Did you grow up in a house where you were told to not rock the
rock? The what?
The the cradle? Don't rock the boat.
You know, I, I think sometimes we're, we're told to just sort
of be calm, be cool, chill out. Don't stick your hand in the,
the oven, the fire, the cookie, the hornet's nest.
Like we're, we're told to just take it easy sometimes.
But all of us who are followers of Jesus will find that there
are moments in our life where we must rock the boat.
We must disturb the status quo. We must speak up, speak out, act
out so that we can be in line with the gospel and with Jesus.
In a sense, we're going against the grain of our culture or
against the grain of particular crowd.
Even at times we find we're going against the grain of all
church or an institutional expression of church.
This summer we made our way through the book of Acts and Sam
preached on one of my favorite churches in the book of Acts,
the Church of Antioch. This was in Acts Chapter 11, and
Antioch seemed like a perfect church.
Things were going great. In fact, through Acts, we see no
evidence of conflict in Antioch. It's like reading the book of
Ephesians. You see no evidence of conflict
in the book of Ephesians. But if you read Acts, Paul sort
of foresees conflict in Ephesus. And then you read Timothy and
you discover, Oh my goodness, that church blew up.
Well, Antioch almost blew up as a church.
And it seems strange when we read the book of Galatians that
we actually are getting Paul's account of a crisis in Antioch.
In fact, it should be comforting to us in some ways that if you
hang out with church long enough, you'll find there's a
crisis, you'll find there are conflicts, you will find there
are disappointments, you will find there are hurts.
Because we're all trying to work it out.
What does it mean to follow Jesus?
What does it mean to have the power of the Spirit and the
truth of His word in our lives? It creates conflict.
So there was a crisis in Antioch.
Paul speaks of it in those letter to Galatians because it
seems that some have arrived in the area of Galatia with their
own version of the conflict. And in their version of the
conflict, Paul loses and he's like, hey, that's not the truth
of the gospel. I'm going to tell you the truth
of the gospel. And I'm going to remind you, let
you know what actually happened in Antioch, that Paul had to go
against the grain. Paul had to rock the boat when
even the greatest leaders of the church were present.
He calls them pillars of the church.
Whatever they are, he says they're just men.
They're just people trying to work out their life with Jesus.
And I saw that they were not acting in line with the gospel
and had to speak up. Let's see how it goes.
When Cephas, that's Peter Cephas.
It's interesting that Paul uses that name.
But when Peter Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his
face because he stood condemned. 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 belong to the circumcision group.
The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their
hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.
So here's the conflict. This is what it looked like.
He's recalling a moment where a group of followers of Jesus who
were Jewish arrived in Antioch where they had seen both Jew and
Gentile background people get to know Jesus and enjoy table
fellowship. But when Peter and this group
arrived, Peter withdrew. He rejected the fellowship with
Gentile Christians. How does rejection feel?
It's like a broken heart. I saw that Juno rejection
actually feels like if it's just words even, or if it's just
social withdrawal. Social scientists tell us that
in the measures of our Physiology, it actually does
feel like a punch in the gut. And so the gentile believers had
had a punch in the gut. Peter had withdrawn from
fellowship with them. The leader of the Church of
Jerusalem with James and others had withdrawn from sharing the
table with them. They had given up their freedom
of association in Christ to associate across the barriers of
Jewishness and gentileness of the Torah and those who didn't
have the Torah. There was a ripple effect from
the this move. Every move has unintended
consequences. Or maybe they intended them.
It says that other Jews joined Peter in this rejection.
And even Barnabas. If you all were really with me,
you'd go, oh, even Barnabas, Not Barney, not Barney, Even
Barnabas rejected them and joined in.
What was at stake was not just table fellowship.
What was at stake was an understanding of the gospel of
Jesus, What actually makes people acceptable to God.
You ever been stuck at an airport?
Unacceptable. They had become stuck outside
the table because people were not acting in line with the
gospel. So Paul moves forward then, and
he begins to argue for their freedom of association.
He argues for their freedom in Christ.
Let's see how he argues it. So this is what he shared with
Peter. And 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, we who are Jews by
birth and not sinful Gentiles? He, he sort of gives him a
little bit of a, a line there, You know, like those pagans,
those sinners, those people who didn't have the law.
He uses that word. Sinful Gentiles know that a
person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith
in Christ Jesus. 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. That probably should be capital
L law, the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, because by
the works of the law no one will be justified.
And by that word justified, he means made acceptable to God.
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.
If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a law
breaker. So here's a summary of his
argument. It's got four parts.
Here's the first three really quick.
Paul argues first that Peter's table manners are incongruent
with his life. He's like, I know you, Peter,
before you got here, you, because of your life with Jesus,
would follow everyone. Remember, Peter had had that
second conversion experience in the book of Acts where he saw
from heaven God dropped down a sheet with all kinds of animals
and said, let's have a feast, kill it and eat.
And every time Peter was like, no, no, no.
And then finally God says to him, you know Peter, it took
three times to get stuff usually.
Finally God says to Peter, don't call unclean that which I have
made clean. And Paul came out of that vision
and experience saying, oh, I get it.
God actually shows no favoritism between Jew and Gentile, but now
all are made clean by Christ. And it became a real living
experience when Cornelius knocked at the door and came in.
Or actually Peter went to Cornelius's house afterwards and
saw the Spirit of God work in their lives.
And he's like, I get it. God shows no favoritism between
Jew and Gentile, but now all are justified by Christ.
Look, he's given the Spirit. What can keep them from being
baptized? In other words, immersed into
our fellowship with God and with us?
So Paul points back and says, hey, Peter, I know you.
I I know you've had this experience.
I know you have different table manners.
What's going on? It's incongruent.
Then he points to Jesus's saving work.
He says, look, we know it. We had the law, but the law did
not make us acceptable to God. Our attempts at keeping the law
did not make us acceptable God. Our moralism didn't make us
acceptable to God. But Christ Jesus has made us
acceptable to God because now, through Christ, the perfect Lamb
of God, we have been forgiven, cleansed, made righteous, he
says. We know that you know that this
is the truth and reality of the gospel.
God provided forgiveness of sin to the Jews.
He's provided forgiveness of sin to the Gentiles and it's
fundamentally changed our identity.
Now he introduces the dilemma of following Jesus that perhaps
they were sharing as a He raises their rhetorical question.
Look, if following Jesus makes us hang out with sinners, then
is something wrong with Jesus? Couldn't we correct this problem
by making the sinners become Jewish?
They should be circumcised. They should follow our diet.
And Paul says no, that's not it at all.
Don't you know that Jesus was a friend of sinners?
Jesus was accused because of his company and those he associated
with. And so he's saying, look, if
following Jesus, the friend of sinners, brings us into the
fellowship with sinners, does that mean Jesus promotes sin?
And he says absolutely not. He uses the strongest of phrases
there to say no, no, no, not at all.
And then he says, do I need to rebuild the law that separates
Jew and Gentile? No, of course not.
We don't need to do that. So what do we need to do?
Paul keeps going in his argument.
It's incredible. Paul actually presents a new
vision for discipleship, and I believe this vision of
discipleship wasn't just for the Jewish followers of Jesus who
had the law, but this was a vision of discipleship for those
who were Gentiles who knew nothing about the law either.
They didn't know all the rules of God.
They didn't have the 10 commandments.
Now they got it as they perhaps read the Scripture, but Paul's
vision of being a follower of Jesus was actually incredibly
profound and startling. In fact, the Galatian church,
when they read this, would have been gripped with maybe fear.
Maybe we've become so familiar with it that we don't recognize
it. And so read it with me.
Here we go. This is his vision of
discipleship. Here's one more thing.
Well, what about the grumpy guy here?
Now I, I want to, I want to remind you that every vision of
discipleship doesn't always make us immediately happy.
You see the grumpy guy there, it doesn't always make us happy.
You know when Jesus spoke to the rich young ruler, he said to
him, come follow me but first go sell all that you have and then
come follow me and you will be perfect.
The rich young ruler had brought up the law and how he had kept
the commands and and Jesus just looked past that and said, we'll
sell all you have. And there he found the idol that
was in this man's hands and heart.
And he says he went away sad. I hope he didn't become a grumpy
old man. I hope he actually found that
true movement of discipleship that Jesus talks about many
times. And now Paul is going to talk
about it's a kind of discipleship that goes against
the grain because it speaks of death.
OK, now we're ready 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 now live in the body. 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 could
be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing.
So here's Paul's vision of discipleship.
To be able to say I have been crucified with Christ.
Say it with me, I have been crucified with Christ.
This is his confession. And it would have been shocking
to them that the people in Galatia were actually had a lot
of retired Roman soldiers and Roman citizens, and they knew
the activity of the state of Rome in its fiercest expression
of capital punishment was the cross.
What, I'm going to so identify with Jesus that I too would be
crucified? What are you after, Paul?
This sounds crazy. I am crucified with Christ and I
no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
He's talking about a fundamental exchange in our lives.
Jesus put it this way. If you want to be my disciple,
you must deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow me.
That there is a death to self. Not the death of yourself, but
there is a death to self. That's required in following
Jesus and in being spiritually formed as His.
There are so many times and so many original stories of how
followers of Jesus have been invited to Jesus and he finds
the idol in their hands and heart and says that must die,
that must go. There have been occasions in
each of our lives where we were moving forward in life and
life's reality itself seemed like death to accept.
Because how am I going to live with that shame, disappointment,
problem, experience? And to move forward in it feels
like death. And so Paul says, look, if we
are actually to move into the life of Christ, we must somehow
become adept at this experience of dying to self with Christ so
that he might live in us. We'll come back.
There's more to it. The second thing that he
envisioned is that I live by faith in the Son of God.
Would you say it with me? I live by faith in the Son of
God. This is the second part of the
experience. It's not just that we die now,
but we live because Christ is living in US.
And what he engages us in is an active exercise of faith in
someone. And he uses a very real and
present term, not just the Messiah, but Son of God.
He wants us to know about Jesus in the flesh.
And so he says, this life I now live in the body.
This life I now live in the body.
Check and see if you have one. You've all got a body and this
is the only place you have to live your life in Christ.
This is the place. Would you say that with me?
This is the place. Welcome to Peru, one of our
favorite restaurants. I don't know if it was because
of the food or just because of the guy out front would all the
time greet us every time we came down the sidewalk in Machu
Picchu. This is the place.
This is the place right here. So this is the place that you
have to live your spiritual life of faith in Christ.
You're not going to transfer your soul to someone else or to
your computer someday, but your soul was meant to be alive
before God and in this body now, and all the difficulties and
suffering and experiences and troubles and joys that come,
this is the place you are meant to live by faith in Christ.
So he says I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and
gave himself for me. That fundamental experience of
knowing I am loved. The person in this body is
loved, the person in this body is known by God, The person in
this body is still becoming, and every decision made by faith
means I'm becoming more like Jesus.
Our vision here at Origin is that we would joyfully invest in
relationships to spark a life journey with Jesus.
What is a life journey with Jesus?
A life journey with Jesus is 1 in which you get to know Jesus.
It's one in which you become like Jesus, and it's one in
which you join Jesus in his mission.
Now that gets me really excited. But I know that we can never be
that kind of people together unless we will learn the ways of
dying to self, being crucified with Christ, unless we will
learn the ways of living by faith in Christ Jesus, making
decisions based on our relationship with Jesus.
And then third, that we would hold on to the grace of God for
righteousness. So say it with me.
I hold on to the grace of God for righteousness.
Paul says I don't let it go. I don't nullify it.
I don't make it empty or turn it vain or into nothing.
Instead, I'm always holding on to the grace of God for
righteousness, for whatever makes me acceptable to God.
This is Christ justifying us. And so whatever righteousness
develops in my life because I'm following Jesus, I don't point
to that and say so good, so good.
Did you see that? So good, LG I'm looking good.
Not at all. Instead I say, oh, so I
consecrate even that move of being able to recognize, oh God,
look, there's some good today. Wow, God, I'm so happy about
that. That was a win in my life.
And then I say, Oh God, thank you so much for your grace in my
life that that that's come about because that's the fruit of your
spirit in my life, which Paul's going to get to later in
Galatians. That's more Lovejoy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness. Thank you for finishing that out
there. That's more of the fruit of the
spirit. That's more of the righteousness
of God. And when accused by others and
accused by Satan, the accuser of the brethren, I point to, oh,
look, it's all Jesus. It's not up to me.
So there it is, his vision of discipleship crucified with
Christ, living by faith in Christ and holding on to the
grace of God. God, this is how we become
disciples of Jesus. That's how it starts for some of
you. You've been on the cusp of
wanting to trust Jesus, of getting to know Jesus, of having
a relationship with Jesus, and some of you've checked that box
off every week on the connection card.
We see you, we're praying for you.
But we know that part of that step isn't just to be a fan of
Jesus. Part of that step is to say
there's something that's going to die in my life and now I'm
going to follow Jesus 'cause I'm going to lay it down.
I'm going to lay it down and trust this with Jesus.
My friend Bryce had been a follower of Jesus and he loved
football. He loved football.
He's a short guy, but his vision was of playing football forever.
And as he began to follow Jesus, he realized, I think Jesus is
asking me to give up football. And it pained him to give it up.
He began to pursue his life and mission with Jesus.
He accepted a position to go to France to serve as a missionary
with a team in France. When he got to France, they
said, we are actually so happy you're here because we want you
to coach American football in France.
He was so excited God gave it back to him.
He didn't know it. You never know what God's going
to give back to you when you lay it down.
But for every one of us, this move and discipleship means that
we have to die to something. Paul says I face death every
day. He's like in reality he did.
But I think he was also suggesting that he, he dies
daily to himself and he lives by faith in Christ Jesus who loves
him. He knows he's loved.
And then he keeps holding on to the grace of Christ, the grace
of God. And here's the strange thing is,
you and I are actually called to live against the grain.
Do you see the cross there in the Timbers and he's leaning on
the back of it? Have you ever seen a bear get up
to a a tree and scratch their back?
I saw my wife do that once in in the hallway.
She was like, I've got an itch in my back and she's leaned up
against the the post there in the hallway and scratched her
back. But here's the thing.
You've got to lean on Jesus. You've got to lean on the cross
of Christ. You've got to lean against the
grain of the cross in order to be the kind of person who can go
against the grain. So that you can live in line
with the gospel, so that others can live in line with the truth
of the gospel, So that your church can live in line with the
truth of the gospel, so that your neighbor can live in line
with the truth of the gospel. You've got to be the kind of
person who puts their hand in the hornet's nest.
You've got to be the kind of person who sort of rocks the
boat and says, hey, have you ever thought about Jesus?
You've got to be the kind of person who invites others to the
table of your home. I want you to think of the most
holy person you know, the most holy, lovable Christian you
know. One of my heroes in the faith
has been Dallas Willard. And years ago I read an article
where Dallas Willard says I hated my neighbors and I was
like, not Dallas, no, not him, he says.
I realized I did not love the people next door.
They were dangerous, they were unpleasant.
They were ex bikers who made their life by selling drugs and
he said they made our lives miserable.
And he said it began to wear on my patients.
And as I brooded over them one day, indulging my irritation,
the Lord helped me see that I really had no love for them at
all, and that after all the suffering of these years, I
would secretly be happy if they died.
I had to admit, I had never earnestly sought to be possessed
by God's kind of love to become more like Jesus.
And now it was time to seek it. He had to let something die.
Not his neighbor, but something in his own heart had to die.
Peter, James, and John, when confronted by Paul, had to let
something die so the truth of the Gospel could happen and so
that you and I could be seated here today.
They did it. They entered into the cruciform
life and they gave up their social preferences in order that
you and I might have a spiritual place in heaven and in their
hearts. That's good, isn't it?
So let's live that way. Heavenly Father, as we come to
you today, we thank you for the life and love of Jesus who love
us so much. We thank you for the faith of
Jesus, that in you that He could take up that cross, He could lay
down on that cross, and he could say that no one took his life
from him, but that he had authority to lay it down and to
take it up. But we want to have that kind of
authority in our lives, the kind of authority that you give, that
we might lay our lives down for our friends at work, our friends
in our neighborhood, and even our enemies, that they might
know you. But Lord Jesus, we know that if
we refuse that kind of death, that if we close our heart to
the compassion of God, that our life will reek of death, of
stinking, rotten relationships. And So what else is there except
for us to truly enter into life with you and surrender our lives
to You? The Spirit of God is inviting us
to the costly table of Jesus. He serves us there, His body in
the bread, his blood in the cup. It's Jesus's freedom of
association to transform sinners into Saints, and it's glorious.
So if you would take a step now even in your heart, if you say
I'm not a follower of Jesus yet, but would you now surrender your
life to Him? He would meet you even in this
moment. For those who've been holding
out from a decision that felt like death, would you lay it
down before the Lord right now? Would you bask in a move of
faith that says you are loved, you are known?
Would you hold on to grace even when it feels like no one's
holding on to you? Would you hold on to grace?
Because the truth is, God is holding on to you.
Nothing can snatch you from His hands.
Let's stand together as we wish.