GALATIANS 2 DO NOT LAY ASIDE THE GRACE OF GOD2019 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Galatians 2 Do Not Lay Aside The Grace Of God

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2019. Amen. Well, good evening again. You can turn with me in your Bibles to Galatians chapter 2. Galatians chapter 2 is where we're going to be as we continue to discuss foundations,

for Christian living and looking at these letters from the Apostle Paul to a few different churches and here starting with the region of Galatia and his letter to them. And we've been focusing on the topic of this letter is really the grace of God. And so we'll be continuing to consider that this evening as we continue on here in chapter 2 of Galatians. And so we're going to be looking at verses 11 through 21.

And we're going to see a big fight break out between Paul and Peter and learn some valuable things from it. So Galatians chapter 2 verses 11 through 21. Let's read through that and then we'll get into the message this evening. Verse 11 says, Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed. For before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles, and

But when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, If you, being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles, and not as the Jews...

Verse 17.

But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves are also found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not. For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I, through the law, died to the law, that I might live to God. Verse 20. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.

and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. Here Paul continues to develop the doctrine of grace and why he

It is important for us to stand in this doctrine, to hold fast to this doctrine. I've titled the message this evening, Do Not Set Aside the Grace of God. Coming, of course, from that verse we just read, verse 21, where Paul says, I do not set aside the grace of God. But he's writing to the Galatians who had set aside the grace of God. And they're not the only ones.

We find here in chapter 2, verses 11 through 21, this occasion where Peter set aside the grace of God.

And so there is this need for us, there is this challenge for us to hold on to the grace of God. And there is a tendency that we need to watch out for. There's a danger that we need to watch out for of the setting aside of the grace of God and the laying aside and the losing that grip on the grace of God.

I've shared it already a few times, but I'll continue to share it. I think the doctrine of grace is one of the most difficult for us to accept and receive. Not because it's complex, not because it's complicated. If you think about the triune nature of God, boy, that one, you can spend a lot of time wringing your mind around trying to figure out the triune nature of God. That's complex doctrine.

But the doctrine of grace is simple doctrine, but it's difficult for us because it's so contrary to our nature. And it's so contrary to what we know. It's contrary to how we relate to one another. It's contrary to how our workplaces, you know, relate to us. It's contrary to everything. And so it's difficult for us and it's easy to set aside the grace of God.

Not even necessarily intentionally, not as in like, I want to rebel against God and run away from him. But here we see this occasion where Peter himself sets aside the grace of God. And I don't think it has to be said, but just in case it needs to be said, if it can happen to Peter, it can happen to Cisco, right? Or Kim or Jessica or Roman. Well, maybe not Roman, but it could happen to us, right? If it can happen to apostle Peter, it can happen to us.

And so there's some important things for us to consider as we look at these verses tonight. Now, this is one of those passages that we could spend a long time here. I don't want to get bogged down in a lot of the details, but boy, there's some meaty nuggets in there, and I encourage you to meditate on those and allow the Lord to minister to your heart. But as we work our way through the passage, we're going to start in verses 11 through 13 for point number one, and that is that people will pressure you to set grace aside.

And so as we kind of prepare ourselves to hold on to grace, to think about grace, to not setting aside the grace of God, we need to recognize, first of all, some of that is going to happen internally and we're going to battle within internally with the idea of grace. But also we need to recognize that there will be pressure from the outside on many occasions to set grace aside and to operate in a different way in relationship to God and with one another.

I'm going to jump back into verse 11 and 12. Here's what it says. Now, when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face because he was to be blamed. For before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles. But when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. So we're narrowing in on this opportunity

of Peter in Antioch. Now we don't know specifically when this occurred. Luke does not record this in the book of Acts.

So we don't know exactly where in the timeline this is, but Paul has been kind of recounting his conversion experience, right? And then leading up to what we believe happened in Acts chapter 15 with the Jerusalem council as he's been establishing the fact of grace and how it was verified by him independently. And when he got together with the rest of the apostles, it was the same message. It was the message of grace. And it seems that probably sometime after that,

Peter went to Antioch. Now, remember, Antioch was where Paul was ministering. That was his home church. In Acts chapter 13, as he was sent out on the first missionary journey, he was in Antioch. And then when he returned, he came back to Antioch. That was his home church. It was up north of Israel. And so here is Paul in Antioch. This is his home church. And Peter comes to town. And when Peter comes to town, he just starts hanging out with the church. And he's like,

He gets together, you know, he just shows up for their Wednesday night service and, you know, hey, Sunday we're having a potluck. And so Peter shows up for the potluck and he's just engaging in the church activities and starting to fellowship with everybody and hear what the Lord's doing and listen to testimonies and pray over people. And he's just getting involved in the fellowship there for however long he was there. And so Peter comes to Antioch, he says in verse 11, but Paul says, I withstood him to his face.

Now that doesn't mean that, you know, he saw Peter come in and lock the door and said, no, you can't come in, Peter. No, Peter was participating in the church for a little bit. You can see in verse 12, before certain men came from James. So there was this time period where Peter came and then some other guys came. And these other guys came, Paul says, from James, probably referring to James, the leader of the church back in Jerusalem.

and they probably were not sent by james or you know under the authority of james but but that's the way that they presented themselves they came from jerusalem and just like the judaizers that the galatians faced they came with the message that hey

The gospel message is good and important, but also people need to become Jews in order to be saved. They need to be circumcised and follow the law. And there needs to be, you know, this following of the things that were handed down to Moses. And so these men that come from James, they show up and then all of the sudden Peter's behavior changes. Notice what he says in verse 12. But when they came...

he withdrew and separated himself. All of a sudden it changed. So next Wednesday, you know, you're like, oh my goodness, it was so fun hanging out with Peter last week and can't wait to hang out with him again. And then, and then you show up and Peter's like, no, no, you, you sit over there. You know, us Jews, we sit on this side. Well, I can't hang out with you. And you're like, but wait a minute. We, we hung out last week. You know, we went to Jack in the Box and we had a good time together. Like all of a sudden what Peter's acting differently. And it's,

a separation. It's a division. Peter, what happened? Paul tells us in verse 12, it was prompted by fear. Peter feared those who were of the circumcision. Peter was an apostle. He didn't lose his salvation at this point, right? He's born again, filled with the Holy Spirit. But like us, he has the opportunity, the tendency to fall into sin. There's weakness. Still Peter faces weakness, just like you and I.

And so now this pressure comes in and as these guys show up from Jerusalem, Peter feels that pressure and he begins to distance himself from the people that he's been fellowshipping with and hanging out with. That's pretty significant. That's pretty bad, but it's not the end of what happens because in verse 13, it goes on to say, the rest of the Jews played the hypocrite with him. So then all the rest of the Jewish people who were part of the church who were

part of the church and, you know, just hanging out with the Gentiles like Peter was before. But now that Peter is separating himself and now there's these guys from Jerusalem. And so now it's not just Peter by himself that's separating. It's not just one person going, oh man, we used to have fellowship, but I don't know what happened to that guy. But all of a sudden, you know, half the congregation is over huddled by themselves. And the other half is over here saying, oh,

We were friends yesterday. What happened? What's going on? Why this separation? Why this division? The rest of the Jews played the hypocrite with him. And so much so, it tells us in verse 13, that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. And think about that for a second. Barnabas, I don't know if it would be completely accurate, but you might describe Barnabas as like Paul's best friend, right?

Here's the Apostle Paul. He's been on a missionary journey with Barnabas. Barnabas was the one who introduced Paul to the apostles back in Jerusalem. And Barnabas is the guy who brought Paul to Antioch to get involved in the work that the Lord was doing there. And just such a great encourager, right? And always alongside of Paul and with him in ministering to the Gentiles. And, you know, he was right there with him in all of that. But here on this occasion,

Peter pulls away, the rest of the Jews, they start feeling the pressure, you know, with Peter and the other. And oh, we want to hear from those guys too. We want to hang out with those guys. And so they began to separate. And then Barnabas also gets caught up in that. There's this pressure upon them to set grace aside. And it's not just that they were, you know, hanging out with each other because they were friends, but there was this return to the things of the law.

And that's the real issue with what is going on here. Paul calls it hypocrisy because there's this return to legalism. There's this return to keeping good works and trying to approach God on the basis of behavior and who you hang out with and what you eat and all of these things and trying to be righteous before God on that basis. Pastor John Stott puts it this way.

Peter didn't give up on the gospel. He didn't cast out Jesus. But in practice, because of the pressure, he began to behave like the others hypocritically.

Because he still believed the gospel. He still believed in Jesus, but he behaved differently than what he really believed. It's hypocrisy. And there is a temptation, there is a tendency for us to face very similar situations. Listen, if you've never felt pressure to set grace aside, well, just wait. Hang out with a little bit more Christians and you'll feel it. It comes. There is a tendency in us

towards legalism and works and justifying ourselves. I don't know if this happens that much anymore, but it was an example that popped in my head, so I'm gonna go with it. But perhaps, you know, you're having a conversation, a few people around talking about some television shows. And then Pastor Cisco walks in. He goes, oh yeah, I don't watch television. I spend time reading my Bible. And all of a sudden, the people, you've just been having this conversation again. The whole conversation changes, right?

All of a sudden, defenses are up. Well, you know, I don't watch that much. You know, I only watch a little bit. I read my Bible while the TV's on. And I only watch shows that are, you know, biblical. And, you know, the Apostle Paul was on TV. So that's why I was watching TV, right? And all of a sudden, like, the tone changes and we begin to act different.

Weird because, well, here comes the legalist and says, oh, you shouldn't watch TV. You know, you can't be holy. You can't be right with God if you do these things, right? And there can enter this air and this pressure and this temptation to just kind of go with the flow in that and allow that to cause you to be hypocritical.

where it's not what you really believe. It's not, you know, what you actually do in your normal behavior. But here there's this show that's going on. And here's Peter and the Jews and Barnabas putting on this show. And it's a serious thing. It's not just a little, you know, separation or, you know, like a click in the church. It's a serious thing because it's relating to the gospel and the truth of the gospel, right?

In verse 14, Paul goes on to say, but when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel. You see, the way that they were behaving was declaring something about the gospel.

And this is the issue with, you know, setting aside the grace of God or, you know, kind of allowing those pressures to cause us to behave as if we've set aside the grace of God. It's hypocrisy and it impacts the declaration of the gospel to the people around us. There's a huge responsibility that we have. Pastor David Guzik says this, especially to leaders. He says, this shows what a heavy responsibility it is to be a leader, right?

When we go astray, others will often follow. Satan knew that if he could make Peter take the wrong path, so would many others. Listen, if you have any authority or influence in people's lives, you especially need to hold fast to the grace of God and do not set aside the grace of God. Because if you go down that other path and if you lean towards works, and even if

you know it's not really the truth of how you get to heaven and how salvation happens, but even if you go with it for the sake of ease, you know, for the sake of the social pressures, for whatever might be happening in your head, there's a leading of others, there's an influence of others down that path, and it is detrimental to our health spiritually to walk in the path of works, and we'll see that develop as we continue in the argument here that

Paul gives to Peter. So here the situation is set up for us. Peter has come. He's been hanging out with everybody. All of a sudden he separates and he leads a bunch of people to join with him. And so all the Jews are gathered together on one side of the room and then the Gentiles are left by themselves on the other side of the room. And Paul, the apostle, sees this. He can't take it anymore.

So again, in verse 14, it says, but when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, if you being a Jew live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews? Peter, well, actually Paul now is going to address the situation further.

in front of everybody publicly stand face to face with peter in verse 11 i withstood him to his face because he was to be blamed peter here was clearly in the wrong and paul is going to address it right now in front of everybody this is pretty heavy duty right

But it's appropriate. This public correction is appropriate because, well, of the sphere that was happening, you know, of the environment that was going on, Peter was publicly leading these people astray. And so this situation needed to be handled in a public manner. It's a little bit different than what we read about in Matthew 18, where Jesus describes a situation, if someone sins against you,

then you are to go to them privately. And it's talking about that personal offense.

Someone sins against you, it's a personal thing. There's a privacy to the situation because, well, that was a sin that was done against you. And so the appropriate response then is to respond privately first and then take it to greater levels of awareness publicly as the need may be, but to begin there privately because the sin was private. But here, there's a public, it's in the public arena situation.

And so it needs to be dealt with publicly. And so Paul calls Peter face-to-face with this issue of sin by challenging him here in chapter 2, verses 14 through 16. And that gives us point number two. That is, works cannot make you right with God. The issue that Paul is going to describe here and address here is the issue of works, legalism, the law, and

Now, we could talk about works and we could talk about the law in the sense of the old covenant. That's specifically what they were drawn back to because of their Jewish heritage. You can also understand that works and legalism is not just limited to the Old Testament, but we come up with our own system of works in our own minds and hearts as well.

And we think, well, if I don't watch TV, then I'm more holy. Or if I don't, you know, and we have our list of rules and we measure ourselves by that. We try to approach God. We, you know, try to impress God. And we, by rules and regulations and laws, try to advance ourselves spiritually. And it all applies. It all applies. Works and legalism, no matter what form or fashion, no matter who's coming up with the laws, whether it's God himself, Old Testament, or

or someone else trying to approach God in the manner of these laws that are given or that we make up ourselves, it cannot make you right with God. You cannot be righteous before God by your own efforts. And so that's why Paul challenges Peter here. He says, you're not being straightforward about the gospel.

You're presenting this idea that you can be righteous before God. You can become more spiritual. You can, you know, have a greater degree of relationship with God by your efforts. And that's not the truth. You're not straightforward about the gospel. And so he challenges Peter. He says, Peter, if you, you're a Jew, but if you live in the manner of Gentiles, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews? There's some complexity to this argument, but

Think through it for just a moment. Peter, you're a Jew. You have the law, but you don't approach God by the law. You believe in Jesus. You understand the grace of God. You understand that Christ died on the cross for our sins. So you're living in the manner of Gentiles. You're living as if you're not bound to the law any longer because you weren't.

And Peter had that encounter, remember, in the book of Acts? You know, the Lord showed him, rise, Peter, kill and eat. And oh, no, those are forbidden. And God says, hey, I call it clean. Don't call it unclean if I call it clean. He led him to Cornelius and he associated with the Gentiles. And the Lord showed him through that. He was no longer living in the manner of the Jews. He was living in the manner of the Gentiles. So here's Peter, a Jew, living in the manner of Gentiles in the grace of God and

He says, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews? Now, Peter is not standing in the pulpit saying, Gentiles, you must be circumcised. That's what the Judaizers who came into Galatia were saying. You know, that was their requirement. But

Peter had slipped and he had pulled away and he had broken fellowship and that, but he hadn't gone so far as to say, you know, to publicly proclaim. But the problem was that's what his actions declared. Here we are Jews. We're going to sit over here. You can't fellowship with us. We can't fellowship with you because you're not one of us. There's still a division. There's still, you know, a separation, right?

Peter was compelling Gentiles to live as Jews by saying, you can't fellowship with me until you're circumcised and you become a Jew and then you can come fellowship with me. You reach my level, you know, come and be at my level and then you can have fellowship with me. And so he was compelling people, not by, you know, his declaration, but by his behavior. That's an important thing for us to consider. You know, there's a lot of things that we know better than to say out loud, but we still express ourselves.

By what we do? Maybe our tone? Maybe the way that we behave? Martin Luther, a great freedom fighter, right? Martin Luther says it this way, Peter did not say so, but his example said quite plainly that the observance of the law must be added to faith in Christ if men are to be saved. From Peter's example, the Gentiles could not help but draw the conclusion that the law was necessary unto salvation. Peter's behavior declared that

You need to start, you guys, you Gentiles, I mean, hey, it's grace of God, you know, good job, you know, at least you're not going to hell. But, you know, to really have fellowship with us, you need to start doing better. You need to start doing more. You need to start behaving properly and following the law. But Paul reminds him, Peter, that's not how you became righteous. You've been living as a Gentile. Why are you compelling the Gentiles now to become Jews?

Going on to verse 15, he says, Paul says, look, we are Jews by nature. That's our heritage. We're born into that. You know, that's our nationality.

We're not of the Gentiles, but we know that man is not justified by works. We know that. And so we've believed in Jesus. He says, even we have believed in Jesus Christ. Even we, Jewish people, have to believe in Jesus Christ because, well, to be justified comes only by faith.

And to be justified means that it's just as if I'd never sinned. To have a right standing before God, a right relationship with God, full access to God does not come by works. It comes by faith. And Paul says, Peter, we're Jews. If righteousness would come by the law, we would be first in line, right? Because we're the ones who follow the law. But that's not how we try to approach God. That's not how we walk with God. That's not how we are justified. Even we...

who were entrusted with the law we we believe in jesus so that we might be justified by faith in christ and paul makes that bold clear statement for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified works cannot make you right with god works cannot improve your spiritual condition or your access to god or your standing before god if it could the jews would have been first in line

But they weren't. Jesus came to die upon the cross for Jews and Gentiles. And so this separation was, well, it was significant because it was laying a burden upon the Gentiles that the Jews couldn't keep, but also that didn't really help. It didn't help them have right relationship with God. By the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified.

Moving on to verses 17 through 19, it gives us point number three, and that is that works bring condemnation. And so this is an important truth for us to understand, that it's easy to get down the slippery slope of works and to start trying to work hard for God's approval, to work hard, you know, to be righteous and work hard to be pleasing to God and work hard. It's easy and it sounds good, but

And there's all kinds of arguments that we could present to ourselves and others could present to us. Again, there will be that pressure to set grace aside and you have to start following these laws. And it can come from a desire to seek after God and please God. It can be born out of an attempt to walk with God. But the end result is not a closer relationship with God. The end result is condemnation. In verse 17 says,

Paul goes on to say, but if while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? He says, certainly not. For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. The issue with the law, well, one of the issues with the law, is that nobody could keep it. If you could keep the law, then you wouldn't need a savior. But nobody can keep the law. All have sinned, fall short of the glory of God, right?

Every single one of us. And so the law is not effective at bringing salvation because, not because of a failure on the law, but because we can't measure up. And so we don't approach God by the law. We seek to be justified by Christ. We come to God and we say, I believe in what Christ has done for me in dying upon the cross for my sin. Now, he's talking to Peter. He's saying, if we who approach God in this way are found justified,

sinners, if we're found to still fall short, does that make Christ a minister of sin? Paul says, no way. Here's what Paul says instead. It's not that Christ is not sufficient. It's that you've rebuilt the things that Christ has torn down. That's what he says in verse 18. If I build again those things which I destroyed. See, I used to have the system of reproaching God.

but I've destroyed that to believe in Jesus. I've cast down this approach to God, trying to be righteous before God with my behavior. I've destroyed that. I could never measure up. I couldn't even measure up to, you know, what my own conscience called me to do before the Lord, much less the actual law itself. But I cast that down. I destroyed that. But if I build that up again, and now go back to trying to approach God on the basis of my behavior,

It's not Christ who's making me a transgressor. It's not Christ who's putting me in the situation where I am breaking the law. It's myself. I'm putting myself in this situation because I'm not able to keep the laws that I built, which are the laws that I took down before, but now I've rebuilt them again. And it's me doing it to myself. Think about what Paul says in Romans chapter eight, right? This verse we all know, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

There is therefore now no condemnation. You break the law, you fall short, sure. But it doesn't matter. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because you're not justified by that because you don't approach God on the basis of that.

But if you now go back and try to rebuild those things and say, all right, I'm going to approach God on the basis of my goodness. I'm going to do my best to be right before God and to be extra pleasing to God. And, you know, then you've rebuilt a system of condemnation for yourself. Now, we often will quote that verse and say, you know, so if you're feeling condemned, you know where that's from, right? It's not from God. And so, you know, typically we'll say it's from the devil. And there's elements of truth to that. But I would say even before that,

You've built this system that has equipped the devil with the tools to condemn you because you have not believed in the grace of God. When you are condemned, when you feel condemned, it's not because God is condemning you. It is because the devil seeks to condemn you, but the devil is able to condemn you because you don't believe in the grace of God.

The devil's able to condemn you because you've set up a system of rules and measures and you don't measure up. And so you feel condemned because you don't measure up to a system that God hasn't approved and hasn't decreed and ordered in your life. And so any attempt at this path of works, any attempt at this path of legalism, it ends up bringing condemnation where I am making myself a transgressor and I'm putting myself through all of this torture and all of this guilt because I

I'm rebuilding what was torn down in Christ. Pastor David Guzik puts it this way, this is the great tragedy of legalism. In trying to be more right with God, they end up being less right with God. This is the issue of legalism. And then we end up staying away from God because, well, I feel condemned. I feel guilty. I haven't measured up. I failed. And so I stay away. I got to kind of make up for my bad behavior before I can come back and approach God and

it's exactly the opposite of what God desires. It's exactly the opposite of the grace of God. Do not set aside the grace of God because works cannot make you right with God. And instead, in place of that, it will bring condemnation into your life. Paul goes on in verse 19. He says, for I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. Here's the usefulness of the law.

And Paul's going to elaborate on this in the chapters to come as well. But here's the usefulness of the law, to die to it. The law is effective for this, to bring death. And it's a necessary death. It's a death that I need to recognize I can't keep the law. I can't keep the Old Testament law. I can't keep that. Whatever system I come up with, trying to follow these things to be, you know,

pleasing to God and to be righteous before God and to be worthy of God's love and his work in my life. Any system that I come up with, it's going to kill me. But if I let it kill me in the right way, then it's good. But I can't measure up. I can't do it. I can't follow it. And if I will accept that truth, then I will die to the law. I'll give up trying to approach God by this system. And then I have the opportunity to live to God.

It's only then that I can live to God. I can't live to God through my efforts. Through my efforts, I get condemnation. And if I will accept that truth, if I will accept that in the appropriate way, I will let that system die so that I don't try to approach God that way any longer. Do not set aside the grace of God. Hold fast to it. Even if there's pressure without, or maybe there is that pressure within,

Don't set aside because the works can't make you right with God. Works bring condemnation. And then finally, we'll finish it up in verse 20 and 21. Here's point number four. Live for the one who loves you. Verse 20. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

This, of course, is a famous verse. We know it well. Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ. That's how I destroyed the law. I was included with Christ in the crucifixion. So I'm dead to the law. I'm dead to legalism. I'm dead to a system of rules and regulations to try to earn God's favor and deserve his blessings. So it's no longer I who live. I'm dead, but I'm still alive. Now, when he talks about

you know, living. Don't think of it in the sense of like too literally, you know, breathing, you know, that kind of thing. We're talking about spiritual life and death. And spiritual life exists. I have spiritual life, not because I have rules and regulations that I follow. I have spiritual life because I've died to those things.

And I'm no longer trying to approach God on that basis. That's not what my spiritual life is about. But instead, it's Christ who lives in me. I have spiritual life because Christ included me. He died in my place at the crucifixion on the cross. That's where all of my efforts, all of my sins, all of my shortcomings, all of my failures, and all of my best efforts to be righteous, all of that nailed to the cross and

I never live like that any longer. I don't try to approach God like that any longer. That's not the basis of my spiritual life. But instead, Christ lives in me and I have spiritual life through him. And the life that I now live in this body, in my human nature, with my weaknesses and with my failures, I live by faith in the son of God. It's not on the basis of my efforts, but it's on the basis of faith.

But I like how he says here, faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And this, this, it's not just Paul, you know, kind of being poetic and, you know, kind of throwing in this little like insight or, you know, reminder about the love of the Lord. But I would say this is a core part of this whole passage. Remember who he's talking to here. Here's the church divided.

Here's Peter. Paul is addressing him publicly and saying, Peter, Jesus loves you. And he gave himself for you. And to behave this way and to go back to this kind of behavior, to go back to this kind of legalism, it's not just, you know, hey, you know, that's probably not a good thing to do. I wouldn't advise it, you know. It's not just not that good of an idea. It's

directly contrary to the one who loved you so much that he gave himself for you. It's a serious thing in that way. It's an offense to him. It's a despising of what he has done. It's a belittling of what he has done to try to then approach God on my efforts, on my merits, on my, you know, I'm worthy because I follow these things and I do these things. No, I have been crucified with Christ.

He loved me and he gave himself for me. And so the life that I live, I don't live by my efforts any longer. I live by faith in the son of God. It's his work that he did because he loved me. Really important reminder, good reminder for us. And so he goes on in verse 21. I do not set aside the grace of God for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. Peter set aside the grace of God.

He didn't mean to. It wasn't a deliberate, you know, I'm going to set aside the grace of God. It was just something that happened as the pressures came with these guys who came from Jerusalem. It can happen in our lives as well. There's pressure maybe from family, from fellow church members, from people around us. There's pressure to conform, to try to approach God, to try to work towards this or, you know, this is the right way, you know, that's not very Christian of you. And

Sure, there's a lot of behavior that God wants to address in our lives, but none of it is so that we might be right with God. None of it is so that we can have salvation, so that we can have better access to God or, you know, more of God's love. I shared this last week as well. God loves you when you're right with him and when you're not right with him. And he's always doing what's best for you because he loves you.

And so sometimes that includes correction and discipline, but God hasn't changed when that happens. It's not because he's not loving you, but it's precisely because he loves you that he brings that discipline. Because it's not good for you to be in that behavior, to continue in that. It's the way that God works in our lives, on the basis of his love, on the basis of his grace. Don't set aside the grace of God. Respond to God. And I already feel myself going too far down the path of

Faith without works is dead, right? So there's that side of the argument. There's that side of the understanding and the doctrine as well. There's important elements to that, but that's not for tonight. For tonight, live for the one who loves you. One final quote from Martin Luther. He says, what awful presumption to imagine that there is any work good enough to pacify God. When to pacify God required the invaluable price of the death and blood of his own and only Son,

Son, what can you do in comparison to what Christ has done for you? And to think that well. You know, I read my Bible 20 times this month. So God should be really, really happy with me.

To try to compare that to what he has done for you. Oh, what awful presumption, right? How terrible that is. But of course, we don't think of it in that turn. So that's why this kind of quote, you know, kind of hits us between the eyes and goes, oh man, I didn't think of it like that. That's what happened to Peter, right? It wasn't like malicious or trying to divide or trying to bring a trip on people or nothing like that, right? It was just...

Him responding to the pressures and the things that he was, and then all of a sudden, I think, you know, there's just kind of like, we don't actually get to see Peter's response. It's not recorded for us, but I think Peter was probably just like, duh, like, how could I fall into that again? Let it be a reminder for us. Don't set aside the grace of God. Live for the one who loves you because he loves you. Don't live trying to approach God on the basis of what you can do.

how you can perform, what you've done. Don't let others pressure you into that. Don't let others, you know, trick you into or sweep you into. Think about the progression, right? First it was Peter, and then it was like some of the Jews, and then it was more of the Jews, and then it was more of the Jews, and then it's like, kind of gives the picture. Then it's Barnabas, and then all the rest of the Jews are looking at Barnabas. Barnabas, aren't you going to get on board here? There's Barnabas feeling the pressure, like, oh...

Don't lay aside the grace of God. Really come to terms with the truth. God loves you. He died upon the cross for you. And there is nothing that you can add to that to make yourself worthy of God's work in your life. We all want God to work in our lives. We all want God to bless us. We all want salvation and eternity. But we can't earn that no matter how hard we try. And so help us to hold on to that, Lord.

And protect us from leading others astray. You know, it's something really important for us to consider. Our impact on others in regards to the grace of God. It is very easy for us to give others the impression that they must behave in order for God to love them. That they must behave. You know, it's like if you're naughty or nice, you know, it depends on what kind of presence you get, what kind of rewards you get. We have to be very careful. Learn from the lesson from God.

Peter and Barnabas and the rest of the Jews, don't set aside the grace of God.