Galatians 2:11-21 · Paul Opposes Peter

11 When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. 12 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 belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter 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?

15 "We who are Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners' 16 know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.

17 "If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! 18 If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker. 19 For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"

A-wake or A-live
Galatians 2:15-21
Sermon
by Leonard Sweet
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We are called, less to follow in the wake of Christ than to make new waves for Christ, or more precisely, to allow Christ to make new waves through us.

Toward the end of the 19th century, Charles Sheldon, pastor of an average church in an average community in Topeka, Kansas, decided he needed to do something to perk up his Sunday evening services. Sheldon began preaching a kind of serial sermon, in which he told stories about average men and women and the kinds of situations and challenges they might find themselves facing in their ordinary lives.

The question Sheldon put on the lips of his fictional sermonic characters and the question he posed to his own parishioners was this: "What would Jesus do" in these same circumstances? This serial sermon or spiritual soap opera hit just the rig…

ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc., Collected Works, by Leonard Sweet