Galatians chapter 2 you may be seated. Galatians chapter 2 and this morning we're going to be looking particularly at verses 11 through 15. Let me ask you a question. What is the most uncomfortable situation that you have ever been in? Do you have that in your mind? the most uncomfortable situation that you've ever been in. If I were to poll you, I would expect that of the, probably of those who are in this room today, perhaps 80% of you would have, it would have something to do with confrontation. Either you were going to confront someone, or you were being confronted. Now, I'm just curious. How many of you would say yes? I could be totally wrong about this, but how many of you would say, yeah, that was, it has something to do with that. Something you had in your mind had something to do with that. Raise your hand. Put them up. Okay. Good. Thank you. You didn't make me a liar. We're close to, well, maybe more like 70 or something. But anyway, confrontation is something that is extremely uncomfortable. I've been very interested lately in the revolutionary time period and the events leading up to the Declaration of Independence. We went up to Philadelphia not too long ago, and I've been reading a book. on John Adams and mentioned him before. And, you know, sometimes when we think of the Second Continental Congress getting together in Independence Hall and discussing the matters at hand, whether or not we should move toward independence, we sort of think of these stately men that were all, and they were stately to some degree, but they were sort of all calmly discussing the matter, and just all agreed on the need for independence, but then sort of needed to figure out the details, and there's sort of this calm discussion between all of the different groups. When you go down to Williamsburg, and you hear the fife and drum, and you go up to Philadelphia, and you hear the, you know, you see all these cheerful people around, you begin to think that this sort of had this idyllic idea of what happened in Philadelphia in 1776 and prior to that time. And the more that I've read about this, I've learned that that was anything but the case. That just as Congress was a bit dysfunctional, is now dysfunctional, it was back then too. and that there were different sides that could not come to agreement. Most notable was John Adams and John Dickinson. John Dickinson was the delegate from Pennsylvania, and John Adams was a delegate from Massachusetts, and they vehemently argued with each other during the Second Continental Congress. And so what we find is a great deal of struggle. In fact, John Adams said this, he said that he was talking with his return trip back to Massachusetts, he was talking to his wife Abigail, and he said he absolutely hated the sessions in Congress. He did not want to go back there. And yet, in fact, John Adams was one of the most vocal and most confrontational of all of our founding fathers. You had others like Thomas Jefferson who said very little, even Benjamin Franklin, sort of as John Adams accounted of it, was sort of much quieter. And yet you needed guys like John Adams to hold the line and to say what needed to be said Confrontation is never easy. But there are certain things worth fighting for. There are certain things worth confronting. And what we have in this passage is two of the most prominent leaders of the first century church, and one had to confront the other. The Apostle Paul has to confront the Apostle Peter. And he has to do it publicly. You want to talk about an uncomfortable situation. Both of them were men of God. Both of them were called clearly as an apostle by Christ. And not only that, but the Apostle Peter, because of what was going on, was actually trying to adjust to the desires of the pastor of James over in Jerusalem, who sent word that there needed to be something dealt with, and we're going to look into that. This was a very, you look at the first century church and sometimes we get this sort of idyllic concept of the first century church that everything just always went well. And everything was just sort of, you know, people were getting saved and that was true. There was a lot of people getting saved. People were being discipled and that was true too. But man, there was controversy in the early church. You had the Judaizers in one area, you had In all of Galatia, they were trying to, the region of Galatia, they were trying to establish a stronghold there. You had Gnosticism going on in other places. You had all kinds of controversy that were happening in the early church. And the truth of the matter is, there were men who just simply said, the gospel's worth it. The gospel is worth the controversy. The truth is, all of us, because we are born sinners and all of us are living in a fallen world, if we live with each other long enough, there's going to be controversy. And yet God says in this passage, we see here clearly that the Apostle Paul was willing to confront what needed. It's interesting in this passage as well, I just want to note by way of introduction that the Apostle Peter you're going to get a glimpse of him, and Peter was clearly in the wrong in this passage. But I want to say that what I appreciate about the passage is that Peter evidently, although it's not in this passage, it's basically inferred that the Apostle Peter admitted that he was wrong and just kept going. And there is just great comfort, I think, for me as a pastor to realize that even the first century church was under great controversy, and yet God worked in the midst of that controversy. He worked in the midst of that struggle to bring forth a church that was truly a church that was going to bring forth the gospel. Well, let's go to the Lord in prayer and ask his blessing as we look at this, at this, at what's going on here and how Paul has to bring, identify a problem in Peter because he is not living a life that matches gospel truth. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we do come to you and we pray, Lord, that as we look at your word this morning, that we would see the truth of the gospel. that we would see that is worth living for. And dying for. And preaching. Lord, would you teach us that it is the prominent and the preeminent thing that we must constantly keep? In the midst of the confusion in the midst of the struggle in the midst of the problems. May the gospel rule in our hearts. and may we live for it. And we pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. Well, we pick up here and we see the Apostle Paul as he identifies the problem in this Apostle Peter. Now, I'll remind you that last week we learned of the great unity that the Apostle Paul had as he went up to Jerusalem 14 years after his conversion. And he explained the gospel that he was preaching to the Gentiles, to those folks, and he brought Titus as a witness with him. Actually, it was sort of a case study with him of a person, a Gentile, that was converted. And there was a great unity that occurred on the part of some of the more prominent apostles in Jerusalem as Paul did this. Now Paul and Antioch is going to take a different approach. He's now going to explain that he actually has to oppose Peter in this instance. One of the accusations that people were making about Paul was that he was duplicitous, that he was one who changed his message. What Paul is doing in accounting of this is he's basically explaining that he did not and would not change his message. Despite what was going on, if others were adjusting, he would not change. And in fact, he was anything but duplicitous. In fact, his message remained true and he fought for it because it was true. So we pick up here in verse 11. It says, But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed. For before the certain 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. What we need to do is we need to understand some of the background of what's happening here in this passage. The issue that the Apostle Paul was having with Peter had to do with dietary laws. Dietary laws were very specific as they were set up in the Old Testament. For example, in Leviticus chapter 11, verse 1, it says, now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, speak to the children of Israel, saying, these are the animals which you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth. And then, of course, there were others that they could not eat. In verse 8 of that passage, it says, their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch. They are unclean to you. For I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore consecrate yourselves, and you shall be holy, for I am holy. Neither shall you defile yourselves with any creeping thing that creeps on the earth. For I am the Lord who brings you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy. This is the law of the animals and the birds and every living thing that moves on the waters and every creature that creeps on the earth, to distinguish between the unclean and the clean and between the animal that may be eaten and the animal that may not be eaten." Very clear words, aren't they? Very direct statements about what the nation of Israel could eat and could not eat, what things were clean and what things were unclean. In Deuteronomy, it warns the nation of Israel that they should not eat of the detestable thing. And we know from the book of Daniel that Daniel and his friends follow the dietary laws when they would not eat the portion of the king's meat nor the wine which he drank. And he was and God actually brought Daniel into good favor with the prince of the eunuchs at that time. Why? Because God blessed Daniel because Daniel was withholding from eating this these unclean foods. It's interesting that by the time, of course, that was during the Babylonian captivity time. After that time, during the intertestamental period time, we actually have more that's being said about these dietary laws. In fact, In a book that is certainly not canonical, it's not inspired for Maccabees 4.26, it actually says in that passage that to eat with somebody that is eating unclean food is a renunciation of Judaism. And in fact, there was mandates that came from the religious leaders, the Jewish leaders that said that we should under no circumstances allow Israel to eat with a Gentile that was eating unclean food in case there could possibly be defilement. We need to withhold from all that altogether. And so by the time the first century rolls around, you have this mandate coming that you cannot even eat with a Gentile. It's interesting that I can't find anywhere in scripture that actually says don't do that. Not in God's word, in the Old Testament, the law. But these were, among many of the rabbinical writings, these were more things that were added to the law. But it's interesting that when Christ came on the scene, and this is a verse that we are going to continue to refer to as we look at this passage, by the time Christ comes on the scene, he says in Matthew 5, verse 17, do not think that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets, I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. When Christ came, he came to fulfill the demands of the law. And so there was a new law inaugurated by Christ whereby we must keep his law rather than the old Mosaic law that was clearly fulfilled by Christ. In fact, in a couple of chapters later in Matthew chapter 7, it says in verse 15, Christ says, there is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him, but the things which come out of him. Those are the things that defile a man. He's actually talking about words. He's talking about speech. Those are the things that actually defile a man. Christ inaugurated a new law whereby the defilement of food was no longer to be a consideration. It was not something to be concerned about. But this was taking a little while for the first century to get caught on to this idea. This was not something that they latched onto very easily. It's interesting, we get really caught up in traditions and forms, don't we? We like the way things are done. When they're done a certain way for a long time, we just sort of get real comfortable with that way. I'm sure that's exactly what happened with the Jewish Christians of the first century. They got comfortable with not eating with Gentiles, and they got very antsy when anybody ate with a Gentile that was a Jewish Christian. Now, what else? The other thing that we need to understand about this, we see, of course, that they are in Antioch, and that Peter has Paul had to confront Peter. And really, to understand this, we need to understand the Apostle Peter's position on all of this initially. Would you take your Bibles and turn to Acts chapter 10, and we're going to see this. Acts chapter 10. In Acts chapter 10, it's probably a familiar passage to most of you, if not all of you. It's a passage that explains in vivid detail for the Apostle Peter the reversing of this idea of food being unclean. Let's pick up in verse 9 of chapter 10. On the morrow, as they went on their journey and drew nigh into the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour. And he began became very hungry and would have eaten. But while they made ready, he fell into a trance and saw heaven opened and a certain vessel descending onto him as it as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners and let down the earth. wherein were all manners of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And there came to a voice to him, Rise, Peter, kill, and eat." Now this is something that Peter was distraught by. kill and Peter says, no, I would never do this. This is not something I am in any way interested at all. But clearly, Peter, God says to him, don't call unclean what I have cleansed. And Peter got the idea. In fact, it actually says in the passage, it's sort of interesting, it says that three times this was said to him. Does that remind you of anything? Three times Peter denied Christ. Three times Christ later on demonstrates that Peter needs to love Christ. And now three times he says this very, very important truth about eating meat that was previously unclean that God has made cleansed. And Peter gets it. He grasps this. He really, he owns this. For instance, in chapter 10, verse 28, would you pick up there? Chapter 10, verse 28, he says, and he said unto them, ye know that it is not an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company or come unto one of another nation. But God has showed me that I should not call any man common or unclean. In fact, he becomes an advocate for this truth, and he preaches this truth consistently and constantly. Look at chapter 10, verses 34 through 36. It says, then Peter opened his mouth and said, of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, which is the point. But in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him. The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ, he is Lord of all. Peter understood that the implications of what was being said was that all are equal and all have equal opportunity to come to the cross. And there is not one nation that is supposed to be set above another, or one ethnic group that is supposed to be set above another. This was something that the Jewish Christians had to learn. And Peter was opposed by certain people. You'll notice in chapter 11, verse one. And the apostles and brethren that were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God. And when Peter was come up, to Jerusalem that they that were of the circumcision, you'll see this term of the circumcision often, contended with him. Peter fought valiantly for this truth. He contended with those who were of the circumcision, who basically said that you had to follow the Mosaic law in order to truly be saved. Peter fights against this. And we know that Peter, when he was with Cornelius and the other Gentiles that came to Christ, he ate with them. So this is something that is, and then notice, if you'll go to Acts 15, what he says in Acts 15 among the brethren that are there in this great council discussing whether Gentiles need to be circumcised or not. Go to Acts 15 for a moment. It says, and when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them, men and brethren, you know that a good while ago, God chose among us that by my mouth, the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts. You know the problem? The problem was that somewhere between Acts chapter 11 and Acts chapter 15, somewhere Peter got off track. Peter was an Antioch. And Peter changed his behavior. Now, turn back to Galatians and you'll see why Peter changed his behavior. And this is quite enlightening as to what happened here. Galatians chapter two, we're back in Galatians. Now in Galatians chapter two, here's what it says. We'll pick up again and we'll look at this with this kind of background. We'll look at it again and it says, Verse 12, for before that a certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles. But when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them, that they which were of the circumcision. So there were these people that were of the circumcision. And this was before it all came to a head in the Jerusalem Council in Acts chapter 15, where it all was finally settled. But before this point, there seemed to be a concern on the part of James, who was up in Jerusalem, who was actually the lead pastor in Jerusalem, about Peter's actions of eating with the Gentiles. And so these people who were of the circumcision began to sort of work both sides of this and they were trying to get their own agenda in place. Again, this was before all the apostles came together and established the truth of the fact that this was unnecessary. It's interesting, isn't it? James, who was a prominent leader in Jerusalem, trying to influence Peter, and we don't really know all of the reasons. It's possible that actually the Jews in Jerusalem were undergoing persecution. And the more by other Jews, the Christian Jews in Jerusalem were being persecuted by the unbelieving Jews. That's a possibility. And when they heard that Peter was eating with Gentiles over in Antioch, they underwent more persecution. And so Peter may have, that may be what's going on here. It's really hard to say, but what we do know is that there was a concern on the part of James. There was pressure from these people who were quote unquote of the circumcision. And Peter succumbs to the fear of man. That's what it says, he feared them. What Paul is going to do is identify hypocrisy. It's called dissimulation or hypocrisy in Peter. The fear of man often leads to hypocrisy. Now, before we get too hard on Peter, can you understand the difficulty Peter was in? This is not an easy position for Peter to be in, particularly if they were undergoing more persecution because Peter was eating with the Gentiles. I mean, he was in a tough spot, I think. I look at it and see it that way. He had to decide what he was going to do, and I can really understand why he might say, you know what, maybe I ought to back off from doing this for a while so that my brethren up in Jerusalem either don't get disunified or they don't get persecuted or whatever is going on. I think Peter was in a tough position here. The Apostle Paul is going to set the record straight, though. He was like John Adams. Paul didn't mince any words. He was going to deal with what he needed to deal with, and he was going to do it for the sake of the gospel. I want us to realize this, though, folks, that the fear of man is always something that we need to be careful about. There is always danger when we succumb to the fear of man. The Bible says the fear of man is a reproach and a snare. It's interesting that the Apostle Paul tells Pastor Timothy that he should not be fearful. He said, God has not given us the spirit of fear or timidity, but of love and of power and of a sound mind. I think for a pastor or for somebody in the ministry, one of the greatest temptations for us is the fear of man. It is extremely compelling. It is so much easier to fear man who is in front of me than to fear God who is not visibly in front of me. And the Bible says that the fear of man is indeed a reproach and a snare. The fear of man, according to this passage, is an example that produces hypocrisy. Peter knew what he believed about this. Peter internally understood that he believed that there was no difference between Jew and Gentile in Christ. And that he should eat with the Gentiles. Peter knew in his heart. He was given a vision and a trance three times about this. He was vehemently preaching for this. He was a great proponent. He knew it was in his heart. But the fear of man caused him to adjust his behavior. to go the other direction, to do what was not in his heart to do. He became hypocritical. And this was of great danger, folks, for one simple reason. Because others were going to follow him. Others were going to follow Peter. Peter was the leading apostle at the time. He was the one called to the Jewish people. And whatever the Jewish people were going to do, they were going to follow Peter in his own example. Verse 13 explains that even Barnabas, who was another great proponent of including the Gentiles, even Barnabas began to no longer eat with the Gentiles. It's interesting, isn't it? What we choose to do does affect other people. I think that's important for us to remember. It's like the old saying, the ripple effect. Throw a rock in the pond, it doesn't just hit the one spot, it hits the one spot and there's a ripple that moves out. And the larger the rock, the larger the ripple. Peter's a really big rock, even though his name means small rock. He's a really big rock in this pond. And there is great ripple effects. And folks, that's why the Apostle Paul has to deal with this. Because it has such overreaching ramifications. It is going to affect the entire church. It runs the risk, actually, of splitting the church in two. I don't mean just a local church. I mean the church. And so Paul understands that he has got to Get what Paul does. Paul confronts Peter in the middle of a bunch of other people. This was not in private. This was in public. To his face. He does that kind of confronting work. Now, some people might say, well, why did he not go to him privately? In Matthew 18, you're familiar with a passage probably in v. 15 where it says that if somebody trespasses against you, that you should go to him and him alone. And then hopefully you'll regain your brother. And that is prescriptive if they've trespassed against you. But in this case, Peter had trespassed against the gospel. This was something that was a public matter. And so because it was a public matter, he had to deal with it on a public level in order for all of the people around to understand that Peter was wrong. It was inappropriate for him to withhold from eating with the Gentiles and to separate from them. It was inappropriate to do that. And so we find the Apostle Paul is going to confront Peter in this way. Let me ask you this question at this point. What is the root of the problem here in Peter's life? Why is Peter succumbing to this temptation? I mean, I think all of us can understand why this would happen, the pressure on Peter to do this. But ultimately, what would keep us from succumbing to the same kind of pressure? What would keep us from this kind of hypocrisy? And the answer is found in the very next verse, in verse 14. Verse 14 tells us, But when I saw that they had 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? He says, you are not living a straightforward life when it comes to the gospel. You are not living straightly. It literally means you're not ortho-walking. You know what ortho means, don't you? All of you that have, my oldest daughter's gonna have to have braces soon, probably. That is a man alive. I don't even wanna. All to straighten her teeth out. Ortho means straight, that's what ortho means. An orthodontist is someone that straightens your teeth and makes a lot of money. I know he's worth everybody makes, I'm sure, but man, they do make a lot of money. I picked the wrong business or something anyway. An orthodontist shoots straight. Or he straightens teeth. And so this word, it means he's not living consistent. Peter stopped living consistent with the truth of the Gospel. He was not acting in line with the Gospel. You know, the truth of the matter is, there's a great application for us. If we want to keep from hypocrisy, if we want to guard ourselves against the fear of man, then we must constantly realign our lifestyle to be consistent with the gospel. It is necessary for us to constantly pay attention to watch whether we're in alignment or out of alignment. It is so easy for us to drift, to get out of alignment when it comes to our lifestyle as to whether or not it's consistent with the gospel. We could easily be like Peter in being hypocritical. The focus that I have on Sunday in worshiping with the Gospel in the center ought to be my focus on Monday in worshiping personally with the Gospel in the center of my life. There ought not be a duplicity in us, much of which comes from the fear of man. Have you ever come into an opportunity to share the Gospel with someone? It was clear, it was available, but the fear of man kept you from sharing it. That is an example of what occurs because of the fear of man that we get derailed and sidetracked when it comes to the truth of the gospel. It is so important for us to make sure that we are constantly realigning ourselves, that we are in a constant gospel realignment process. That's what the problem was with Peter. He was not in this, he was not involved, he got derailed. He was no longer in alignment here. Now it's interesting that it says this in the passage. Paul is going to point out the clear hypocrisy. He says in verse 14, he says, I said unto Peter before them all, if thou being a Jew livest after the manner of Gentiles, did he do that? Did Peter do that? He did. Once God told him, don't call unclean what I've called clean, he began to live after the manner of Gentiles. Not as do the Jews Why then would you compel? Thou the Gentiles to live as the Jews he said you have a you have a an effect that's going to happen here by what you're doing in in initially living by the Gentile living with and Operating as a Gentile, which is what Peter was doing which was right. That's what God said to do He then was now going to adjust and was going to pull pull some of the Gentiles to try to adjust to being a Jew which was wrong and God never intended for that to happen. And also, he was going to keep the Jews from mixing with the Gentiles, which was implied, the passage is not said specifically. There are major problems with what Peter is doing, and Peter's not seeing it, and he has to have somebody to tell him what he can't see for himself. You know, that's why we have the body of Christ, by the way. The body of Christ, we ought to be able to talk to each other about things that we see that are blind spots in the lives of others. Do you have that freedom? You have the freedom that if you see a blind spot in the life of another believer that is in our church or maybe outside of our church, that you can go to them and say, hey, look, I'm concerned about what, I'm concerned about the direction you're going. I'm concerned that this is inconsistent with the gospel. This is inconsistent with what the truth of the word of God says. This lifestyle is not consistent. Would you be open to somebody else coming to you that way? Did you know that the body of Christ is intended to be that way? That all of us, from time to time, have the ability to become blind to certain areas, and we need each other to identify those areas. The Bible indicates that there's a sense in which our church should be confrontational. That's very uncomfortable, isn't it? It's so much easier just to keep to myself, do my own thing, and not worry about anybody else. That's not church, biblically. That's playing church. See folks, it's very clear in Scripture that we need to, our lives need to be consistent with the gospel, and sometimes that's going to mean making adjustments for the sake of the body of Christ, and identifying areas where that's necessary. So how do we guard against all this possibility of hypocrisy and all this? You know the answer to this at the very baseline? It's really to grasp the gospel. It's really to understand it. I am convinced that in some ways we're not consistent with the gospel because we don't really rehearse the gospel enough. And what the Apostle Paul then does here in verse 15 is he is now going to remind us the nature of the gospel. Look at verse 15. We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that 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 also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid." This is telling us, folks, that there is no difference between the Jew and the Gentile. All are sinners. The Jew is a sinner because of the violation of the law. The Gentile is equally a sinner because of the violation of the moral law. This is clearly laid out in Romans chapter two, where it describes both the Jews' violation of the law through the Mosaic law, they could not keep it, which was supposed to bring them to Christ, and the inner moral law that is in everybody's heart that our conscience knows that we are sinners. And that is the something that puts us on an equal plane before God. And Christ redeems us all as an equal plane, that we all can come to Christ as well. The situation that the early church found themselves in was a situation of nationalism versus gospel. Nationalism on the one hand, are we going to be a nation of Jews that has a religion? Or are we going to believe the gospel that has no national attachment at all? You and I can be very, we can be deceived by this as well. We do live in a country that had, though not entirely by any stretch, had some, people that professed to know Christ that were founding fathers. I actually think there are probably more deists than Christians in my research. You have a couple of people that were Christians, most were deists, were not saved. And it's really a false idea that we are founded entirely on a Christian nation. Now, did they have Christian principles? The answer is yes, they did. And they founded the nation on certain inalienable rights that were endowed by their creator. Everybody was creator-centric. They understood that we were all created and created equally. And so it's not as though there was a bad element to our founding. In fact, it was a very good and biblical element. But folks, we need to understand that the gospel is tied to no nation. The gospel is tied to no country. And as soon as we think that it is tied to a particular country, we are actually adulterating the gospel. This was very prolific in the life of William Carey as he went over to India to become a missionary. William Carey was one of the first, if not the first missionary to India. He had created a Baptist Society of Missions over there. And William Carey noted that in 1764, a man by the name of Krishna Pal came to Christ. He was in Calcutta, India. That was the first Indian convert to Christianity. He was a carpenter by trade, this man, and hurt his arm, and broke his arm in a particular carpentry accident, and he went to that particular Baptist society that had a medical component to it. He then learned of the need, of his own spiritual need of sin, and he came to Christ. William Carey in his biography explains, though, that what occurred in that time was that they began to observe this man and there was a particular action that he took that demonstrated tangibly that he truly did come to Christ and That was that very soon after his conversion. He rejected the caste system The caste system was embedded into the national culture of India all was everyone was born into a caste system and those systems did not mix and The gospel was so, and it was there for many, many, many years. The gospel was so powerful in the life of this man, Krishna Paul, that he rejected his own caste and went and ate with others of another caste system. It demonstrated the great power of the gospel in the life of a man who otherwise would never have done such a thing. You see, the gospel is not something that we, it's not just some intuition, it's not just something we believe for the sake of belief. This is something that changes lives. This is something that makes true differences in the lives of people. One of the things that happens when the gospel takes hold of a heart of an individual is that his allegiance? becomes entirely toward Christ and When that comes into conflict with his national allegiance the allegiance will stay with Christ Folks we need to have the same resolve when we in our culture choose to follow the culture even when that culture goes against the truths of the gospel, we are making very dangerous decisions. Rather, what we must resolve to do is stay true to the gospel, live by the gospel, constantly adjust ourselves to the gospel so that we can live for that furtherance of the gospel message. I wanna end just simply with four important conclusive points. Number one, we must constantly engage ourselves in the process of gospel realignment. The Bible is very clear that God's intention for us is not to live comfortably. Comfort is the enemy of gospel realignment. God's intent, if you're living comfortably, too comfortably, you might want to just check yourself a little bit and make sure that you're living consistently with the gospel. We must constantly engage ourselves in the process of gospel realignment. Number two, we must guard against the fear of man, which is often a path to gospel hypocrisy. we must guard against the fear of man, which is often a path to gospel hypocrisy. Do you see the connection between the two? Such an important connection that we understand that succumbing to the fear of man leads to hypocrisy. Number three, we must willingly confront when the gospel is at stake. Whether it's the truth of the gospel and the message, or the lifestyle of the gospel, we must willingly confront when the gospel is at stake. And number four, we must be aware that our actions do affect others. Now let me insert this caveat. There are some times where our actions, we do the very right thing and it seems like it creates a very wrong ripple effect. Sometimes you can only do what you can do. A lot of times you can only do what you can do. That's why it's so important for us to stay focused on the gospel. The gospel makes things clear for us. The gospel brings clarity in the midst of confusion. And I know I'm right if my actions are consistent with the gospel. And I know I'm wrong when my actions are inconsistent with the gospel. And you say, well, how do you know the difference? That's Galatians. We're going to learn this as we go through the rest of the chapters of Galatians, the difference between consistency and inconsistency in the gospel. We're going to get, right now we are diving into the doctrines. When we come to chapters four and five, we're going to move out of the doctrines into practical life, and there is going to be all kinds of seeing how our lives ought to live consistently with the gospel. Very, very important truth for us to understand. Let's pray together. Father, we pray that you would help our lives to truly be consistent. And we thank you for the Apostle Paul, who stood valiantly for the truth of the gospel, who confronted, despite being in an obviously uncomfortable situation, and chose to do right. Or we thank you for Peter, who adjusted his actions from everything we can tell. and that the gospel continue to go forward in that area and continue to just multiply and flourish through your first century church. Lord, may you help us to make right applications in our lives so that we can stay true to the truth of the gospel. And we pray these things in Christ's name, amen.