about these men. It just said there’s some men from Cyprus, Jewish men from Cyprus.

They’re Messianic Jews, they believe the gospel, and they’re likely on a business trip passing through Antioch. They share the gospel, and there’s some people then that come to know the Lord some Gentiles come to know the Lord through the gospel. And God then begins to bring a revival of spiritual life into the city. In Acts 11, Luke describes the beginnings of this church in Antioch this way. He says, “The hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.

And the report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem. So 300 miles south, the Jerusalem church heard, “Hey, there’s some people coming to the Lord up there in Antioch.And so the Jerusalem church sends Barnabas right away to Antioch. They said, “They need discipled. They need to be taught.And when he came, Barnabas saw the grace of God, and he was really glad. He said, “Oh, this is so exciting what God is doing up here in Antioch.And he exhorted all the believers in Antioch, Jews and Gentiles alike, to remain faithful to the Lord.

And, Luke tells us that Barnabas was a man full of the Holy Spirit, full of faith, and that a great many people then were added to the Lord as a result of Barnabas’ new ministry in Antioch. This became such a burden to Barnabas. He realized, “I can’t do this alone. So Barnabas then takes off on a trip to the city of Tarsus. He knows the Apostle Paul is there.

He knows that Paul has become a believer, and he’s, become friends with Paul. He says, “We need Paul back here and I need him working alongside of me. And so he runs to Tarsus. He says, “Paul, He says, “Here’s what’s happening in Antioch. You need to come with me.

Let’s go to, back to Antioch. And Paul does that. And again, Luke describes it this way: “For a whole year they, Paul and Barnabas, “met with the church, this new church in Antioch, “and they taught a great many people; and in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians. So if why you would say, “I’m a Christian, it’s because the people, the believers here in Antioch, were first called Christians in Antioch. And so this church in Antioch, it’s made of, made up of both Jews and Gentiles who believe in Jesus as the Messiah.

During this time, the Jewish and Gentile believers hear about some financial hardship, of their believing Jewish brothers and sisters in Jerusalem. There’s a famine, there’s also some persecution. They decide, hey, let’s take up a an offering to help these brothers. We’ve not ever even met them, but we know that we really owe our faith to the gospel coming from them to us, and so we’re going to help them financially as they’ve helped us spiritually. So Paul and Barnabas bring this offering down to Jerusalem, and that’s when the Apostle Paul meets Peter for the first time.

And you recall, from two weeks ago’s message from Pastor Daniel in Galatian chapter two nine, there’s a description of Peter giving Paul the right hand of fellowship. So that’s their first meeting. It was a short meeting, but there was a sense of unity in their purpose and their gospel. Sometime after, the church at Antioch then sends Paul and Barnabas out on a missionary journey. It’s the first missionary journey anyone’s gone out on, and it’s the church at Antioch that sends them off as missionaries.

Says, “We’re gonna support you. Go. Share the gospel abroad to Asia Minor. And off they go. And what churches are first established?

Well, it’s the churches of Galatia, the churches to which this letter is written. And so the Galatian churches understand that Paul and Barnabas brought the gospel to them, and they were sent out by the church at Antioch. And so the, when they hear this story, they’re likely hearing it first time in this letter, and the Galatian story the Galatians are hearing this matter of when Cephas came to Antioch. And first of all, Antioch, we love the church at Antioch. They brought the gospel to us because they sent Paul and Barnabas to us.

And when Cephas came to Antioch, look at what happened. I opposed him to his face. You can imagine they understood that if this conflict had not been resolved, then that church would not have sent out Paul and Barnabas because the gospel would’ve been fragmented right there. They understand the stakes here of this issue that the Apostle Paul is bringing to Peter and to, the Jewish brothers, who are from James that he mentions here in Ephesians, or excuse me, Galatians chapter two. So what did Peter do that caused Paul to risk everything in this confrontation?

Paul understood this is a risk. If this doesn’t get resolved, everything’s a mess. So what did Peter do that caused Paul to say, “Yeah, I’ve gotta stand up. I’ve gotta oppose him publicly and to his face. So if you’re taking notes, we’re gonna look at the problem of hypocrisy, a life out of step with the gospel.

I just wanna read this passage again. It’s a short passage. But in verse eleven, “When Cephas, Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned. What the Apostle Paul means when he says, “He stood condemned, is he says, “Peter had right doctrine. He knew better than this.

His own sermons condemned what he was doing when he came to Antioch. He stood condemned not by me, but by his own, his own, confession, his own message. And so this wasn’t a matter of whether Peter was right or wrong. Peter knows that the moment he brought it up to him. He knows that what he was doing was out of step with the messages that he had given in his life to the church.

And then he goes on to say, “For certain men came from James. Now, James is the leader of the church in Jerusalem. He’s a great guy. And so we’re not told that James sent these men. He just said they’re from James.

They’re part of the church at Jerusalem. And these men were part of a group that said there needs to be more of the Mosaic law attached to the gospel, particularly regarding circumcision, but also regarding dietary, restrictions as well as some, celebration or holy day keeping. So certain men came from James, and these are believers. They believed in Jesus Messiah. They’re coming up from Jerusalem, and before they came though, Peter was eating with the Gentiles.

He had gone up there to see how the church was doing. Again, Paul had extended the right hand of fellowship with already. They talked about the gospel and how it relates to Jews and Gentiles, and he was excited about this. Peter had already received a vision. Remember the vision of the blanket.

We call it the pig in the blanket vision because this blanket came down from heaven, and there are all unclean animals on it as Peter is just simply worshiping the Lord. And all of a sudden he has this vision, and there are pigs on that blanket. There are camels, there are snakes. We’re not told There’s all manners of unclean animals. Hawks, falcons, all these are unclean according to the, to the Mosaic law.

And then he hears a voice from heaven saying, “Arise and eat. And Peter’s aghast by that when he hears that. He receives this vision of this blanket with all these animals on it and tells this guy, “No!, that’s not me. I’m too faithful to God. I’m a faithful worshiper of God.

I’ve never eaten any of these animals in all my life, and I’m not gonna begin right now. And then the voice from heaven says, “Well, what God makes clean is clean. It’s no longer unclean. It’s clean if God made it clean, so eat. And Peter resisted to the point where he was given this vision three times.

Three times the blanket comes down because Peter’s having such a hard time. And at the end of that vision, there’s a knock at the door, and there’s some men from Cornelius saying, “Hey, our Gentile centurion had a vision asking you to come to the his house. And Peter would never come to a Gentile house, let alone fellowship, and ate with him, had this he not been given this vision. “Yeah, I’m gonna go. It’s clear what God wants me to do.

And it’s through that story of his relationship with Cornelius then that Peter already knows the Gentiles are fully included in the family of God through Jesus the Messiah. That this wall that separates Jews and Gentiles is broken down. It’s a wall that kept them separated from each other as a people, as a worshiping community, and now it’s been broken down by Jesus Christ, and now Jew and Gentiles, they’re one in Christ. That they’re equally received by God as members of His family. So again, Peter is in Antioch for good reasons, and he’s been eating with the Gentiles.

He’s been going to small group with Gentile, into Gentile homes. They have love feasts in this church, and so everybody sits at different tables, and he’s sitting down with a Gentile table one time, a Jewish table another time. He just has total freedom until men from James come, and they pull him aside, “Hey, Peter we noticed you’re going to Gentile homes. We noticed you’re eating some things that are contrary to law of Moses, and we don’t think that’s good. Are you really a Jew?

Are you really godly? Are you really holy? And Peter cares about what these folks think about him. They’re real influential people. He’s gotta go back home to Jerusalem, and he knows that if they go with a slanderous report about him, then it’s gonna crush his social network, and he didn’t, he doesn’t want that.

None of us do. He doesn’t want people who had esteem for him to completely lose esteem, and he realized that might happen if I stop listening to what these guys are urging me to do. And he doesn’t even think it’s that big of a deal. What? I’m not gonna make a big deal of it.

I’m not gonna make a public profession about it. I’m just gonna start, when a Gentile asks me to come to their small group, I’m just gonna say, “No, I’m already going to this small group over here, and it happens to be a Jewish small group. And when I go to love feasts, there’s all kinds. Some are mixed tables. Some are Jewish tables.

That’s the nature of just sitting I’ll just go and sit with the, with the Jewish tables. That’s what Peter was doing. But the people in the church observed this especially the Jewish believers observed this and they said, “Well, if Peter’s doing that he’s the leader. He’s like, he’s like the number one disciple of Jesus. And so if Peter’s doing this maybe we ought to do this too.

And they started withdrawing and says, “Hey, “, they call their small group leader, “Hey, it’s been great being with y’all, but we found something that’s more suited to our needs. that conversation. We found another group that’s more suited to our needs. And they just go, and they start in the whole church, and then that started happening, so at these love feasts it became more there’s hardly any mixed tables because all the Jewish believers are finding their own table to eat at. And not only was it the rest of the church, but Barnabas,.

Barnabas is in this church in Antioch. He’d spent a whole year with these folks. He was the one God used to bring the gospel to so many of them. It’s not said that he baptized some of them, but I don’t doubt that he didn’t baptize some of these Gentile believers. He loved these Gentile believers.

But Barnabas, he’s the son of encouragement. What did Barnabas do? Barnabas started seeing Peter. He started seeing all these Well, maybe I’m a Jew too. Maybe I ought not to.

And he started backing away from this kind of close fellowship with the Gentile believers in Antioch. And for that reason, the Apostle Paul said this is, this is an issue where the gospel itself is at stake, and he’s gonna explain it more, from verses fifteen forward why it’s a gospel issue. We’ll look at it briefly today. But he goes to the scribe. He was eating with the Gentiles, Peter was, until these men from James came, but when they came, he drew back, and That word draw back, it’s kind of like a slow draw back.

It’s not like a yank back, running back. It’s like, what? I’m just gonna gradually move away from these kinds of fellowship opportunities, and slowly he just draws back and begins to separate himself. Why is it? What’s his motive?

Because he fears the circumcision party. He fears these guys from James, and they’re believers. And then the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw, I love this little phrase, that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel. You might underline that.

What a beautiful way of expressing this. I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel. I said to Cephas before them all, this is a public confrontation. It’s a, face-to-face confrontation, but it’s not in private. If you though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?

How can you add requirements to the gospel for the Gentiles to be fully included in the family of God? How can you do that? That’s the question that he brings to Peter. Now, Peter has not changed his doctrinal position. He has not written a new creed, but rather it is his conduct that is out of step with his confession, with the creed that he recognizes as the truth.

And so Paul sees this for what it is. It is a sin of hypocrisy. Peter believes and preaches that a person is included in God’s family through faith alone, in Christ alone, without having to adhere to Moses’ law at all. But Peter is denying with his conduct what he confesses with his mouth, and Paul says this is hypocrisy. So it is possible to depart from the gospel without changing your doctrinal beliefs?

Hypocrisy is the failure to live up to what one confesses. Now, in one sense, every sin is hypocrisy, since every sin is a denial of what we Christians believe. What we believe about God, what we believe about life, what we believe about truth, what we believe about ethics. But this sin, it’s a conscious decision that Peter’s making, and he’s making it for his entire stay at Antioch. And I don’t think that Peter’s even conscious that his conduct is a sin.

I think in his own heart, he in his own mind, he hasn’t had to deal with this conflict. This is actually a conduct that is not in step or contrary to the gospel itself, and that’s why God sent him, Paul to tell him this is so that Peter would deal with it in his own life. Many, if not most of our sins are unconscious to our minds. Let us not think that we sort of get a pass because we weren’t aware that it was a sin. We weren’t aware we were doing that.

We weren’t aware we were treating people this way. No, we don’t get a pass regarding our sin because we’re not aware of it. That’s why daily we open up the Word and say, Show me, Lord any secret sins. Show me sins that I’m not aware of, cause I’m assuming that there are, and I need you to reveal it through your Word. So open my eyes to see wonderful things from your law, to see, to see sinful aspects of my own life.

I pray, oh Father that your kingdom would come and that your will would be done on Earth as in Heaven that’s true in my life. And so Lord this is what I desire. Now the necessity of confrontation. So the gospel in danger of being distorted. So can you imagine being at the church picnic that Lord’s day?

Think about this for a moment. The church, I imagine the setting, we’re not told the exact setting, but I imagine it’s a setting of actually a meal because that’s one of the issues that is confronting Peter here. And the church has said, “Hey, let’s have a picnic after the worship service. They have this worship service. There’s some really great teaching.

There’s some singing, and then they take a little bit of break, and all the food gets set out, and people are sitting at their tables. And then before they eat, they sing a few more hymns together. It’s really good singing, really great praise music. There’s a man that gets up, one of the leaders of the church, gets up and he prays over the meal. He prays for the fellowship, and he says amen.

And he’s about ready to say, “Okay, everybody, go ahead and let’s eat, when he sees the Apostle Paul raise his hand. He says, “Yep. He says, “I have something to say. Before we eat, I have something to say. And as he gets up there, he takes the microphone.

Y’all may have noticed that Peter and some of our Jewish brothers are here from Jerusalem. And there’s a little applause ’cause he’s not even said anything yet. He just acknowledged them. There they are, Peter sitting right at the table, as he’s standing here. He’s saying this publicly.

There’s Peter and there’s some Jewish brothers, and they start applauding. “Yeah, we’re glad to have Peter here. Peter nods. He smiles. Everyone looks on.

Everything so far, so good. Well, Paul says, “let me get to my point. And he looks down at Peter. He says, ‘Peter you’re sitting over there with some Jewish believers, and I noticed you’re not sitting with any Gentile believers. And I noticed you haven’t been sitting with any Gentile believers for some times.’”

And you used to go to their houses for fellowship group, and you no longer go to the Gentile believers’ houses. I and I noticed this change came when the brothers here from James, arrived. Before, you used to have a lot more freedom, where you ate at these love feasts, where you’d go for small group. And when these brothers over here arrived, you stopped doing that. Do you feel a little tension in the room yet?

Can you imagine being at this picnic when the Apostle Paul is publicly saying this and Peter’s right there and the Jewish brothers are right there? Peter, I want you to know this is wrong. In fact, it’s the kind of wrong that damages gospel. It’s hypocrisy. In fact, I know that it’s wrong.

You stand condemned by your own testimony that you gave back when you ate with Cornelius. The Gentile brothers and sisters are the exact same spiritually as us Jews who’ve received Jesus as our Messiah. He’s the one Messiah. He’s the one Messiah for us all. Peter what you are doing is hypocritical.

Your conduct is not in step with the truth of the gospel. Gospel you believe, gospel you’re passionate about, gospel you preach. And if you, Peter though a Jew, live like a Gentile, you had your freedom and you’ve experienced freedom, and you don’t live like a Jew anymore under the Mosaic Law. How can you force Gentiles to be back underneath that bondage? Peter that a person is accepted as righteous by God, not by any works of the law that we do.

But all of us are accepted by God based on the gift of His Son, based upon what Jesus has done for us. We’re justified before the Lord through faith in the Messiah, who died on the cross for our sin, who rose again. And no one is justified by works of the law. Peter, I call you to repent of your sin. You’re influencing others.

Even Barnabas, and he points over to Barnabas, even Barnabas over here stopped eating with the Gentiles because of your and others’ example. Peter repent, and live out the truth of the gospel. And then Paul sets the microphone down. How do you feel? Feel like digging into your food?

You’re like, Oh, what just happened? I’ve been in a few church meetings over three years, and some are like that. “Oh, no, what just happened? But this is not just any church meeting or someone speaking critically. This is Paul speaking to Peter to his face publicly, saying he’s not living out the truth of the gospel.

Paul is reminding Peter out of love for Peter out of love for the gospel, out of love for the church, that Jesus alone brings complete inclusion into God’s family. It’s Jesus that makes us fit for our fellowship with God and with each other. It is never Jesus plus. It’s never Jesus plus circumcision, then you’re really in the in group. It’s never Jesus plus eating the right food.

It’s never Jesus plus celebrating the right holy days. It is never Jesus plus. And while we don’t have the same pluses that the people from James have, we often have pluses. There’s certain groups that we wanna be a part of and see as spiritual because they have Jesus plus. And whenever we do that our conduct is not keeping in step with the gospel.

Peter’s sermons were correct and in step with God’s message, but Peter’s life was crooked. That word out of step with the gospel is the word orthopedaio. We get the word orthopedics from it. And the idea is when your legs, feet, and everything you do to walk is crooked, then your, then your walk is crooked. And he says, “And this is how you’re living.”

You believe a straight line, but you’re walking in a way that’s not in alignment with what God says is vital to us, as His people. Why is the problem of hypocrisy so big that confrontation is necessary? ‘Cause we ask, “Well, is was this really necessary, Paul?” And the answer is yes, it absolutely is necessary. First reason for us to consider, hypocrisy distorts the gospel message itself.

And this is Paul’s main concern here. It’s what the, what the body of chapters three and four, the rest of chapter two is going to be about. That hypocrisy distorts the gospel message. That he’s saying, “Peter if you continue to live this way, eventually the message itself will be lost because your life is preaching louder than your words.” And again, the specific message of the gospel is that Jesus alone is necessary in order for us to be fully accepted by God, to be brought in His family, to be forgiven, to be made whole.

And Peter’s actions is teaching people that Jesus the Messiah in Himself is not sufficient to bring full inclusion. And the inference is that there must be Jesus plus some other commitment to the law in order to be in. Friends, I want you to think about this. What does it take for you to be in? Completely in, like safe in God’s arms, safe in God’s family, safe in full acceptance by the Lord.

There’s gonna be a day that, Jesus, He is the righteous judge, and we’re gonna stand before Him. He’s gonna judge the living and the dead. And if He asks the question, “Why should I let you into, my kingdom?” Really for us, the answer is, if we know the gospel, the answer is pretty simple. It’s one word.

It’s not a big, long explanation. There’s one word we say if we’re asked, “Why should I let you into this kingdom, God’s kingdom?” And the answer is Jesus. Say, “I don’t have anything else. It’s what He did for me.”

It’s His death on the cross, His resurrection, His promise, His offer of eternal life. It’s Jesus. That’It’s not Jesus plus something I did. It’s Jesus. And if you can’t answer that with a simple word, it’s because Jesus, He’s mine now because I trust Him.

He’s offered Himself to me, and He’s mine now. It’s Jesus. Here’s the reason. It’s Jesus. If you can’t answer it with Jesus and Jesus alone, then you’re, then you’re standing on a foundation that’s gonna crack open before you because the thing that’s plus is the thing that ruins Jesus alone.

It ruins our trust in Him. It’s really resting upon a foundation that includes something of us, something of what we do, and that’s not the gospel at all. The gospel is Jesus alone is the one who brings salvation. So hypocrisy, it undermines the message of the gospel. The second reason hypocrisy undermines the practical Christian living in the church.

So chapters three and four, the Apostle Paul is gonna talk about correct doctrine, but really chapters five and six, he’s gonna talk about correct practice, because practice is just as important as doctrine. The two can’t be divorced from each other. The righteous standards that the gospel presses into our lives are diminished when the church shrugs its shoulders at hypocrisy. More people advance the gospel through their conduct than through their confession. I believe that.

Now, confession is important. It’s very important to use words when we share the gospel and share the light of Christ with others. But it’s our life that is consistent with the message that brings a power to the message that we can bring as instruments of God. Failing to keep our life in step with the truth of the gospel is the easiest stumble we can make. And so, it’s right for us to examine ourselves daily and say, “Lord teach me, because if it can happen to the Apostle Peter if it can happen to what I think are genuine believers from Jerusalem, it can happen to even Barnabas, then it can happen to me.”

And so, we’re right to say, “Lord is there any area of my life where hypocrisy has seeped in and is undermining the whole of the practical living for Your glory?” The third reason, hypocrisy is motivated then by fleshly desires and not by love for God. So Paul calls out Peter on his motivation. He says, “You feared these people of the circumcision party.” So, Peter’s fleshly desire was to be approved by other people, and in one sense, we can’t avoid a desire to be approved by other people.

We can just avoid being ruled by it. Peter already experienced this fear of man as being a snare, you remember in the Garden of Gethsemane after Jesus was arrested. And, he feared what would people think, what would people do to me? They just took away Jesus to arrest him, and so he denied the Lord three times because he feared people and what people could do to him. He had already experienced that and he came through it and now he’d received the Holy Spirit.

He was so bold as to preach in front of, everyone in Jerusalem, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. He was so bold that when he was threatened by the Jewish leaders, he says, “I’ve gotta obey God rather than man. I can’t fear you guys anymore.” He was so bold when he was imprisoned, and when he was threatened with death, he still just kept marching through. And so this is not some, cowardly guy.

This is a guy who showed himself. He learned a lesson about the fear of man. He became bold, so bold that there’s hardly anyone as bold as Peter was in the Book of Acts. And yet here we are again, we find another round where Peter is succumbing to the fear of man, for the approval of man. Does that tell anything about us?

So it tells something about Peter but does it tell anything about us? This is something that it’s like a snare. The fear of man is a snare. It’s like it’s just a trap waiting, and we can be so bold one moment, and be free of the fear of man, and in the next moment just crumble underneath it. And Peter found himself in a position in Antioch that he didn’t expect to be in, but it snared him.

It snapped at him, and he got bit. And so it’s really important for us to examine our own lives and have friends around us and be a kind of fellowship that protects each other, that encourages each other, that even corrects each other like the, like the Apostle Paul did here to Peter because none of us get past the temptation for the desire of acceptance, desire especially of acceptance by people that we esteem, by people we consider important. And this is a temptation that’ll chase us all the way to our dying breath. So I thought to myself, what are some day issues that bring similar fear of man temptation to Christians in our day? And here are a few I’ve considered.

We’re tempted to affirm other people’s salvation even when we know that they’re not believing in Jesus alone for salvation. Have you ever experienced that? We want their approval because they’ve given us some kind of testimony of, an affirmation of God, but not the kind of testimony that we know is necessary in order to receive the gospel. And so, “Oh, you’re fine then.” If we cared for their soul, we’d say, “I know I might offend you but I gotta press deeper.”

And if they are genuinely born again, then the life of God will actually appreciate that. If they’re not born again, they’re gonna get really mad at you but it’s worth the risk. So when we approach those folks, are we seeking the approval of man or the fear and the love of God? We’re tempted to turn a blind eye to professing brothers and sisters in sexual sins. It’s very common in this age.

Whether brothers and sisters are living together prior to marriage, engaging in homosexual relationships, confused about gender, or are casual in their dating relationships. It’s like, I don’t wanna say anything. We’re at church, right? We’re tempted to counsel or to affirm unbiblical divorce when a brother or sister is in pain in his or her marriage. We’re tempted to affirm biblical community codes of conduct as essential to full inclusion.

Well, that’s the way they roll? So they’re biblical, but it’s important to them. We’re tempted to hold onto bitterness for the wrongs we’ve suffered, and especially if they’re wrongs that we’ve suffered with other people, and we hear other people’s bitterness, and we have bitterness, and we don’t, we don’t wanna rock the boats by saying, “Hey, what, brothers, sisters, we need to forgive that one who hurt us so deeply.” We just need to forgive them. We are tempted to listen in silence to brothers and sisters as they make racist or antisemitic statements.

Our silence in this situation is affirmation. It’s a denial of the gospel. We’re tempted to listen to gospel and gossip and slander about other brothers and sisters, and then even nod in silence, even if we don’t agree or if we don’t like it. We don’t wanna say anything to say, “what!? That’s gossip. It’s slander. It’s harmful to the glory of God and His community.”

Let me tell you a little story. When I was in fifth grade, and it still comes back to me ’cause it haunts me. It still touches my heart in my own failure as a grade boy. So there were a couple girls in our, in our class that came from really poor homes, two different poor homes, but they weren’t related to each other, but they were very poor. And I don’t know, the, I it’s the kind of poverty that their hair was often matted ’cause they didn’t have a bath. They had a certain kind of smell to them. It was difficult. Their clothes were tattered.

What they brought in their sack lunches was just oh man, just like a mustard sandwich, for instance, for their sack lunch. And so you can imagine that these two girls were not very well accepted by the other girls in the class. And, some of the boys in the class, they said, “Oh, don’t get near those girls. They have cooties.” It was those two in particular.

And so, I didn’t participate in the cruelty. I thought, “That’s bad.” I also wish I would’ve stood up in greater defense of these girls. And one day we went out for a break. You get five minutes to get to the drinking fountain.

You get in line, and one of these girls was just in front of me, and she walked through the door, and then I was walking by, and then one boy, who I cared about what he thought of me, says, “Oh, you’don’t the first one through the door gets all the cooties on them.” And I stopped. The teacher was on the other side of the door, and he saw all this. He likely saw the pain on the girl’s face when she heard that again, as she probably heard it every day from somebody. And he looked at me, and I remember he wasn’t a believer, at least he gave me no it impression that he was a genuine believer.

But he looked at me, and he says, “Ritch. You see, all these boys were stopped, but he looked at me and he says, “Ritch, I thought you are a Christian. Why did he do that?” Because he knew enough of the gospel to know that the conduct of this one boy in his class did not match what this one boy professed, and he was right. He was absolutely right, and God used that in my life, and I still think about it to this day to say, “Lord protect me from wanting to be approved by people more than being approved by you.”

Because the fear of man is a snare. I didn’t expect the snare. I was just out for a drink. It came upon me suddenly. I didn’t have much time to think. I reacted, though, in a way that says I care about what these other boys think than what this than what God thinks about how I would love this girl that was in front of me, and I think it happens all the time. Hypocrisy brings division also to the church. If this problem is not resolved, the church of Jesus is gonna fracture, and it’s gonna be destroyed, and whatever happens in Antioch is gonna happen everywhere. And the message of the gospel, it’s so unifying. The gospel tells us there’s one Savior.

It’s Jesus Messiah. There’s one way to God’s salvation. It’s faith in Jesus alone. There’s one message that the gospel brings to us that brings salvation. It’s a message about what God has done for us and not what we do for God.

The gospel tells us of one church, one people, a people called out by God for His own pleasure, a holy temple made up of Jews and Gentiles alike who are united by the Spirit, and by refusing to eat with Gentile brothers and sisters, Peter is twisting this gospel. He’s denying the sufficiency of Jesus’ death, and he’s dividing the church into two classes. Some people say doctrine divides, love unites. I just have to tell you that is not Paul’s motto. Paul promotes love.

He says, “If we don’t have love, we’re like a clanging gong and a noisy cymbal.” But the Apostle Paul knows that it is the truth of the gospel that unites. It is error that divides in the church. And I know we live in an age in which the church has grown so soft where we say we don’t wanna talk about error and doctrinal error, and all that does is make the church weaker and weaker and weaker and divides the church more and more and more. It is a people who are passionate for the truth of the gospel that brings about a unity in the body of Christ that allows us to be a light in our community.

Amen. Amen. The grace of repentance, a correction that glorifies God. We’re not really told of Peter’s response. We don’t know if Peter left that church picnic in a huff or if he wept in repentance right near, right there.

I do believe that in the end, Peter repented, and he repented significantly. Why do I think Peter repents? Well, I think the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 happens after this event in Antioch, and there we see Paul and Peter in-hand proclaim the gospel over this specific issue. Secondly, Peter condemns hypocrisy in the first letter that he writes. 1 Peter 2, he says, “So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy.”

Now, if you are called out publicly by the Apostle Paul with the word hypocrisy attached to this confrontation, do you think you’re gonna remember that word? Every time you use it you’re gonna remember that moment. That’s how terrible that sin is. You think Peter as he’s writing this to brother and sisters who need to hear the gospel and how it’s applied to life, he says, “So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy,” and he writes that. I think he can’t help but this that this is how the sin attacked me.

It’s gonna attack the church, so let’s put it away. I don’t think Peter could have written that word if he hadn’t have repented of hypocrisy. Third, maybe most important, Peter honors Paul in his second letter. It’s the last letter Peter’s gonna write in his life. It’s before shortly before he dies, and he talks about our beloved brother Paul and he describes Paul’s writings as equal to Scripture, as being Scripture, but he calls him our beloved brother Paul.

That wouldn’t have happened if Peter hadn’t repented. And fourth, and perhaps most significant, Peter has shown himself all through his life to be a wise man. Yes, a wise man who’s acted foolishly all through the Gospels and then here but he’s a wise man. He gets back to faith. He gets back to the truth.

And Proverbs 9 says this: “Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and whoever reproves a wicked man incurs injury.” So do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you. But then he says this: “Reprove a wise man, and he will love you.” And I think I know that Peter came to love the Apostle Paul. He listened to the reproof that Paul rightly gave him.

He recognized that it was restorative to himself. It was, invigorating, to the church. It was necessary for the gospel. Wendell Phillips said in an slavery meeting over 100 years ago, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. “This whole book is about liberty.

It’s about our freedom in Christ that comes from the gospel. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. If we’re gonna be free, we have to be awake to the attacks on the very thing that would rob freedom, liberty from us. The apostle Paul writes in Galatians 5:1, “For freedom Christ has set us free. So stand firm therefore. Be vigilant, watchful. Do not submit again to yoke of slavery.” Peter later would write, “Be minded, be watchful, be vigilant, for the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.” Do that you’re accepted fully by God? If you do, the answer to why you are accepted.

It’s because of Jesus. If you say, “I’m not sure that I’m fully accepted by God today,” then I want you to know that Jesus Christ has come into the world to be your savior, and the answer for the great problem of sin as you stand before God as the righteous judge has nothing to do with you and nothing to do with your moral amendments or the moral corrections or moral improvements that you make in your life. It has everything to do with Jesus and your relationship with Him. Call out to Him in faith, and He will bring you life too. Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, thank you for the grace that we find in Jesus Christ. Thank you for, the gospel confrontation that Paul gives here in this letter to Peter but also to us. Lord keep us from the sin of hypocrisy wherever it might be hidden in our hearts, Lord. Keep us from loving the approval of men more than your approval. Lord, I pray that you would strengthen our faith together so that we’d be a community who walks together by faith, who lives for your glory, and who loves you with all of our heart, and who proclaims Jesus as Savior, as Lord as King, and so Father, I pray that you do all this in us and for us for your name’s sake.

Amen.