Not Straightforward About the Truth of the Gospel

In one paragraph

The pastor opened Galatians 2:11-21 by asking why Peter pulled away from Gentile Christians the moment Jewish visitors arrived from Jerusalem, and what that act of fear cost the whole church at Antioch. The sermon moved from that ancient dinner table to the American Constitution's three-fifths clause and a personal dream about race and fear, all to press one point: the gospel of grace has real...

Read together

1. Colossians 3:1-4 read before the sermon as a verse to share, about being raised with Christ and setting hearts on things above
2. Galatians 1:13-16 Paul's autobiography read aloud, covering his persecution of the church, his zeal for Judaism, and God's call to preach among the Gentiles
3. Galatians 2:11-14 Peter's withdrawal from the Gentiles at Antioch and Paul's confrontation of him to his face
4. Galatians 2:15-16 Jews by nature knowing a man is not justified by works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ
5. Psalm 143:2 quoted as Old Testament support that no one living is righteous before God
6. Romans 3:10-23 cited as New Testament parallel, no one righteous, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
7. Galatians 2:17-19 read in two versions, about whether seeking justification in Christ while found to be sinners makes Christ a minister of sin
8. Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me
9. Galatians 2:21 not setting aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law then Christ died in vain
10. Romans 6:6-7 closing benediction, old sinful selves crucified with Christ so sin might lose its power, no longer slaves to sin

Talk about it

1. Pastor Matt shared a dream that revealed a prejudice in himself he did not know was there. Have you ever had a moment, waking or otherwise, when God showed you something in your own heart that surprised you? What did you do with it?
2. Pastor Matt said that Peter probably told himself the visitors would go home in a few days and things would go back to normal, so it was not worth making an issue of it. When have you talked yourself out of doing the right thing by framing it as not worth the trouble?
3. Pastor Matt said that Peter, just by withdrawing and sitting with the circumcision party, made the Gentile believers feel like second-class or junior varsity Christians without ever saying a word. Can you think of ways a church or individual Christian can communicate that message without intending to?
4. Paul writes in Galatians 2 that he has been co-crucified with Christ, and that it is no longer he who lives but Christ who lives in him. What does living that out actually look like on a regular Tuesday, not just in a worship service?
5. Pastor Matt argued that it is possible to be genuinely saved by grace and still act out of step with the gospel, just as Peter did at Antioch. Where do you see that tension showing up in your own life, and how does the grace of God speak into it rather than the pressure to perform?