Message  ‘Confrontation’,  Rick 

[Message Slide]

Oldies Station – The 80s were a great time for teen angst

• Depticted in Music, Television, Moves
• Themes of HS bad and good guys, and invisible guys. 

• Angst – ‘will anyone like me when they fully know me?’, will my friends still be my friends if they were to see me in my full reality?
• [Slide] 80s John Hughes movies – Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Pretty in Pink, most recognized – The Breakfast Club.

• Music lyrics – Don’t you, forget about me, Will you stand above me? Look my way, never love me? Will you recognize me? Call my name or walk on by me?

• Seminary in 80s, threats about drinking & stern lecture about R rated movies – youth ministry class discussion about R rated Breakfast Club.

• Major theme, a theme that still exists in our time for all ages, “will ever be equal with ‘them’? Will I ever be noticed and loved?

[Message Slide]

The motivational foundation in our passage for today. 

• Adult Jesus Followers’ angst and paralysis caused by teen questions.

• Problem for new followers is not choosing to follow but after with the life long challenge to live like Jesus. 

• Unable to fully embrace God’s calling and orders because of that question – ‘will they still like me if I let them see the full me in my reality?’  For believers it is seldom about the outside world as it is about the Jesus’ Followers acceptance.

• Do we permit ourselves to fully embrace God’s path, or, do we choose to let roadblocks relegate us to a life apart from God’s path? Roadblocks that fear disapproval, keep us from living like Jesus.

Speaking of embracing and applying, Be thinking of application/takeaway.

• Galatians, our passage, was written several years after the second Jerusalem Conference/huddle which was the topic of last week’s reading.

• First council legitimized the acceptance of Gentile Jesus Followers.

• Second council determined that Gentiles did not have to take on the practices of Jews (the question of whether gentile church members needed to be circumcised and observe the law as Jews observed) 

• The issue was complicated because most Jews in the new Christian Church were still Torah-observant, but gentiles were actually not allowed to keep all the law in the way the faithful Jews kept the law and practices. 

• Since 2nd council, the church struggled with how to come together as a church when some follow Jewish purity laws and some do not.  

ILL: Norman pastor’s acceptance of women.

• Acceptance of Gentiles and the removal of the Jewish law in the Christian Church allowed Jewish church members the privilege to remain observant and kosher outside the assembly, but they could not allow those observances to limit their conduct and interaction with gentile believers. 

• Up until today’s passage we see this acceptance as largely conceptual, it had not been put to the test – especially among the isolated Jewish only churches.

In today’s passage we see the Confrontation of a pre Resurrection Disciple of Jesus – Peter, confronted by a Post Resurrection Disciple of Jesus – Paul and, Peter’s companion the isolated James, the probable half brother of Jesus, and, the probable pastor of the Jerusalem church which was a  fully practicing Jewish Jesus Followers in Jerusalem Church.

Passage takes us back to the argument settled in the 2nd council but with the teen angst of the modern High School Cafeteria as students, or in this case the Jewish Christian Adult Male Leaders, sat at an exclusive Jewish Jesus Followers table.

The Characters of the Storyline

Peter, 

• [Slide] Peter was at first Jerusalem Council where he explained God’s calling, and his obedience to God’s call to go to the Gentiles and share the truth of Jesus, and his witness of the presence of the Holy Spirit upon the Gentiles. Confessing his sin in the law by going into house of gentile, he sinned with he sat and he sinned with he ate at their table, and he sinned when he embraced gentiles as Followers of Jesus.

• [Slide] Peter was then in Jerusalem when Paul had come before the Jesus Followers’ leaders asking them to determine if the Gentiles followers of Jesus had to follow the practices and customs of the Jews in order to be a Jesus Follower. Where, Peter, stood strong in the argument that the Gentile followers of Jesus were not tied to the Jewish customs and practices.

• [Slide] And now in our passage for Today, Peter visits Paul where Peter and James choose to not only observe the Jewish Laws, but, in doing so they both exclude the Gentile Jesus Followers from sitting at the cool table.

James

• [Slide] Present at the Second Council/Huddle and agreed with Peter that the Gentiles should not be held accountable to the Jewish laws and practices.

• [Slide] Then, at this moment, his agreement that the Gentiles were equals even if they did not practice their faith as Jews, was put to the test. Since his home church was fully practicing Jews, James’ conviction and belief was put to the test as his challenge was to live it out by letting the Gentiles sit at his table, or for him to sit at their table. James faced the dilemma of living in a bubble where the uncomfortable acceptance and affirmation of the gentiles was great on paper but very difficult in reality, living his conviction.

• [Slide] James, along with Peter, sat at the Cool Jewish Jesus Believers’ table.

Paul

[Slide] Paul was incensed, he could not believe that these who had participated in the acceptance of a more progressive and Christlike path would now step back and return to the politics of the cafeteria.

[Slide] Paul was of the mind that freedom of truth was the message of love. Acceptance was the agenda of Jesus. Diversity was the uncomfortable yet powerful path laid out for us by God.

• [Slide] Paul seeks to confront and correct Peter and James by explaining that justification comes through trusting in Christ’s work, not through keeping the law. 

• [Slide] Importantly, Paul begins by saying that all Jewish church members know that no one is justified by keeping the law (2:15–16). 

• [Slide] Interpreters are divided over what Paul sets out as the alternative. Paul says justification is “through faith of Jesus Christ.” That could mean faith in Christ OR the faith that Christ has. 

• [Slide] The word “FAITH” (pistis) has a broad range of meanings, including what you believe to be true, trusting someone, and faithfulness. 

[Slide] The best understanding is the faith OF Christ. 

• [Slide] We are justified by the faithfulness of Christ seen in his obedient death. 

• [Slide] We benefit from Jesus’ faithfulness by having faith IN Jesus’ lfve or trusting IN Jesus’ life.

• [Slide] Faith means more than believing something to be true. When Paul speaks of the faith believers have, he means they trust in Christ for their relationship with God, and they live their lives in ways that are consistent with that relationship of trust.

Jerry Sumney, Professor of Biblical Studies, Lexington Theological Seminary, Lexington, Kentucky

[Message Slide]

Paul accurately says that he, himself, (although he is actually saying it about Peter), violates the laws of the Mosaic covenant when he associates with gentiles  but then tries to reapply those Judaic to the Gentiles. 

Paul wants the Galatians to see that the same accusation applies to them (Gentiles) if they now accept circumcision and begin to observe the Torah. 

Paul uses dramatic language to contrast taking up the law as opposed to trusting in the work of Christ. He says Jesus died to the law, through the law. Jesus died even while being an observant Jew. The purpose of dying to the law is so the believer can live for God. 

In turn, that living a life oriented toward our relationship with God enables us to live by Christ. When Paul talks about people having faith, he is speaking of an orientation, a focus, of their entire life.

Paul’s example of his own testimony – proclamation about himself and how he is not controlled by those who may not like or approve of him, he is not striving to sit at the correct table in the cafeteria. 

He is not trying to be anything, or anyone, other than the person God rescued and continues to rescue. 

He confrontation is to remind Peter of what Peter knows is true and to recognize that in his attempt to please James and those from Jerusalem and what dismisses the call of the Gentiles as well as to the Jews..

[If TIme Permits…]  In other words, Paul says, “I did not seek out the best or coolest table in the cafeteria, the table that would exclude those thought to be unclean or undesirable, I sat and listened to all of God’s created humans, so that in God’s time I could be also understand and be heard by all.
Interaction: application, takeaway