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Thank you for joining us for a sermon from Sojourn North. Well, if I was to ask you to remember your school days, it evokes a lot of memories in a lot of people. For me, anxiety comes. I knew I was gonna say it, so I've already processed through it this morning, so it's okay. But one of the places that filled me with the most anxiety in school days was PE. So that's one thing, but the cafeteria, lunchtime. And the reason why is because you didn't know exactly where you're gonna sit, especially at the beginning of the year. And so you would go into the lunchroom and scan and be like, there, there, there. And the worst would be is if you're going to try to sit somewhere and someone would say, That seat's saved. That seat's saved. And then you look over halfway through lunch and no one's sitting there, and it's like, yeah, I guess it was safer anyone but me. Um but why does that hurt so much? And why were there invisible lines? Because sometimes people who would talk to you in class or the year before, you get to the lunchroom, and it's not that they hated you or anything, but there was just this invisible pressure to be part of a group. And if you weren't part of that group, you weren't welcome or invited. And the reason it hurts so much is because we all were created with a longing to belong. We all long to belong. And as we get to today's passage, we're looking at a scene that Paul is reminding the church from Galatia about all these churches that he's writing to, about Peter in a lunchroom type situation. There's a drift where he moves his chair and he starts eating with people and excluding of people. And Paul rebukes him. And so as we look at this today, we want to continue to say, where do you find yourself in the story as we look at this? Because this is about humanity, it's about you, and it's about me. And I'm excited about diving in and saying, Where do you find yourself in this story today? So, with that in mind, if you wish, I'd invite you to stand for the reading of God's Word. We're looking at Galatians 2, 11 through 21. And this is Paul writing about Cephas, who is Peter. So Paul writes, But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned. For he regularly ate with the Gentiles before certain men came from James. However, when they came, he withdrew and separated himself because he feared those from the circumcision party. Then the rest of the Jews joined his hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were deviating from the truth of the gospel, I told Cephas in front of everyone, if you who are a Jew live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel Gentiles to live like Jews? We are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, and yet because we know that a person is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we ourselves have believed in Christ Jesus. This is so that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no human being will be justified. But if we ourselves are also found to be sinners while seeking to be justified by Christ, is Christ then a promoter of sin? Absolutely not. If I revealed those things that I tore down, I show myself to be a lawbreaker. For through the law I died to the law so that I may 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 comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Today, looking at a movement through this passage, we're going to talk about when fear begins to lead, when courage leads us to name, and when identity is re-rooted in Christ. And so, once again, see where you find yourself in the story. See, even as you look back in your life, where you found yourself in the story before. And I'm encouraged because I think there can be some movements in today's passage that may show us something that's a little different. I was challenged by it this week and being some things just shifting a little bit in my soul and being like, oh yeah, that's that's really, really profound. The gospel doesn't just shape what we believe, what we say, it shapes everything about us. It shapes our relationships with others, of course, our relationship with God, how we live life, how we think about life, every aspect of us. But what's true about this world, this fallen world, is fear comes into the world. It comes into our lives. We have a lot to be afraid about, a lot to be anxious about. You can watch the news, look at the landscape of the world, and there's a lot to be anxious about. And if you study human history and just go draw a line backwards, just pick any decade, and there were things to be anxious about in every decade. You go back to the 60s, the Cuban Missile Crisis, go back, like it's it's just World War II in the 40s, all these all these things. There was so much to be anxious about and just keep on going back. But what do we do when anxiety starts leading us personally in our lives? So let's look at the scene. Last week we looked at Paul writing about a revelation coming from God and how he was led to go to the pillars in Jerusalem. So he's in Antioch and he travels the few hundred miles to go. He takes Barnabas and Titus with him. He goes privately to the pillars of the church, James, the half-brother of Jesus, uh, John and Peter, who he refers to as Cephas a lot. Uh, he goes back and forth on that. And he presents to them what he's been preaching to the Gentiles, and they affirm him. And they say, You're calling, go, go, be blessed. Well, it changes scenes right now. He's going to be going from that where there was a private meeting to this very public instance. So, Peter, sometime later, we don't know exactly when, Peter travels from Jerusalem to see Paul in this work that's going on in Antioch. So Barnabas is there with him, the Jews are there with him, the Gentile believers, and Peter is just there and he's seeing everything that's going on. And he does what the gospel should do for any of us. It breaks down every barrier, and he's with the Gentile believers, and he's just with them. And if you study Jewish culture, this was a big time no-no because the Jewish culture taught that you were supposed to be separate. You couldn't mingle with other people. That's why there was such a disparity between the Samaritans and the Jews. They would walk around Samaria rather than going through because they didn't want to be polluted by other cultures. But the gospel came and it blew all that away. And so Peter's with these Gentile believers, but then something happens. Here comes the drift. Paul writes, certain men came from James, from Jerusalem. And these are the same guys in verse 4 that we previously talked about. Some false brothers, Paul writes, had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ in order to enslave us. So once again, these Jewish brothers came in and said, Hey, Gentiles, you can be saved, but you got to become Jewish. And in order to become Jewish, you have to be circumcised because that's a covenant sign with God that's still in place. You have to obey these holy days, you have to do this, you have to become a Jew, and then you can be saved. And Paul has already said, No, no. That's not the gospel. It breaks down every barrier. All those things were pointing towards the reality that would be found in Christ. The old covenant has passed, the new covenant has come. So Peter, when these guys come, he starts being led by fear. And we don't know if it's a gradual shift or like something that happened right away, but he starts moving his chair over because these Jewish believers are saying, you can't be with the Gentiles until they convert to Judaism. And so Peter just starts slowly morphing over to them. All the Jews follow Peter's lead, even so much that Barnabas, Barnabas follows in their hypocrisy. And so this is where I want to just pause for a second. Let's remember Peter. Because I was thinking about this week. I expect Peter in the Gospels, because of the younger Peter, and I don't know why this term comes to mind all the time, but I use knucklehead a lot. It's like, ah, what a knucklehead. Peter, we expect young Peter to be a knucklehead. He had failings all over the place. I'm gonna, I listed out some for you. He's the one who tells Jesus in the upper room, he says, You'll never wash my feet, Jesus. And Jesus says, Well, unless I wash your feet, you have nothing to do with me. And he says, Okay, then wash my whole body. And Jesus is like, he just has to correct him all the time. He's the one who rebukes Jesus for talking about suffering. He actually rebukes Jesus. That'll never happen. And what does Jesus say? He's like, get behind me, Satan. That's intense. In the garden, when the soldiers come to arrest Jesus, Peter pulls out a sword and we assume he's trying to cut off someone's head, but he's not a great aim, or maybe there's some ducking going on. He cuts off someone's ear and Jesus heals it. He says, This isn't, that's not the way. And then Peter runs and hides. He often moves before he understands his passion is real, but he just speaks before thinking a lot. But we expect that from young Peter. But what is interesting about young Peter, too, he's a person of courage. So remember this a person of failings, a person of great courage. Look at the courage. He's the one that steps out of the boat and walks on water. Now he does sink, but he had enough faith. That's what I always think about. Did anybody grow up in church and have people sing solos? I wish some of them would sing so low you couldn't hear them. Ah, that's an old joke. Old joke. Alright. So Peter walked on water. Alright. Let's keep keep rolling here. When Jesus asked the disciples, who do you say that I am? Who speaks up? It's Peter. He says, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. When Jesus said, Are you in John chapter 6, will y'all leave me like the rest of the crowds? And he says, Peter's the one who declares, where else will we go? You're the one with the words of eternal life. Courage. After the resurrection, who's the one that preaches at Pentecost? It's Peter. So Peter has great courage. But Peter has so many failings. But this is where I just reflected a lot on this this week. In Galatians 2, this isn't young Peter. This is Peter the pillar. This is the one who preached at Pentecost and saw thousands come to know Jesus. This is the one who people continue to look at with the teaching. All this. This is more mature Peter. And what does he do? Fear affects him and he drifts. And when we come to this part of the story, we will want to, it's not in the scriptures for us to stand back and look at Peter and go, Peter, what are you doing? Man. What it's in this for, by the grace of God, is for us to be able to look at it and say, Well, of course. I do the same thing. We all will drift. We're meant to recognize ourselves in Peter. And I want to pause here and say, sometimes we drift inside and people don't recognize it very well. Sometimes it is very obvious, like in Peter's life in this moment. But what keeps us locked in the drift, and where the drift can be very slight at first, but then it keeps going down a path is because we feel shame and it's like, well, Christians shouldn't drift. I should be perfect. And it's like, who put that on you? And I can say easily in my story, well, that's my whole tradition growing up. It's like, you you're you're supposed to not mess up. You're not supposed to drift. Not supposed to doubt. And it's like, oh man, I have crazy thoughts every day. And there's a subtle pressure with legalism or what we put on ourselves or what others put on us, and and we can easily get stuck and just be like, Well, I'm not supposed to have a doubt. And it's like, no, of course we're gonna have doubts. Of course we're gonna be afraid. It's interesting as you get older, your fear uh sometimes becomes greater, it sometimes shifts in different areas. When your children, if you're a parent, are young, you have fears in certain ways. When they're middle uh school age, different fears. Uh I'm not quite an empty nester yet. I got started later in life, but I have one out of the nest part of the year and uh in college, and it's like your fears change. It's like, oh it's a lot of driving going on. It doesn't help that we have life 360. If that's if you don't know, that's where you can see where your family's going. It's like, huh, why are they there right now? Okay. But it different fears, and they're gonna continue as you get older and your fail, your your fault, your health begins to fail in different ways. It's like it can be scary. Can I stand up here today as your pastor and say, you have permission for I don't think this message is gonna get out, but I'm gonna keep going. And we are getting new microphone stuff, it's coming, it's just not here yet. So um, I'm gonna keep going. I think this is very important. I'm gonna stand up here as your pastor today and give you permission. It's okay to be afraid. It's okay to fear. Fear is not the problem, it's what you do with that fear. I was reflecting this week, um, having lost both of my parents, and they both had uh somewhat prolonged illnesses. It does something to your soul. Um the people when I when I think about my brother and my mom and dad um being gone, they're the people who knew me my whole life, and they're no longer with me. That that'll do something to your soul. It's like, man, that's that that's interesting. It can it can be destabilizing and it can cause uncertainty and fear, and that's okay. But like the famous missionary Amy Carmichael, who was in India, and I'll be talking a little bit about her on this Wednesday night in our class, she gave her life towards uh it wasn't even really close to the end of her life, but she had an accident where she fell into a hole, uh, broke her back, and she was bedridden for much of the rest of her life. And instead of giving up, she felt led by the Lord to shift her intentions into writing. She still did ministry in India, and she said this. She said, faith doesn't eliminate doubts, but faith knows where to take them. And that's you can be afraid. The gift of God's grace is that He gives us community that we can bring that to as well. And if you ever come to me and say, I'm very afraid, I will embrace you and say, Tell me your fears, tell me your woes. And let's pray together. So we have fear can lead us to drift. We see also in this passage, courage leads Paul to name what is going on. He's very bold. Verse 14 But when I saw that they were deviating from the truth of the gospel, there can be deviating from the truth of the gospel. I told Cephas in front of everyone, if you who are a Jew live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel Gentiles to live like Jews? I love Paul's logic. He's like Peter. I think I'm saying Peter and Paul interchangeably. It's it they're very similar, huh? Peter, you don't live like a Jew anymore. You live like a gentile because all that's been wiped away. But now you're living like a gentile, but you're saying Gentiles, you gotta live like Jews. He's like, that doesn't even make sense because the gospel has wiped all that away. Your conduct's not in step with that. And why is Paul the perfect one to call this out? Because Paul was living his whole life for something he thought was true, and Jesus comes and uh basically just uh changes his whole existence on the Damascus Road, and everything changes for him. Paul's the one who weeps for the churches, he's the one who's bled for the churches, he's the one who is gonna give his life for the churches. And it's the same thing for treat Peter, but he he drifts in this moment. And Paul, this is a very rare instance, he's a leader. Paul calls out Peter, who's the pillar in front of everyone. Typically, you want to go start one-on-one and go from there. But there's times where that may be necessary. If you want to call me out, please start in private. I'll receive you. It doesn't mean you'll be right, but I'll take it to other people. But um, don't start on Sunday morning. That would be uh pretty hard. Um but we will drift. So there's two things I want us to think about here. What is it like when you see others drift? It takes a lot of courage to pull them to the side and lovingly say, Hey, can we look at this together? This is a concern of mine, and I just can't get it off my chest. I've been praying about it, and I just want to ask these questions. That's hard. And people have done that in my life. How do you receive that if you're the one being spoken to? I can tell you how I've received it in the past. Sometimes pretty good, sometimes not so well. It's immediate sometimes where defensiveness comes up, and it's like, oh, but when I notice that, it's like, all right, settle down, settle down. Something I say to myself, slow your roll, Chad. I just receive. It doesn't mean they have to be right, but I can I I'm gonna take anything anyone tells me, and I'm gonna take it to people I love and say, What do you think about this? Do you see this as well? And I think it's fascinating if you look at first and second Peter at the end of Peter's life before he says, as long as I'm in this body, in this earthly form, I want to stir you up by way of reminders. And he's like, humble yourselves before the Lord. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. We don't know how Peter reacts in this instance. We do know that the drift stops. We don't know if it's he argues at first or he just is like, Oh, you're right. We don't know, but we do know that he humbles himself. And it's in that same passage where he says, Catch. Your cares upon the Lord because he cares for you. He was re-rooted in his identity. And that's the final point. When identity is re-rooted in Christ, what does fear do with each of us? Fear causes us to abandon living into our true identity. Because fear with Peter and fear in our lives can do the same thing. Fear shifts us to thinking and believing somewhere in our core being that our identity is based in what others say and what others think about us. That becomes more important than what God says. And so for Peter, I don't even know that it was conscious. For most of us, it's not even a conscious movement saying, I need to be important in other people's eyes, therefore I'm going to do this. Usually it's just you find yourself drifting over there. Do you want to be thought of well? Of course. I do too. But when it's more important than what God says, you drift. I drift. And there's a lot we could say from this wonderful theological expose in verses 15 through 21. And we're going to hit a lot of it in the book because Paul continues to come back to the same themes about the law and being dead to the law and all these different things. But what I wanted to do, what was on my heart, is to do this last point with Galatians 2.20. It's one of the most profound verses in the scriptures. It was so important to one of my older friends. Uh, he still does this. And I don't recommend doing this because it's kind of dangerous, but he travels a lot. When he's driving, if he hits my marker 2.20, he'll pull over and take a picture. Because Galatians 2.20 is his life verse. It's that important to him. So let's walk slowly through Galatians 2.20, because this is how we re-root ourselves in our truest identity and what God says about us. So here we go. Paul writes, I have been crucified with Christ. Paul's saying, when Christ died, my old life died. I died with him. The old verdict over Paul's life, the life defined by performance, by reputation, by trying to gain different things, it's dead. It's gone. That doesn't mean he can't drift back into living into that way, but it's gone. It's been put to death. Paul no longer has to earn his place with God because you can't do it anyway. But God's gifted his identity to him. The courtroom's closed. The verdict has already been given. It's been finished. So, church, hear this. You have been crucified with Christ. The old verdict of your life, it's over. It's done, it's finished. The striving to prove yourself before God. You may find yourself in that modality, but it's finished. The guilt that says you got to earn your place, it's been nailed to the cross. The shame that you feel that drives you, the fear, all those things, it's been paid for. We just sang about it. How deep the Father's love for us. How vast beyond all measure. You have been crucified with Christ. And then Paul says this it is no longer I who live. Paul's saying the I, the old identity, if you look at Romans 7, it's it's the flesh versus the spirit-filled life. He's saying that old identity, I don't live for that anymore. It used to be the center of my life, but now the center is Jesus. So, church, hear this. It's no longer you who live. It's no longer the old self that defines you, the anxious self of performance, the old things that you thought would bring you happiness and light. It's like that's that's gone. He goes on to say, but Christ lives in me. Paul's declaring that the very life of Christ lives within him. Christ. The Christian life's not about Paul trying harder, it's about Christ living his life through him. And so, brother and sister, this is true for you. Christ lives in you. The living Christ, the creator of the universe, in him and through him all things were created. Holds all things together by the power of his word. The living Christ lives within you. His spirit is at work within you right now. The analogy I've been using in class that I keep on thinking about is the garden. You can't yell at plants to grow. We have a garden of our soul. We're called to tend to the garden of our soul. And God's the one who does the growing, but we are called to be faithful in the garden of our souls. Christ is there present with us. Next phrase, Paul says, The life I now live in the body. Paul is still living in the body. He's living an ordinary life. He wakes up, he eats, he works, he goes to bed, he has relationships. The life he now lives in the body. And so hear this: the life you're living right now, your ordinary life, it's the place where Christ is at work. The Christ who lives in you, in your family, in your work, in your relationships. The life you're living is the very place the life of Christ is unfolding. Paul says, this ordinary life that he's living, he says, I live by faith in the Son of God. Paul's life now rests on trust and faith rather than self-effort. And the growth in our life is that we believe that, more we trust that, more we live as more into that reality. Faith means leaning the weight of his life on Christ. And so, church, hear this: your life is now lived by trusting Christ rather than your own striving. You don't have to manufacture the Christian life. You're invited to trust the one who's already living in you. And who is this one? Who is this one that's living in you? Paul says, it's the one who loved me. Paul pauses right there. It's not abstract or general. Paul says, the one who loved me. That is the foundation of the Christian life. We love him because he first loved us. So, church, hear this. Christ loves you. You by name. Not some more faithful version of you that you think you should be. He loves you. He loves all the past you. I don't even know if that's the right way to say it. That's a weird way to say it. He loves all the all of you in the past. He loved you every second of every moment of every nanosecond. I'm just going to keep on saying seconds, but he loved all of that. He loves you right now. He'll love you forever. Nothing can separate you from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus. Paul prays, I pray that you may know the unknowable to fathom the unfathomable, to comprehend the incomprehensible. How deep, how wide, how vast the love of God. Proof of all that, Paul writes, the one who loved me and gave himself for me. Jesus doesn't just love us from a distance. He came and put on flesh, marched to the cross, and gave himself for. Paul ends with the cross because that's where it all finished. That's where it's finished. Church, hear this: Christ gave himself for you because of his great love for you. The cross is the final word of your life. Your sin is paid for. Your shame is covered. Your place with God is secure. You can breathe. You can breathe and rest. Your place is secure. Let me read it to you one more time. You've been crucified with Christ. You no longer live, but Christ lives in you. The life you now live in the body, you live by faith in the Son of God who loved you and gave himself for you. And so here's your sentence to carry for the week. When you drift, remember this. When fear leads us away from grace, the gospel gently calls us back into step. When fear leads us away from grace, the gospel gently calls us back into step. And the beauty and the invitation of God is that when you're drifting, come back sooner than later. And maybe you're so far off the map right now, you don't even know what to do. Reach out for help. There is grace. As we look at Peter the Pillar's life, it removes shame because we know if Peter the Pillar can drift, we're going to drift too. But Galatians 2.20 restores our identity and brings us out of the drift. So as we come to communion, we remember Peter drifted, Paul confronted him, the gospel restored him, and that same gospel is what brings us to the table today. We come to the table remembering that Christ died for us. Why? Because he loves us. He gave himself for us. And if you're a Christian here today, I'd invite you to come and reflect on this gospel message, on what stirred in your hearts. You can take the juice and the bread back to your seat and just hold it, and then I'll lead us to take communion altogether when we have it. Let's pray together. Father, thank you so much for the beauty of this passage. Lord, thank you for showing us the failing of Peter. But we know, Lord, that he loved you and you used broken vessels. I thank you that we have this profound truth that you live within us, that you have completed what we could never complete, that it is finished, the work of the cross, and that we are yours now and forevermore. And I pray for my brothers and sisters, pray for myself as we come and partake in communion today that we would be renewed, that there would be seeds of hope, and that there would be great relief, and that there would be challenge where it's needed to come forward and come out of hiding for those who may be stuck. And we ask this in Christ's name. Amen.