Freed through Faith

We’re going to be in Galatians 2:11-21 so if you want to go ahead and grab your Bibles and turn there.

Most of y’all don’t know me. My name is Bryce, I’m married (wedding pic) with 3 kids 8, 6, and 3 (family pic)

I’m 36, I’ve been a Christian since I was about 13 years old. I’m a musician, I play guitar, a little percussion, some keys but I’m really a bass player. I’m passionate about teaching and sharing the love of God with others. I’m a customer service manager for the Harris County government. And I’m sure y’all are already sick of hearing about me...

One of my most recent hobbies (addictions) is smoking. Anyone in here like to smoke?

I guess I should clarify, I love to smoke meat. Brisket, beef ribs, pork butts (thats the shoulder BTW) and just about anything else.

Have y’all found Galatians 2 yet?

Galatians 2:11 we’re picking up in the middle of one of Paul’s rants. He’s upset with the church in Galatia because they are adding works to grace and discrediting the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. Let’s read it.

Galatians 2:11–21 NIV

11 When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. 14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? 15 “We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles 16 know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. 17 “But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! 18 If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker. 19 “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

Lots of words being thrown around here, lets take a second to make sure we’re all on the same page:

When I say “hypocrisy” what comes to mind?

The book says it this way: hypocrisy is the right belief with the wrong action. Meaning that what you say you believe doesn’t line up with how you live your life.

Ok, how about “Gospel”? Euangelion - Good News

“Gentile”? For our purposes tonight, a gentile is someone who is not Jewish, not bound by the Jewish law.

What about “justified”? declared or made righteous in the sight of God.

“The law”? How Jewish people were required to live, over 600 rules given to Moses from God on Mount Sinai

Lots of words, but I think its important to stop and think about them sometimes…now, to the rest of the text.

Paul is coming in hot here. What does Peter have to do with any of this? What did Peter do? (hung out with Gentiles until it wasn’t cool anymore and then dropped them like bad habit)

So? Whats the big deal? Peter is a Jew, aren’t Jewish men supposed to keep their distance from gentiles? … so whats the problem? This is exactly why Paul brings up this interaction with Peter. He was falling in line with the Judaizers, the party who said you must convert to Judaism before you can follow Jesus. It says that faith in Christ isn’t enough. Its a little more complicated than that, but for tonight thats all we really need to know.

The church in Galatia is struggling with this new gospel. Something has been added to the work of Jesus and they are being led astray… if you read through Galatians 1 and the first part of 2 you’ll see that Paul is name dropping like its going out of style. He’s like, every Christian you’ve ever heard of, I know and I’ve had this conversation with before, so be quite and listen for a minute.

And then he even calls Peter out by name, he’s all like ‘you know Peter? Yeah, he did the same thing.’ Paul is illustrating that he will not tolerate anything taking the place of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected.

Salvation is by grace, through faith, in Christ alone not by works of the law. And Paul was serious about the Law, in Philippians Paul says he was so good at keeping the law that he was blameless, not perfect, but when he broke the law he made is proper sacrifices and he did it on time every time. And here he says that he has learned that keeping the law isn’t good enough.

Back to Peter for a minute, if Peter isn’t too advanced to be checked, then no one is. Peter is just a human, but you remember in Acts when he got up to preach and 3,000 people got saved? I’ve never seen that before. Peter was personally appointed by Jesus as an apostle. Now, I love preaching and teaching, but I’ve never even preached to 3,000 people before let alone seen 3,000 people get saved in an evening. The point I’m trying to make here is that if someone like Peter can get off track, then whats stopping me from getting off track? What is stopping you from getting off track?

But why did Paul need to call him out like that? Couldn’t he just pull a brother aside and correct him? Why do you think he did this so publicly ?

What was the consequence of Peter’s hypocrisy? (VS 13) Peter wasn’t just a little off doing his own thing, he was leading people astray from the true Gospel. He even got to Barnabas, Barney was so in with the early church that the apostles gave him a nick name. What was his real name? (Joseph, Acts 4:36) And Barnabas was Paul’s ministry partner. Paul isn’t just going to let this slip and allow this works based salvation to make waves in the church and drag down his buddy with it.

Ok Paul, I got it, we can’t get to God by being good…so what are we supposed to do? If obeying God doesn’t save us, then what does? (VS 16 FAITH in Jesus)

This is great news, now I can go out and do whatever I want. If I can’t obey my way to God then I might as well live however I want, right? I mean, if following rules doesn’t make God love me, then breaking them won’t make Him hate me, right?

Obedience doesn’t make you right with God, but it shows others that you are. We can’t obey enough to be right with God, Jesus made us right with God. But, we have been given the responsibility to exhibit God’s grace to the world around us. And if you really think about it, if we love God we will want to please Him. Thats sort of what this whole passage is about. Peter should have been fellowshipping with his brothers and sisters in Christ - of all backgrounds - not just the Jewish ones. Peter’s actions aligned him with a false doctrine.

Paul is trying to use Peter as an illustration for their own shortcomings. Paul isn’t trying to throw shade at Peter, he’s saying all y’all’ve got to be careful about this.

In our culture we reward adherence to the law with freedom, follow the law and you can live however you want. But the message of Jesus is that freedom is given, not earned. He’s done it. Jesus lived the perfect life, walked where we could not, took on our shame, and nailed it to the cross.

As believers we should look to Jesus for acceptance, not our ability to follow the rules. God has accepted you through Jesus, now live your life in a way to set an example that points people to Him. The danger of our disobedience isn’t that God won’t love us anymore, its that we might lead people astray from the true Gospel.

We might drive people away from a relationship with God based on our behavior. Wouldn’t satan love that? He can’t get you, if you’re already in Christ, but he can sure keep you from leading your friends and family to Jesus.

Live by faith, don’t set aside the grace of God, live like Jesus died for you and you want someone else to know Him because of the life that you live.

Here is the point, if you don’t get anything else out of tonight look right here:

Jesus did what the law never could, the law proves our sin, and Jesus forgave it. Forgiveness is not for us to earn, it’s for Christ to give. And He gives it freely. Don’t live like Jesus’ death was meaningless, are you going to walk out the door and be perfect from now on? Of course not, that isn’t the point. But use your failures to point people to Jesus, not away from Him.