And we'll read the entirety of this passage from 11 out to the end of the chapter, and then we'll pray and start the lesson. It says, But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before the serpent came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles. But when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him, insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compelst thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? We who are Jews by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law. For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves are found sinners, Is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid! For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God. For if righteousness come by the wall, then Christ is dead in vain. Father, I pray that you'll add your blessing to the reading of your word and help us now as we look at these things. Might we be enriched and instructed in these things. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, we always seek the context of our scriptures. The lesson today has, it involves two dynamics. First, we have the confrontation, a tense confrontation between two good men, and that's Paul and Peter, both of them apostles. And then there's the doctrinal issue at the heart of the matter. Now, as hard as it might be to believe, there are times I'm sure it's never happened to you, but it does happen. I'm being facetious. A little chuckle would have been in place right about there. But seriously, it does happen, and probably most of you have had occasion to encounter another believer who has the audacity to have an opinion that differs from yours. And Paul had been through something like that before, though not over anything doctrinal. You remember that after the first missionary journey, when John Mark had set out with them to go with Paul and Barnabas, And he just got, we don't know what happened, but he just left. He just made one little part of the trip and said, I'm going home, I'm out of here. And well, when the second trip was about to begin, Martin just said, hey, let's take John Martin. And Paul says, no, he left us on the last trip. He's unreliable. I'm reading between the lines. But he can't be trusted. There's no sense bringing him along. It'd be a waste of time. And Barnabas said, well, I think we ought to take him. I think he's done. He's improved himself. And Paul said, no, we're not going to do it. And it says the contention between them was so sharp that they broke up perhaps the greatest missionary team ever assembled. Paul and Barnabas went. their separate ways, and so that was a disagreement. It was not of anything doctrinal. It was simply a matter of judgment. It was, I mean, both parties thought that their opinions were correct, and we don't know in Really, there is no right and wrong. Paul just had his idea, and Martin just had his, and they could not come to agreement. And by the way, when something like that comes up in your life, how do you respond? I'm going to take my ball and go home. And a lot of times we act just about like that. We think we're going to look weak if we give in to the other person's desire. We stiffen our backs and we get hard feelings. And there's a conflict over something that doesn't amount to a hill of beans, as my dad was fond of saying. And not every issue is worth fighting over. However, the disagreement with Peter was different in nature because Peter was clearly in the wrong and it fell to Paul to confront him about it. Have you ever been in that situation where you knew you had to bring something to a head and it's the last thing that you really want to do. I've run into that, especially in my pastoral ministry in the past, when I had to confront somebody about an error in their way, and I'll tell you very definitely, I did not relish doing that. I did not enjoy it one bit, and yet it had to be done. I think maybe there's some people that enjoy a good fight. I don't. I'd rather shake hands and get along than confront someone, but sometimes it has to be done. Now, Paul was probably more bold and more feisty than I am, and he certainly wasn't afraid to take the bull by the horns. But I have to believe that when he confronted Peter that I think he probably had a little bit of reluctance. And we're not privy to his feelings about the thing. But I think that probably he just sort of didn't feel good about doing this. But Peter was wrong. And Paul did the right thing in raising the issue with Peter. As we're going to see, the issue involves Peter's discrimination against the Gentiles. It's quite clear in the New Testament that Peter's primary ministry was evangelizing the Jews. while Paul was sent primarily to the Gentiles. However, that in no way means that Peter ignored the Gentiles and Paul ignored the Jews. That's not so. Paul's habitual procedure when he went into a new city was to spend several weeks in synagogue reasoning with the Jews. As for Peter, he was involved in several things in which God revealed that the gospel was not just for the Jews, but it was for everyone. You remember the very definitive event. He received a vision on the rooftop while he was in a job up, and he saw the sheep. It was like a sheep let down from heaven down to earth. He saw all kinds of unclean, By the Jewish law standards, he saw those unclean animals there, and the voice said, rise, Peter, kill and eat. And he said, oh no, I have never eaten anything that's unclean. And God said, and we know that, I'm pretty sure it was God speaking, I have cleansed, call not thou unclean. In fact, I've got that verse here in Acts 10-15. What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. And that led, and Peter, when he woke, you know, sort of came out of the trance, And he said, OK, I'm back to the reality here. I wonder what that means. I wonder what that was all about. And then the Holy Spirit spoke to him and said, those three men knocking at the door of his house. and they seek thee. And it was three Gentiles from Cornelius, from the house of Cornelius. And so Peter understood that the purpose of that vision was to show him that the Gentiles, that the things were changing, and the Gentiles were going to be recipients of the gospel. And so that led to Peter preaching to Cornelius and his household, and Peter told Cornelius, he said unto them, ye know how, that it is no lawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation, but God hath showed me. that I should not call any man common or unclean." So he got it right. Peter says, I realize now that the Gentiles can be saved just like Jews can be saved, and God is not a respecter of persons, which was a message that he preached. You may remember that. And that's the backdrop for this incident that Paul relates here in the book of So, now we want to search the text. Our first point is the racism. The racism. And that's in verses 11 through 13. In verse 11, it says, But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. In other words, I confronted Peter with the error of his ways, which he'll explain in just a second. That doesn't necessarily mean in your face. It doesn't mean like you got this close to Peter and said, now, Peter, you, you're a lousy excuse for a human being, and you're supposed to be a preacher, and you know these things. the whole thing went down. But he withstood him. He confronted him face to face. He didn't send a third party to do it. He didn't say, well, this might be uncomfortable for me. You know, me and Peter are supposed to speak to apostles, and I may be out there to send a roundabout message. I'll send him a letter or something. Now, he was stood in to the face. And the reason was, is that's because he was to be blamed. Peter, in his ministry, we know that he had a lot of incidents where he stuck his foot in his mouth, so to speak. And this was a biggie. This was one that Paul felt like he needed to be called out on it. And so he did. In verse 12, it says, for before that serpent came from James, in other words, before this visit from the folks from Jerusalem, he did eat with the Gentiles. So Peter, sometime after the Council of Jerusalem, Peter went to visit the church at Antioch. everything was good at first Peter was enjoying fellowship with these Gentile believers but then some other Jewish visitors came from Jerusalem apparently they were friends with James and Peter suddenly changed his his behavior, he shunned those same ones with whom he had just been associated. It says, when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. Now, Peter's change of actions, and I'm not much of one to judge, of course, when it comes to this, but it really shows a weakness of character. In the culture of those days, to eat at the same table with someone indicated personal friendship and accepting that person as an equal. And obviously, Peter believed that it was acceptable before God to have fellowship with the Gentiles. And that's the way that it should be. He feared being ostracized if he were observed by these Jerusalem Jews eating with the Gentiles. He was afraid of what rumors might get started about him. He was more concerned with appearances than in affirming what he knew to be right in the sight of God. What Peter did really was just downright hypocrisy. It says that he dissembled. It uses the word dissembled. And then in, well, verse 13, I guess is, we need to read that. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him. Insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. That word dissemble and the word dissimulation both come from this Greek word. Now, you don't have to be a Greek scholar to figure that one out, do you? That's where we get the word hypocrisy, hypocrisis. And it even sounds the same. Now, Peter may not have been a racist in his heart. And we've already reviewed his experience with division and how that was revealed to him. But he was certainly a racist in practice. What he did was very, very telling. And the most devastating fallout from Peter's hypocritical behavior was that he led others astray along with him, even Barnabas. I mean, Barnabas was a stalwart believer, but he was influenced by Peter's actions. Peter was a leader among the apostles. Look back at verse 9 here in the text. It says, and when James, Cephas, who's Peter, and John, who seemed to be pillars He's talking about the group of the apostles, and Peter, James, and John were the pillars of that group. So Peter was mentioned as a leader among these apostles, and it stood to reason that others would be swayed by Peter's unfortunate choices. And there's a lesson here for us today. There are no doubt other Christians that you look up to. you believers that you admire. You may use them even as examples for your own life. And you see them, you know, in a practice, a habitual practice that's good. I'm going to do that myself. And that's all well and good. It's good to have folks that we look up to. But remember this, while you are looking up to someone, Someone else is looking up to you. You probably don't know who they are, but they're out there. They're observing your life and your behavior and saying, well, if something's okay for them, then it must be okay for me. I've used this phrase for many years. You are the best Christian that somebody knows. In other words, somebody measures Christianity by what they see in you. And that thought sometimes haunts me because I don't know who's looking up to me. I don't know who might quietly be observing my life and saying, well, I guess that's what being a Christian is all about. So never discount influence of your testimony. It can be a good thing, it can also be a negative thing as well, but you do have influence and I believe God calls upon us to live the light that we have in life. Now getting back to the story at hand, Barnabas Like I said, he was one of the notable men who was carried away in his hypocritical behavior. He was a leader at the church in Antioch. Now this was, in my opinion, this was a pivotal moment in Christianity. Would prejudice be allowed to establish itself among the churches? And I think that Paul sensed the urgency of that particular crossroads. and he determined he had to do something. Now before we judge Peter too harshly, we need to take a long look at our own hearts. Our prejudices may, like Peter's, be racial in nature, but there are other forms of prejudice as well. judge people based on social standing, their economic status, the way they dress, the way they comb their hair, perhaps. And, you know, Jesus used an illustration. He said, if somebody comes into your feast and they've got on the nice clothes, and you've got somebody who's dressed in poor man's clothes, and you tell the one dressed nicely, you come up here and sit in the front, and you'd be a part of things, and you tell the one who's not dressed so well, and sit there, sit under my footstool. It's easier to be impartial in theory than it is to really practice impartiality. And if you're like me, that's sort of an ongoing struggle, how we judge other people. And Peter himself, as I already said, he said, of the truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons. And of course, he was using that in the sense of Jews versus Gentiles. We could use it rich versus poor, educated versus uneducated. There's always judgments to be made, and we need to make sure that we judge wisely. So that was the racism there. Secondly, we notice the rebuke in verses 14 through 16. Verse 14. But when I saw that they, meaning Peter and the other Jews there that were practicing, that had separated themselves from the Gentile believers because of who was in their midst, when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, gospel truth, the gospel is for everyone, that's the truth. part of the truth of the gospel. It's not just for the Jews, it was for the Gentiles as well. The Jews had what advantage? Paul asked the question, what advantage has the Jew? If we're all spiritual Jews by virtue of our faith in Christ, what advantage has the natural Jew? Well, he said that unto the Jews was committed the oracles of God. It doesn't mean it was committed to them to hold and clutch to themselves and say, we've got the truth and we've got our way, nobody else is going to get it. No, it was given to them so that they might be a witness among the nations. The word nations in the Bible generally meant the Gentiles. And so that's why they were given the gospel. That's the truth of the gospel. And he said, I saw they were not walking uprightly, according to the truth of the gospel, back in verse 14. I said unto Peter, before them all, if thou being a Jew, liveth after the manner of the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews. Why do you compel the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? Well, that's a great question. If Peter could live in the manner of Gentiles, then why, by his actions, would he suggest or compel the Gentiles to live like Jews? I mean, it's Paul had him right there. And Peter was probably standing up, well, I don't know. Verse 15, we who are Jews by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles. And that's a clause. He's going to continue the sentence. But let's stop there and just look at what he says. He says, we're Jews by nature. In other words, we were born Jews. We've got, you know, that legacy, that credential, that birthright. We're Jews by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles. And Paul is employing a little bit of sarcasm here. He's making the point that the typical Jewish opinion was that Jews were better than Gentiles. that there was some intrinsic thing about Jews that made them better than Gentiles. And he said, that's wrong. That's wrong. But he said, he's using that to make a point. He says, we that are Jews by nature are not sinners of the Gentiles. That's what they call the Gentiles. They call them sinners, as if The Jews weren't sinners as well, but he's using the terminology that they were used to. Verse 16 now. By the way, the Gentile believers at Antioch couldn't have helped but notice that their friend Peter from Jerusalem had suddenly started avoiding them when these other Jews showed up. You realize how hurtful it must have been for them. And I believe we need to consider the feelings of others. Now, we don't base our salvation on feelings. We don't base spiritual things on feelings. But, this was a very hurtful thing that Peter had done. and it bleeded over to others, other Jews that were there in Antioch. And they noticed that. You have to believe that they noticed that. So in verse 16, he says, that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law. We all know this last phrase, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Paul hammers home His main point, and that is that justification is by faith in Christ, not the works of the law. So therefore, he's making this point that there is no compelling reason for believing Gentiles to force themselves and be forced by others to adhere to the practices of the Jewish law. And that's exactly what Peter was telling them by his actions. Maybe not his words, but by his actions. Now before we move on, let's look at Peter's reaction to Paul's review. Oh wait, it doesn't tell us. You know, we're like listening to Paul Harvey. We want to hear the rest of the story. I can't imitate his voice, but you probably remember Paul Harvey saying that. Well, we're not privy to the rest of the story. I would like to think that Peter responded by repenting of his hypocrisy and apologizing to his Gentile believer friends. I'm just speculating. I hope that that's what happened. Now we do know, however, later in Peter's writings, if you look at 2 Peter 3 verses 15-16, not now, but Peter refers to Paul as a beloved brother. So we know that Peter didn't go to his grave with a grudge against Paul, and he referred to him as a brother. So I like to think that Peter accepted Paul's rebuke, either immediately or after consideration, that he acknowledged the truth of Paul's rebuke and probably sent him a text message to tell him that he was right. All right, now we go to the third point, and that's the reasoning, the reasoning. Verse 17, he says, but if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, Christ, the minister of sin, God forbid. Now, this is sort of a difficult verse to understand, and it's been interpreted several ways. I read six or seven different commentaries, and I got six or seven different takes on what they call it, man. Here's my take. It says, but if, now Paul is setting up a hypothetical situation. He's not saying this happened, but he says, but if, if while we seek to be justified by Christ, now don't get carried away with that word seek. It doesn't mean that he was attempting and he was searching. The word seek there means to go about. So if we, as believers, we buy into this justification by Christ. Well, we seek to be justified by Christ. If we do that, it says, while we're doing that, we ourselves are found sinners. Now, in the previous verse, Paul noted that trying to observe the works of the law was completely insufficient to be justified. You can't do it. You can't be good enough. You cannot keep the law. You can't start now and keep the law. And if you could, that would make up for the transgressions of the law that came before. So now he anticipates this argument that no doubt some would make. If we are justified simply by faith in Christ, well then that gives us a license to sin. We don't have to obey law. No matter what you do, we're going to be under the grace of God. Sin all you want to. And in that case, Christ would be a minister of sin. That would suggest that Christ would overlook sin. And he denies that emphatically and says, God forbid. That's a very strong phrase when it's used in the Bible. We sometimes use that in a lesser importance, signs of lesser importance. But when somebody said God forbid in the Bible, it was a very fervent expression. Verse 18, for if, Or, if I, he says. And I'm going to stop right there. This discourse is actually directed toward those who were doing the very things he was criticizing. Those that were being hypocritical. But, you know, Paul could be tactful. Read the book of Philemon. You talk about a tactful approach to things. Philemon is definitely tactful. Paul can be tactful, and he uses himself to illustrate his point rather than pointing a finger at those who actually were doing the wrong thing. But he says, for if I build again the things which I destroy, Specifically, the binding obligation of the Mosaic Law, that had been done away in Christ. If I build again the things which I destroyed, he said, I make myself a transgressor, or I show myself. to be a transgressor. If you try to live by the law, and if you try to live by the law in order to appease God and to do right with God, he says, well then, you must measure up to the entirety of the law. And that's impossible. The fact of your transgression will be obvious. Somebody says, well, you know, I talk to people all the time. I've got a witness to them. And, you know, are you saved? Are you a Christian? Well, yeah, I believe I'm saved. And, well, you know, why do you think that? Well, I try to do the best I can. I try to keep the Ten Commandments. My smart, healthy self wants to say, name the Ten Commands. Most of them can't do it. But that's what people are trying to do. And it's obvious to anybody that's observing, they're not keeping the whole law. And so if you try, to make yourself acceptable to God by keeping the law, well then you've got to measure up to every single thing that the law contains. And there's no leeway. There's no mercy. Verse 19, For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live under God. Now the law, we're told, is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. We look in the mirror of the perfect law and we discover, I can't do this. It's impossible for me to live up to the standards of the law. And so, when I came face-to-face with that realization in my life, I acknowledged my sin and turned to Christ as the payment for sin. And in so doing, we become dead to the law. We are no longer in bondage to its impossible demands. You say, what does that mean? I'm just free to do whatever I want to do? Well, no, it says that I might live unto God. Instead of attempting to live unto the law by obligation, we live unto God by love. Now, we do our best to live by the teachings, the moral teachings of the law. The law is good. The law is holy. And it's certainly a guide for our behavior, but we are not obligated to the law, certainly not the ceremonial portion of the law. We are not obligated to those things because Christ has come, fulfilled the law, and we have become dead to the law through Christ. Verse 20. Great verse, you know this verse. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Now often we pull this verse out and use it by itself out of its context, and that doesn't do harm. It can stand alone very, very well. But it's even richer in meaning in its own setting. How do we live under God? It says, it says in verse 19. Well, he says, I live, the life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, through faith. And when it says the faith of the Son of God, faith is a gift from God. He said, well, how can you say, well, I came to Christ and I believe, and that's true. But you were given that faith and it enabled you to believe. Jesus said in John 6, no man can come to me. except that we're given to Him by my Father. So we don't come to Christ of our own ability, but our faith is a gift of God. And if we are, I mean, through faith, and only through faith we can please God. We know that. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. Now, if we're depending on our works, if we're depending on the keeping of the law for our righteousness, then God judges us by the exacting terms of the law, at which we fail miserably. And there's no mercy in the law. There's no grace to be found in the keeping of the law. But when we live by faith, that faith is impossible to please God, then we live in grace, we live in mercy, in sanctification, and through faith, God is pleased. He knows we're not perfect. But we are perfect, judicially, because the righteousness of Christ, the perfect righteousness of Christ, has been imputed and accredited to us. And so, I'm crucified with Christ. And nevertheless, I live. And the life that I live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Now, verse 21. I do not frustrate the grace of God. The word frustrate there has to do with counting grace of lesser esteem than it deserves to despise, to bring to nothing, to neutralize. And the meaning becomes clear with the next clause. I do not frustrate the grace of God for, If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. Now, take note of that word, come. Normally, we would say, if righteousness comes by the law. Now, I don't know about the Greek, and I'm not a Greek scholar. But in the English, when it says, if righteousness come by the law, that is a use of the subjunctive mood. And subjunctive generally indicates a statement contrary to fact. Here's one example. If I were you. Now, I'm not you. I'm never going to be you. And so why am I saying that? Well, I'm using a statement contrary to fact. We don't say, if I was you. We say, if I were you. That's subjunctive, a statement contrary to fact. So Paul is stating something that is contrary to fact. If righteousness come by the law, but righteousness does not come by the law, if it did, well then, here's the horrible outcome of that. Christ is dead in vain. Can you imagine God failing so miserably as to send his only begotten son to die on the cross and it be for nothing in vain. If righteousness comes by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. You can't mix law and grace. Romans 11, 5. And if by grace it is no more works, otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it's no more grace. Otherwise work is no more work. It's like oil and water. They don't mix. Our works are far from enough. Salvation comes by faith in Christ, and we need to act that out. Now, we may not come into a situation, we may never face a situation where we're called upon to to fellowship with those of another ethnicity. We're all Gentiles anyway. But that may not be what we face. But we do face times in life when prejudices tend to rise to the surface. We need to combat that and remember that the grace of God has appeared to all men, teaching us about salvation. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this passage of scripture. And I pray, Lord, that you would help us to digest this and put it into practice in our lives. Blessing the service to follow, we pray to bless our choir as they present the beautiful cantata. And Lord, might our hearts be moved and touched. And might we be reminded of your incarnation, how you came to earth to be a substitute for sinners. Bless that we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. And would you like some water?