This is the Truth Network. Forever thy word is settled in heaven. Psalm 119, verse 89. I'm Stu Everson. Welcome to this special Wednesday in the Word Leader podcast, where we prepare and equip our leaders of this special Bible study outreach breakfast every week to teach through the scriptures.
13 Dario locations. There's a men's group meeting, and several of the Locations host the women on Thursday morning. Stay tuned. Be encouraged as we jump into this week's Wednesday in the Word. Surely you've heard it said.
I'm not. going to church. The church is full of Hypocrites. Of course the best response to that, Dr. Lorne, is, well...
Come on, you'll fit right in.
Well, what if you find out? that the guy at the top of the food chain, one of the original apostles, An anchor in the early church himself. was a hypocrite. And not only that, but he got called out on it by Paul. And that's where we are this week because there had to be a freedom fighter to make a public rebuke.
Of St. Peter, Dr. Horne, and it ain't pretty, is it? No, actually, this is a pretty incredible passage of scripture, and there's a lot going on here.
So let's just jump right in. Let me give a little overview just so our Bible study leaders can grasp it and can capture it. We said last time as we thought about the book of Galatians, this is the Magna Carta. Of Christian freedom, and that freedom is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that's why in chapter one, Paul is so determined.
That he is going to fight tooth and nail anybody who is going to try to undo the freedom that God has given to us. From the law, from our sin, through the gospel of his Son Jesus Christ. And so, in the first two chapters, there is this. incredible personal Detail of Paul's life because he's establishing his right to be the original freedom fighter.
So you don't just get to come in and fight for the gospel because you want to. Paul has been appointed to this. He's an authorized Deputized, if you will, ambassador, and he's been given the authority to extend forgiveness of sins to anybody who will obey the gospel. In other words, he can make that promise. I'm here to offer, I'm authorized to tell you that if you believe this gospel, God will forgive your sins.
And somebody has come in. and said, well, actually, That's great, but in order to really be fully in, you need Moses. And Paul has gone to bat. I mean, he has come off the bench and he has come on the field and he's stopped the play and he's basically put the game on hold and he's saying absolutely not. That is going to undo everything that I came here and the Lord sent me here to deliver to you in the gospel.
So, chapters one and two are Paul's. The establishing of Paul as the defender of this gospel. Chapters three and four are the doctrinal implications. of the gospel in terms of its freeing you from the law. and what happens to you if you go back to that law.
And then chapters five and six are going to show the impact of that in your daily life. If you go back to the law, then here's what's going to come out of your life. The works of the flesh are these. But if you stay under the gospel and you defend it with your very being and you embrace it with all of your soul, what's going to come out of you is a fruit that the Spirit grows. And so that's really the book in a nutshell.
Where we're at in the book right now. is Paul has in chapter 2 made a really clear defense of his authority independently as an apostle. And he set us up for a big confrontation that's coming in verses 11 all the way through verse 21. And that confrontation is when the Apostle Peter. Came to where Paul was in Galatia to check out the wonderful work that the Spirit had been doing in the lives of these churches and the lives of these people.
He rejoiced. He and Barnabas and Paul were there with these Gentiles, and Peter was fully engaged in body life with them. He was doing life as the apostle to the Jews with the Gentiles, and it was a beautiful thing until. A group of Jews, these Judaizers, showed up. And they weren't about to eat what the Gentiles were eating.
They weren't about to concede for a minute. That Paul's Gentile converts didn't need to be circumcised. In other words, they were determined as they explored and examined the fruit of the gospel that there was something major lacking, and they were there to make sure it happened, and that was Moses. You've got to bring these people under Moses. And Peter did an astonishing thing out of fear.
He left the table where he had been fellowshipping with the Gentiles to sit at the table. With these Judaizers who would come.
Now, we tend to think of that as mealtime. But that's really not what was going on. This was... Paul's way of saying Peter changed. Peter changed his posture.
Peter changed his approach. Peter reneged on his full embracing. And he started to give credence to these Judaizers because here is this apostle who saw Jesus, who was. One of the three main voices. And all of a sudden, he's giving credence or appears to be giving credence to what these Judaizers have come to say.
And even Barnabas. is starting to wonder. And that's when Paul steps in and rebukes him to his face. And it's pretty intense. It's an open public confrontation.
Of course, you know, 1 Timothy 5, Paul tells Timothy, hey, don't ever bring an accusation against an elder without being present with everybody. Because this is a public sin. This is a public confrontation. It's right in line with Galatians 6:1. Later, he'll tell us how to do that.
And he does that. He's consistent in step with his own teaching. Jerusalem Council. A little preview of that is in the first 10 verses. Whether that was a little bit before or during, we know it's happened by now.
We know that Peter was with James and John offering the right hand of fellowship to Paul. He says, this gospel, hey, they validated it. And he didn't need their validation, but they praised him. And it was very positive. They shut the Judaizers down right there in the first part of this chapter, chapter 2, 1 through 10.
We studied that last time. Dr. Horn, you're thinking smooth riding now. We're going to smooth sailing. We've got this worked out, but not so fast.
That same guy that gave the right-handed fellowship, the Apostle Peter, is now reneging on that and has to be confronted. And it takes us into some of the richest. Text in scripture on justification. Justification by faith. We see that word for the first time, by the way, in Galatians.
And we see it a lot of times in here. And we are in a coffee shop.
So if you hear some ambient noise, if you hear some grinding of beans, our favorite place to be, right, Dr. Horace? Coyote Coffee in Powdersville, one of the fastest-growing communities in South Carolina right now. And our church, Palmetto Baptist Church, is literally three minutes from here.
So this is our backyard. And I love coming here. I pray for the people. This is a great place to just read my Bible and pray for our church, pray for the communities around it. And this gospel we're talking about.
Is the same gospel that Paul was defending almost 2,000 years ago in Galatia?
Well, and I was preparing for this podcast, driving in, and listening to you on the radio talking about this same subject from Romans 3, which is very parallel to Galatians. They're fighting on the same front, and those books are from Paul, both are Pauline. Dr. Horne, you've given an excellent review of where we've come from. And by the way, we're going to do 11 through 21 this week, but we're going to come back with an on-core edition, maybe for Thanksgiving.
To 20 and 21. Specifically, 20, one of the most profound verses, what I call a one-verse wonder. And a close friend of mine just wrote a whole book on 5:18 of 1 Thessalonians. There's so much in that verse of 2:20 that it's worthy. We may even write a book about this.
But we're going to do 11. Give us a, now let's do a preview of what's coming, how our leaders can look at 11 through 21 as we round out chapter 2 of Galatians, this critical. text of scripture.
So five big ideas. And I think it's very simple to capture it.
So if I were preaching this, I would try to build my thought process and take the congregation through five big ideas. Idea number one is fear leads to hypocrisy. And you see that really clearly, right, in verses 11 through 13. We covered this. When Cephas came to Antioch, why the word Cephas instead of Peter?
Right, he's been talking about Peter earlier in the verse, but back in chapter 1, he also brings up Cephas. And so this is Peter's formal title. If you were in Jerusalem and you said Peter, nobody would kind of know unless you were in the Christian community. Everybody in Jerusalem knew Peter as Cephas. And that would be sort of the reminder that he was the apostle to the Jews.
That what God had done was set him apart to be especially effective in defending and presenting and applying the gospel to the Jewish community where Paul had been sent to the Gentiles.
So that's what's going on here.
So he comes down. To Antioch, and Paul says, I had to stand up and rebuke him, I had to oppose him to his face because he stood in the wrong. That's the idea of being condemned. He didn't lose his salvation, he's not under that kind of condemnation. But he uses a really strong word.
Remember what he said: if anybody comes and preaches another gospel, let him be. Anathema, Peter was very close to that. What Peter was doing was undermining the gospel. And Paul said, it doesn't matter if an angel from heaven comes or even if it's me. And certainly, it's not going to be Peter.
Because if any of us come with another gospel, Let us be anathema.
Well, this is very strong language. And then he gives the reason why he was condemned because certain men came from James. This is the church in Jerusalem. And before they got here, he was eating with the Gentiles. But when they came, he drew back and he separated himself.
In other words, he made a very clear line in the sand. And now we know why. Because he was afraid of the circumcision party. This fear led him to compromise That almost led Barnabas into hypocrisy. Listen to what he says.
And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, he was being a hypocrite.
So that even Barnabas was led astray by the hypocrisy. But when I saw 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? In other words, Peter. Listen. You and I both know what you saw.
when you were at Cornelius's house. You and I both know what God told you when that sheet came down. You and I both know that God told you to stop calling things unclean that God had made clean. You and I both know that. Shall we And here you are.
Because you're afraid of these people from Jerusalem who still think that there are unclean foods. You've gone back under the law. You've given credence to that. And you are being a hypocrite. You know, hypocrisy has horrific impacts.
on the gospel. And hypocrisy always has to be rebuked. And that's the second truth. There is this. Very clear.
Rebuke. I don't think Paul is losing his temper here. I don't think Paul is standing up and being in the flesh. I actually think he's doing what is necessary for the gospel's sake. This isn't him being angry at Peter.
This is him being angry at hypocrisy. Right.
So I think we got to make this clear because sometimes we can get so passionate about the truth that we actually go at it in ways that actually destroy the truth. Right.
And Paul's not doing that here. He is respectfully referring to Peter as Cephas. He's recognizing his position, but he's being really clear with Peter in front of everybody because Peter has done this openly. It has been noted, and there are real things that are happening. You know, sometimes when.
Somebody does something that that you know is is going to be a danger to the gospel, you can go and say, brother or sister, this is going to be a problem. And you can do that. We've all done that, right? But when somebody's actions are actually leading people astray, like they were Barnabas. You actually have to go and set the record straight.
And that's what Peter is doing.
So there is fear that leads to hypocrisy, and then there is this. rebuke that comes out of a love for the gospel. Right, it's not that Peter didn't that or that Paul didn't love Peter, it's that Paul loved the gospel more. And sometimes we have to, out of love for the gospel, do a hard thing. With people that we love, right?
And that's the impact of the gospel. What I want to say, too, that. I want to be very careful that we don't just pounce on Peter. And what what what does the devil do here?
Well the devil says well You deny Jesus before a little slave girl around the fire.
Well, you, you know, you were hypocritical and you were a vessel of the devil, you know, when you said told Jesus not to go to the cross. And so this is just Peter. Going back to his old ways. And I don't think that's the intent of any of this. Peter is a redeemed, Holy Spirit-filled believer.
This shows you the greatest saint. Is one little misstep away from falling into sin, from misstepping, from. In just as much need of mercy, right, as a new believer or as at any level. This is the process of sanctification. And so I just want to make sure, you know, because we all are.
We all struggle with different things. And there's a very real sense that I don't know that anyone listening to my voice right now, Dr. Horne, including myself, doesn't have a. A little bit of people pleasing in them. Oh, really?
Or a lot of people pleasing and how much we, you know, we want to be able to do that. That's why I think Solomon says the fear of man leads to a snare. And it did for Peter.
Now, there's, to your point here, there's a really important thing I don't want us to miss. Paul shows us that sometimes we need to confront our brothers for the sake of the gospel. Peter shows us how to receive that confrontation graciously. Because you'll notice in this text, he doesn't argue back. He doesn't fight against Paul, I mean, every indication is as soon as Paul confronts him, Peter repents.
because there's no more mention of it in the book. Paul only brings it up. In his letter to remind them of how serious the error of the Judaizers was. And by the time you get back to Jerusalem, the Jerusalem Council happens, right? This is, it hasn't happened in Galatians because he would have used it, but Peter is actually siding with Paul.
When you get to the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, Peter's standing up and saying, actually, I'm with Paul and he's saying that in front of these very people that he was afraid of. You know, maybe a year earlier or months earlier. And so Paul's rebuke really did a work in Peter's life because he was receptive to it. I think about the times in my life where God has used other believers to rebuke me. Or to come at me and call something to my attention.
And you know what, there's always the temptation to do? To just bow your back and say, I'm not going to receive that. You can smile, thank you, brother, but in your heart, you have bowed your back and you hold it against that brother and you quietly nurse that hurt in your heart. Peter didn't do that. And this is a great reminder to those of us in ministry.
Peter was, as you said, Peter was at the top of the food chain. And he received a rebuke from the Lord. And he received a rebuke from the Lord's servant. You know, sometimes the Holy Spirit's going to rebuke us, like the Lord rebuked Peter, get thee behind me, Satan. But sometimes he's going to rebuke us through a servant of the Lord.
And the key for me is how do I receive those rebukes? And it's for the sake of the gospel.
So there is this hypocrisy that comes out of fear, there is this rebuke. That comes in the defense of the gospel. But then, if you start looking in verses 15 and 16, there is the defining of the gospel. You know, we have John 3:16. We have Colossians 3:16.
Well, here we have Galatians 2.16. And in Galatians 2:15 and 16, Paul says this: We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners. He says, Peter, you and I. We are Abraham's physical descendants. We didn't come out of pagan idolatry.
That's what he means by Gentile sinners. And even we know this. We know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. We know this. Peter, if we're honest.
We knew this before we were saved. We knew we couldn't keep the law. And I was schooled in it. I was convinced that when it came to righteousness by the law, I told the Philippians, I was without blame, but I knew, I knew in my conscience. And my conscience bothered me about this.
We knew that we couldn't really keep the law. The way God wanted us to. But and that led us to faith in Christ. And so we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law. That is the whole point to the gospel, right?
We're never going to get. justified by our own works. No matter how righteous we are, no matter how How high up on the righteousness scale we are. I mean, we've got Moses, we've got 613 glorious commands from a law that God gave us through his own hand. And yet we can't.
None of our efforts are going to produce that. And you know what? When we try to live out Our righteousness under the law, the works of the flesh were what? Envy. Malice.
I mean, what did I say about Jesus when I was a Jew? before I accepted Christ. You know, what are the Jews in every city persecuting us for out of envy? The works of the flesh. Coming out of the most righteous people on the planet will never produce the righteousness that comes only by faith.
And so, this is a really important thing. And he says at the end of verse 16. The works of the law If somebody is looking at the works of the flaw, nobody will be justified. those works.
So, Moses was never given to us to justify us. Even the children of Israel knew that. But it would it forced them into the sacrificial system that was a complete faith active faith activating thing pointing to the Messiah, the Lamb of God that would come. faith in the forward sacrifice of the Messiah. You know, the Deuteronomy verse, I think it's 26, maybe 26, 21, where it says, do this and live.
Well, no one can do this and live. You know, that's what Moses says. And so the gospel. The law is the divine x-ray machine that that Hits our pride, shows us we're guilty. Right?
No x-ray machine ever healed a broken Limb. But it exposes it, it shows you exactly what's broken. That's what the law does, but the gospel. Only can justify us, and that's what Paul's saying here. These are very important terms, and any Any hedging on that like Peter was doing any little bit of of man pleasing.
And allowing these other systems to sprinkle law in, these Judaizers said, well, you gotta eat these certain foods. in order to be justified. You've got to have faith in Jesus, but you also have to be circumcised. All these little things are sprinkling in that contaminates the whole thing.
So Paul comes down hard on him, and that's how this whole passage closes out, isn't it, Dr. Horne? Yeah.
Well, that brings us.
So we started off with hypocrisy is devastating to the gospel, right? There is this. Rebuke that comes out of a love for the gospel, then there's the doctrinal articulation of the key, the heart of the gospel. Nobody will ever be justified by the law the Judaizers are wanting you to go back under. And that brings us to the fourth big idea in the text, and that idea is simply that, and it's a little bit of an odd way of saying it, if after coming out of the law, And we have come into Christ and we're still sinners.
Like you're implying, Peter? Then you've made Christ a minister of something sinful. In other words, wow. Peter, when you went to that table and you started embracing what the Judaizers were saying, here's what you were really doing. You were saying that the freedom that you have in Christ is actually sinful.
And if you really want to please God, you've got to come back under Moses. And you've actually made Christ because he came to deliver us from the law. And now that we're free from the law? You're siding with people who are saying absolutely not. If you jettison the law, you are displeasing God.
You're sinning against God. And the person who freed us from that law. If you really think about it, Peter, you've made him a servant of sin. May that never be.
So there's a really important thing here. Christ is not the minister of the law. He's the minister of grace. And when you want to bring me back under law, you're telling me that grace is actually not pleasing to God. Because that's what Jesus is the minister of.
He is the minister of the gospel of grace. And that brings us to the final thing, and that is this: my personal identification. is wrapped up. in Christ because of the gospel that you're betraying. My whole personal identity is wrapped up in Christ.
I mean, listen to how Paul says it. I know we're going to come back to this, but he said this. Through the law, I died to the law so that I might live to God. In other words, he says something really interesting. He said, On account of the law, I was put to death.
I was condemned by that law. And anybody condemned under the law is going to be put to death, executed, and that happened to me.
Well, when did that happen to you? And that's what he goes on to say: I have been crucified with Christ. When Christ was put to death, I was put to death with him. Right.
I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ. Who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh? I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.
So, therefore, I don't want to nullify the grace of God. And Peter, that's what you've been doing. That's what these Judaizers are doing. They are nullifying the grace that gave us our new identity without. This gospel.
We have no identity in Christ. And if we're not in Christ, we're still under condemnation. I was put to death on account of the law. And the way I was put to death was through Christ. Christ became my substitute.
I was crucified with him. And when he rose from the dead. My old man didn't rise. A new man rose. And now I have a reason for living.
And the reason for living is at the end of verse 19.
so that I might live to God. And Peter, you and these Judaizers are wanting me to live to Moses. You have inserted Moses in the place of Jesus and you want me to live for Moses and God wants me to live for God. And he's given me Christ, and he's given me this identity in Christ. And that's the essence of hypocrisy because the word simply means in the Greek two-faced.
And so you're one person with this crowd, one person with the other crowd. And it's either. Law or gospel for justifying you. It can't be both. And if you try to go both, then you get in that lukewarm category, that deadly category of hypocrisy.
which literally writes the whole thing off and Then, this last verse is kind of like a state. It's a mic drop. And I'm going to let you drop that mic, brother.
So, and Peter, Peter, here's Paul says to Peter, Peter, do not cancel out, don't nullify the grace of God. The minute you bring Moses to the equation, like the Judaizers are doing, and the minute you give credence to that, you're nullifying something that is indispensable. Grace isn't just a nice thing to add on on our trip to heaven, it's indispensable. And if you nullify that grace, And you go back to trying to get righteousness through the law? Jesus died for nothing.
Right? If you're saying, well, actually, we need to go back to Moses and get more righteousness from him, there's no point to the death of Christ, and you've nullified the gospel. And you can't do that. And Peter submits himself to the rebuke. and establishes the gospel with Paul and they never have this issue again.
Ever. And so this is an incredible chapter, you know, and it just reminds me. Of the serious effect of hypocrisy in my life. Like, I could be Peter very easily. You could be Peter very easily.
Paul did a hard thing, but he did a hard thing for the sake of the gospel. And he did a hard thing for the people whose lives had been saved by that gospel. We can undo the effect of the gospel in somebody's life by our hypocrisy. I mean think about how many people start off and they are so excited. about the gospel, they're so excited about Christ, and then they get hurt by a Christian.
who sins deeply against them and they're like, well, this is how Christians are. I don't want anything to do with this. And we destroy the work of the gospel because of our hypocrisy. This is a very, very sobering chapter. But it's also an exhilarating chapter because I am in Christ.
I was crucified with Him. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ is the one living in me. And I have this new life. not to live for Moses and not to live for Sam Horn, but to live for God. And that's what I want to do, and that's what I hope everybody will take away from this amazing chapter.
Well, it's a life lived by faith. In the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
So that's how I live in sanctification, the same way I'm justified. It's by faith. And we'll get into that deeper in chapter three. And that's where you start sprinkling law into. the daily Christian life.
You say, well now go perform. Go perform. And I heard a sermon of my brother-in-law.
Some Christians are like that, you know, that petal that we had growing up, you know, in the South, where you pull a leaf off, you say, She loves me. You pull the next leaf off, she loves me not. And you hope by the end of that pedal, this is actually from Jerry Bridge's book, The Disciplines of Grace, where you hope you don't get to the last petal, which is, she loves me not. Then you're like, oh no. And somebody.
Then you're going to look for another flower. I didn't read my Bible this morning. God's not going to bless this opportunity to share the Lord with someone on the airplane. And so what I'm doing is I'm putting my faith. In law, in my works, my ability to please God, then I'm in this performance treadmill.
When the gospel is everything He's done for us, not what we're doing for him. And the life we now live, we live by faith in him.
So it's a life of faith. The just shall live by faith, he'll tell us in chapter 3. But, Dr. Horn, this is so important because it's the performance of Jesus. It's all about works, the works of Christ.
It's all about his works. And Peter went back into the Judaism and the Judaizers' works. And all of that stuff to alienate the Gentiles. And when you end up in that middle ground, you don't please anybody. And you definitely don't please God because you're pleasing man.
Yeah, that's right. And we can end it this way. I God didn't save me halfway. Hey, you know what? I died on the cross for all the sins of the past, and so you can ask forgiveness, and I've forgiven you, but from now on, you gotta work your tail off to keep the righteousness.
He saved me fully to the uttermost. And it was all by grace.
So let's pray and ask God. And we're coming back to this. We're coming back to this passage here in a few weeks, but we knock out this whole section. Read it, read it again. What was codified by the council in the first 10 verses was fleshed out in a pretty rough confrontation but out of that confrontation god really worked and it could be the sweetness yeah you've got to pray for us but let's pray for more pauls in our life that are that are love us enough to rebuke us when we need to be rebuked and let's pray for responses like that's peter's yeah pray that we'll have that heart for peter lord we love you thank you for the gospel that freed us from our sin Lord, help us to recognize anything that would threaten that gospel in our lives and the lives of our families and the lives of the people that we love and that we shepherd and that we live next to and that we work with.
Lord, help us to not be hypocritical in our lives. Help us to be open and honest and transparent and to live in the joy of the freedom that you've given us in Christ. Lord, we were crucified with you and what rose again with you is not our old man, but a new man created after you in righteousness. And Lord, you've given us the privilege of living now for you, and so help us to do that. I pray that.
Even as Stu said that when you send somebody into our life, the Holy Spirit, or somebody to come and gently rebuke us, that we would respond like Peter did. And that, Lord, we would have the courage when you prompt us to go to somebody and bring that gentle and sometimes even forceful rebuke from the sake of the gospel. Help us not to do it for our own little petty things. Lord, help us to realize that these confrontations were rare, they were for the sake of the gospel. And so, Lord, give us that passion, and that wisdom, and that favor from you.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you, Dr. Horne, and thank you for joining us for this Wednesday in the Word podcast. Learn more at wedintheword.com.
Follow us on YouTube, Facebook, and all social media, including in Stu Graham. And be encouraged, stay in the word. Read it. Share it, study it, memorize it. and meditate on God's Word.
Every word of God is pure. He is a shield to those who put their trust in him. Proverbs 30 verse 5. Mm.
