Have you ever had a friend that you liked, but you were ashamed to be around? I have heard stories of people who really thought the school geek was fun and enjoyable to be around, but who ignored this person when the popular kids came around. Or who denied their friendship in public when others talked bad about the “nerd.” You are not alone. Politicians are famous for doing this kind of behavior. So is Business. A recent example is Gilette’s distancing from Tiger Woods, along with AT&T as another business trying to withdraw.
Our text this morning tells of another story where former friends and partners began distancing themselves.
The apostle Peter had gone to Antioch and was preaching the gospel there. And successfully I might add. We are told in Acts 11:26, “So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.” Following Paul and Barnabas’ ground breaking work, Peter comes and continues that work.
The apostle Peter had gone to Antioch and was preaching the gospel there. And successfully I might add. We are told in Acts 11:26, “So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.” Following Paul and Barnabas’ ground breaking work, Peter comes and continues that work.
Peter is present, he is eating with Gentiles, sharing the gospel, inviting them into the blessings of God. That is what it means to eat. To eat with people in the ancient world, and in our world, for that matter, is a way of showing acceptance of them. To share a meal is a way of saying, ‘We are in this together.’ Today it is like saying, ‘We are equals.’ This is one of the very things we found that the gospel proclaims, in addition to being free from the curse. Philip Ryken elaborates on the importance of a shared meal with these words,
“In Judaism table fellowship means fellowship before God, for the eating of a piece of broken bread by everyone who shares in the meal brings out the fact that they all have a share in the blessing which the master of the house has spoken over the unbroken bread.”[1]
By eating with Jew and Gentile alike, by sitting at their table and inviting them to sit at his, Peter had made a powerful statement concerning the Gospel. He had displayed the very words of the Jerusalem council. If you recall Acts 15 records the gathering of the Leaders in Jerusalem to answer the question about what is required of the Gentiles to participate fellowship with the Jewish Christians. The answer – make a few food concessions and avoid sexual immorality. These alone will bring us into fellowship. These weren’t requirements for being a Christian, they were ways that practically the Gentiles could help their Jewish brothers in opening up avenues of communication and fellowship. Our text says that Peter used to eat with the Gentiles. Fellowshiping as a visible sign of the unity brought in Christ was broken when he stopped eating.
But, like all interactions between people, they can be difficult and fraught with struggle. Such was Peter’s experience. Some of his buddies from Jerusalem came down to Antioch to see what was going on and they acted the part of the popular kid, treating the nerd as a second class citizen and intimidating even Peter and Barnabas into treating the gentiles as nerds to be scorned. Imagine it with me in modern pictures, the jocks pressure everyone to avoid the nerds and geeks and then tell the nerds and geeks they can be in the in-crowd if they get the right shoes, jeans and jackets. So some of them start getting the gear, Abercrombie and Fitch shirts, Old Navy Pants, leather jacket and vans, but then they are still wearing the taped together glasses, the pocket protector with all the pens and calculator, and talking like this [nasal] ‘Am I cool now?’
The picture is preposterous, it’s laughable. They will never be cool, if that is what the standard of cool is. And so everyone, even more than before withdraws, for now they aren’t even cool, they are embarrassing and idiot and nerds. That is what was going on in Antioch. Before the cool guys showed up, before the Judaizers came, everyone was doing fine. Noone knew what cool and not cool was, hip and not hip was. They were just a giant Christian family, fellowshipping with one another, helping one another grow and praying for each other. Then the cool guys come and the picture changes. War has been declared on the nerds, the geeks, the misfits, and so people withdraw. They fail under the pressure of the these Judaizers to stand up for the gospel. They are afraid, Peter, Barnabas and all the other jews who had been free are suddenly enslaved by other’s ideas. Paul uses some strong words to describe the situation saying, “they were led astray” “clearly in the wrong” “hypocrites” and “not acting in line with the truth of the gospel.”
How would you like to have those charges leveled against you? You have just gone along with the crowd into bad behavior, you are descended from knowledge to ignorance, you are faking it and your walk and your talk don’t jive. You are inconsistent, hugely inconsistent. This is what Paul charges Peter with and those with him. This last one is the one I would like to focus on, for it has the most bearing I think to our situtation. Paul says, “When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel I said…” “When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel…”
These words are striking. In them Paul ties together the importances of word and deed. Peter and Paul both agreed on the gospel. We saw that earlier in the letter. They had given each other the right hand of fellowship Paul was an apostle to the Gentiles, Peter an apostle to the Jews. These brothers were united in the truth of the message, but their lifestyle either enforced or destroyed the proclamation of that truth. Peter’s lifestyle was destructive to the message. He wasn’t walking what he believed. He wasn’t walking a straight walk. That is gist of the words “not acting in line.”
My sister when she was growing up had to wear braces on her legs for years. Big external metal braces like the ones that Forest Gump had to wear as a boy. Why? Because she couldn’t orthopedio, she couldn’t walk right. It didn’t’ matter how much she tried, she couldn’t turn her legs properly to walk right and so she couldn’t run either. Paul saw a similar reality at work. Your actions are like a crippled man claiming everyone else has to be crippled in order to be healthy. You are seriously failing to proclaim the gospel by your actions, in fact you are sabotaging the gospel by failing to live out the truth of the doctrines you believe.
“You are a Jew, yet you live like a gentile and not like a Jew, and yet you force gentiles to adopt Jewish ways, that you don’t even follow.” This is an insult, to call a Jew a gentile. To call him one outside the covenant community of God. That is what he was saying. You are a sinner Peter, you are rebuilding the dividing wall of hostility that Jesus destroyed in the cross. Listen to Eph. 2:14-16 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.
Your actions don’t match the truth of the gospel and that is a problem because that means that others aren’t hearing the truth of the gospel either. You can say one thing, but if you don’t live it, then others can’t hear. People hear with their eyes and we speak with our hands and with our lives, in addition to just with our mouths.
Is your life enforcing or destroying the gospel witness in the world?
There is no life in legalism. There is no life in every Gentile becoming a Jew, even though that is what the legalist wants you to believe. Consider with me for a minute, the only story I know in the OT where gentiles were urged to become Jews ended in mass murder. If you turn to Genesis 34 you will read about the story of Dinah being raped by Shechem. Jacob’s sons tell Shechem that if he wants to become part of the Jewish line and able to intermarry, he must first take on the sign of the Jews, circumcision. They agreed. Gen. 34:24-25 All the men who went out of the city gate agreed with Hamor and his son Shechem, and every male in the city was circumcised. Three days later, while all of them were still in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords and attacked the unsuspecting city, killing every male.
There is no life for the gentile in becoming a Jew, in fact there is not life for the Jew in insisting that Jewish ways will save for we know that a man is not justified by observing the Law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.
This is the truth we are to live in accordance with. We don’t need to add anything to it. Not becoming Jewish, not insisting on a new code of conduct, not adding rules for approaching the table for communion about being a certain age, or having gone through a certain ritual or activity. All of this is just another way of acting like Peter and limiting down the table of Jesus Christ. It is just another way of drawing back and walking a crooked line that doesn’t reflect the gospel. It is a new way of belonging to the circumcision group. If you recall, the words of Ryken from earlier,
“table fellowship means fellowship before God, for the eating of a piece of broken bread by everyone who shares in the meal brings out the fact that they all have a share in the blessing which the master of the house has spoken over the unbroken bread.”[2]
As we came to the table, last week, the blessing the master spoke over us was and still is “It is finished.” The law and its curse are done. The penalty has been paid. Our life under the law is crucified and now risen anew. The Blessing the master has spoken is, “Come to me who are weary and heavy laden.” If you are tired of the laws of men and churches. If you are tired of the pressure the cool kids put on the nerds. If you are tired of not acting in line with the gospel. If you see in yourself the tendencies of Peter to shrink from the gospel truth, then the gospel bids you come, for you are not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ (Gal 2:16).
You are pronounced acceptable in God’s sight, not because of what you have done, not because of your faithfulness, but because of Jesus’ faithfulness to God, because of Jesus’ devotion to the Father, because of Jesus’ sinless life and purity. They are yours if you have been crucified with Christ. Did you catch that in verse Gal 2:19-20 “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Not only was Jesus nailed to the cross and crucified, not only was the public announcement reading “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” (John 19:19) nailed to the cross, not only was my sin and your nailed on the cross as Colossians 2:13-14 tells us, “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.” But each and every follower of Christ was also nailed to the cross and crucified with Christ.
And that is a past reality with present consequences for you and I and all who are in Christ. Just like a bell that rings once but the sound lingers indefinitely, so our crucifixion with Christ is a past reality that affects us forever. For if we are united to Christ like that, if I am dead, a mere mortal having hung on the tree too, then I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. If I am united with Christ, then everything that Christ has ever done, becomes something we have done together. If Christ was righteous, I am righteous. If Christ conquered death, I too have conquered death, If Christ is risen, I too have been raised.
If I am united with Christ, then I am dead to the law, for the penalty of breaking the law was death and death can only be exacted from a person once. Dead people don’t die again. Very truly and literally, the penalty of death was paid and exacted from me and my savior when we hung on the cross.[3]
All of this is part of the justification we have be faith. All of this the cool kids want to take from us, and they are successful many times, just consider the case of Peter. Legalism enslaves but freedom says there is a blessing in the meal given at Christ’s table. Live as free men and women, free to welcome others, free to love others, free to rejoice with all those to whom God has revealed his gospel. Would you affirm this truth of the gospel this morning by reciting the Apostle’s Creed, together,
I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Maker of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
born of the virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried;
He descended into hell.
The third day He arose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost;
the holy catholic church;
the communion of saints;
the forgiveness of sins;
the resurrection of the body;
and the life everlasting.
Amen.
People of God, be assured that you are all accepted, not because of your works, not because of the cool kids, not because of what you avoid or don’t avoid, but simply because of Christ. He invites you to the table and bids you dine with him and with all who accept his final sacrifice. Don’t be a Peter or a Barnabas or a Judaizer, but come in faith so that you too can walk in line with the truth of the Gospel, never shrinking back from its radical claims of a righteousness not of works.
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