A Consistent Christian

Got your Bibles, I’d like you to turn with me to the book of Galatians. We’re going to continue a study that we kind of started last week. It’s a great little letter. Paul writes this, and he puts a ton of stuff here. He’s writing to a number of churches that he probably started on his second missionary journey. And in today’s passage, in chapter 2, he’s going to talk about an incident that he had in a place called Antioch.

Now, I don’t know how much you know about Antioch, but Antioch was a pretty big town. It’s about 300 miles north of Jerusalem. It’s in a little area that we now know today as Syria. Antioch was the third largest city in the entire Roman Empire. The only city that’s bigger than it, of course, was Rome itself, and then Alexandria, Egypt. Massive city.

And during the exile, you know, all the Jews were taken out and just spread out everywhere. One of the places that a lot of Jews were taken was into Antioch. And a lot of them didn’t make it back to Jerusalem. In fact, they didn’t want to make it back to Jerusalem. They had built homes there. They had raised children there, grandchildren. They had made their lives there. And so they were Jewish in practice, but they did not live in Jerusalem or around Jerusalem or in Israel. So you’ve got this big bunch of Jews in Antioch. And somebody’s got to reach them.

So James, while he’s, you know, he’s kind of like the first pastor of the, you know, First Baptist Church of Jerusalem. And he’s just kind of, he decides what he wants to do is, he said, we need to go out and tell people about Jesus. And so he sends a guy named Barnabas up to Antioch. You know, Antioch is the first place that Christians are called Christians. There were people of the way. There were followers of Jesus. But for the first time in all of history, they’re called Christians in Antioch.

Massive city. I mean, it’s got everything. Temples. It’s got incredible, it’s cosmopolitan, incredible buildings, aqueducts. It’s got all those things. And yet there’s a group of Jews there. So James sends Barnabas. And while Barnabas is there, he sends for his buddy. He says, man, this is bigger than I thought. And so he asked Paul to come. And so Paul comes there. And, you know, that’s where Paul will have, it will lay on hands on Paul and Barnabas. So let’s go to their first missionary journey from Antioch. So everything starts, a lot of things start in Antioch. So that’s where we’re at. And Paul’s writing the folks at Galatia.

Now, let me ask you this. Have you ever been chewed out? And I’ve been chewed. I tell folks I’ve been chewed out by professionals. I mean, I’ve had people. I had a captain when I was in Germany. I had a captain bring me into his office one time. I’m telling you, he never said a curse word. He never raised his voice. But when he was done with me, I tell folks I was so low, I didn’t have to open the door to leave. I could have just walked right under that thing. I had let down my mama, the U.S. Army, the unit. I mean, all those kind of things. I mean, I’ve been chewed out by getting in the military.

I remember, do you ever have been chewed out on a ball field as an athlete? I’m thinking about Lee. I’m thinking he had, I’m sure he had some time as an athlete or as a coach. I don’t know if you’ve ever had coaches fight to get to you. That happened to me. I mean, I don’t turn around. I had coaches trying to get to me to chew me out. My head coach one time knew that I was one of those guys in high school that was in every club I could be in. He knew I was in the drama club. That’s where I met my wife. And I remember one day he looked at me and I missed a block on a play. And he looked at Smith. Son, you don’t want to play football. He said, why don’t you go back to that drama club? And he did it in front of the other players. He could have killed somebody that day. I mean, I could have beat up a telephone pole. I mean, he talked about motivation.

Paul chews out somebody in this passage. And the interesting person he chews out is a guy named Peter. And I’m thinking, well, who is Paul to chew out Peter?

I mean, Peter’s one of the original 12. Peter was probably the head guy of the inner circle. That’s who he chews on. And we’re going to talk about that today because as we study the book of Galatians, Paul shows us that God places His instruments in our lives to help us lead a more consistent Christian walk. And we learn that our friends and our doctrine define who we are in the world, but to lead a more consistent life is our convictions that define us.

So if you’ll turn with me to the book of Galatians chapter 2, we’ll start with verse 11. And if you’ll stand for the reading of God’s word.

But when Cephas, that would be Peter, came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned. For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision. Now, the rest of the Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas, who was carried away by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas, or Peter, in the presence of all, if you being a Jew live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is that that you compel the Gentiles to live like the Jews? We are Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles. Nevertheless, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law. Since by the works of the law, no flesh is justified. But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also have been found sinners, a Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be. For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor. And for through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God, I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer that of I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. In the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, gave Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died needlessly.

I know that’s a lot, so please receive that, and we’re going to work through this.

Conviction. What is a conviction? A conviction is a strong persuasion or belief about the truth. Biblical convictions are the doctrines held to be right or true by the church through the centuries. We look at, you know, what is our conviction about who Jesus is? What is our conviction about who God is and the Trinity and the Holy Spirit? What is our conviction of how we get saved? Is it the cross? Is it what Christ did there? Is it the blood that He shed? Is it on Him and not me? Is it not my works? Those are convictions that we need to have.

And I want to tell you, Peter in this thing has conviction. Him and Paul are in line. The problem’s going to come in here is when Peter changes, not his conviction, but how he acts daily. See, that’s where this word hypocrisy, if I was to ask someone, why don’t you ever go to church? What’s one of the first things they say? There’s all them hypocrites in there. See, they do one thing on Sunday and they live something totally different on Monday through Saturday. I’ve seen how they act when they get mad. I’ve seen how they act in business. I’ve seen how they act on a ball field. I’ve seen how they act on a lot of things. But they say they’re a Christian.

Personal convictions are based upon scriptural truth and applied to the individual believer’s life. You say, okay, if I’m going to believe that, I need to live that way. It also provides boundaries. I’m not going to do that.

So what’s the story here? Well, the story is this. Peter comes up, probably sent by James. James happens to be the brother of Christ. Again, He’s kind of the pastor, the lead guy, lead elder down there in Jerusalem. He says, go check this out. Apparently, some things are happening in Antioch. People are coming to Jesus in Antioch. All these Jews that are being led to Christ in Antioch. But not only Jews are being led to Christ, Gentiles are being led to Christ. Remember, it’s a Gentile city. It’s the third largest city outside of Alexandria and Rome. It’s massive. It’s an incredible cosmopolitan place. But not only are Jews being led to Jesus, Gentiles are going, I don’t know how to feel about that. And Paul has had discussions with James and Peter and John and all those guys. But when Peter comes to Antioch, when he first gets there, he kind of sees what’s going on. And he goes, this is amazing. All these people are coming to Jesus. And they weren’t raised like us. They don’t eat like us. They don’t celebrate the festivals and the feasts like us. They don’t teach their kids like us. They don’t know the Old Testament like us. And so all of a sudden, Peter kind of says, but this is awesome. And while he’s there, he’s eating with the Gentiles. He’s sharing with their food. And if you go back to Acts 11, what you find is he’s kind of wondering about all this. And remember what God does? God gives him a vision. And God lowers down on a sheet all these animals. He’s got pigs in there, so he’s got pork barbecue. He’s got, you know, shrimp casseroles in there. He’s got all these foods in there. And he goes, normally a Jew could not eat. And He said, this is okay, Peter, because it’s all clean now. Talk about that in a second.

So the first thing I just want to tell you is our convictions need to be shown in all circumstances of our lives. They have to see it out there. Again, if you’re going to call yourself a Christian, remember the first six letters? C-H-R-I-S-T, Christ. And that’s who we need to act like.

Now, here’s what happens. James is, again, wanting to know what’s going on, so he sends some of his people up there to check things out. Peter hears they’re coming. As soon as they get there, what does Peter do? Well, he quit eating with them because that really wasn’t Jewish. And he quit hanging around them because Gentiles were always seen to the Jew as a dog. And all of a sudden it’s like, I mean, we’re glad they’re Christians, but they’re not doing what they ought to be doing. See, they ought to be doing things like we do. They ought to be observing our festivals. They ought to be eating our kosher food. They ought to be behaving this way and that way. But Paul’s going, that’s not the issue. The issue is that they’re hearted. They come to Christ. And so Peter hears their comment. What does he do when they get there? He just backs off. And that drives Paul nuts. He just goes, what hypocrisy. Peter, you know better than that, especially you. I mean, you’re the guy that hung around Jesus for three and a half years. You’re the one Jesus restored on the seashore. You’re really kind of leader of the guys. You were in His inner circle. Peter, you know better than that. And here’s the deal, too. It’s not only affecting Peter. Peter’s not only doing it, but he’s affecting others. He’s affecting guys like Barnabas. And the Bible says that he’s affecting the other Jews that are there. And that drives Paul even more bonkers. So he addresses that with Peter. And he tells him, Bubba, it’s not just when we sit together and talk about Jesus. It’s in every aspect of our lives.

See, here’s the deal. You ever wonder about works and salvation and all that and belief? You know, there was a group of people called the Judaizers. And what they were saying is they were saying, we want you to get saved. See, their doctrine was correct as far as about how you come to Christ. You come to Christ through faith in Jesus. But they wanted to add something. See, it was to them. It was, yes, faith in Jesus plus doing these things like a Jew, good works. And then that leaves the salvation. See, one plus one equals two. But what you got to do is you got to switch some things. See, it’s faith in Jesus plus salvation equals good works. We’ve got to learn how to switch the things. See, I think even today there’s people in the church that go, I just don’t do good enough. Well, you get right with Christ. It’s like I was talking to the kids. You get right with Christ. You read your scriptures. You’re around Christians. You do what you’re supposed to do. It works. See, it’s the same. And what we start to see here is Paul starts to give the argument. You know, the argument, he says, folks, let me tell you, even in the Jewish community, and they know the Old Testament. But even in the Old Testament, he had to come by faith. Even the Old Testament, he had to, you know, it was going to be through Jesus, even though He hadn’t come yet. It was in the promise of the Messiah.

See, they would look at the Old Testament and say, well, wait a minute. God gave us a whole bunch of laws. God gave us ceremonial laws. God gave us food laws. God gave us even how to dress laws, how to act everyday laws. And why did He do all that? Well, He wanted to bring them closer. He wanted to live a good life. But what He wanted to show them is you can’t do that every day. You can’t keep those laws every day.

See, the Bible is, yes, it’s an instruction book, but the Bible is a mirror. The Bible, especially to the Jew in the Old Testament, they would look at it and go, I can’t do all this. I can’t be perfect every day, which is why they had to have something in their lives. It was called sacrifice. Things like the Day of Atonement, and all the sins of the entire nation would be put on an animal in the sins of the nation.

Now that Jesus comes, you don’t have to have sacrifice because He’s the sacrifice. And now there’s this thing called grace, and it changes everything. And what Paul’s trying to tell them is, folks, let me tell you something. You do the good works because you have a relationship with Jesus. You don’t do the good works to have the relationship. And he’s trying to tell Peter that.

But there’s a conflict going on. All of a sudden, there’s discord in the church. What happens when there’s upset in the church? You know what happens? Nothing. All the energy goes toward the discord in the church. And nothing happens outside the church because all the energy is going on inside the church. And what’s that show in the world? And Paul is upset because he’s got all these brand-new Christians. They’re baby Christians. They’re trying to figure it out. They’re Gentiles. Some are probably Jews. And they’re trying to understand this thing about Christ. And all of a sudden, he’s got leadership fighting.

Our convictions, number two, also define our doctrine. I love the way that Paul addresses him. He could really chew on him. You ever been chewed out publicly? How do you feel about that? It ticks you off, doesn’t it? Unless it’s a public sin. This wouldn’t have. So he calls him. And he could just chew on him in front of his church. But he doesn’t do this. He starts explaining to him. Doesn’t that sound better? Maybe ask him a question. Get him to think.

He says, verse 15, we’re Jews by nature, not sinners from among the Gentiles. But we nevertheless know that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus. I mean, even we have believed in Christ Jesus so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law. And like I said, it’s a mirror. He’s sitting there going, look, we got a book that they don’t have, and we’re trying to do good too. But I want to tell you, it’s not what we do that brings us to Jesus. No, we want to do good works because we want to affect people’s lives. And we want people to look at us and say, why did you do that? And you say, well, the reason I did that is because Jesus is in me.

So we need to understand that fellow Christians are not the enemy. We may disagree with people in the church. We may have arguments, little things of what we think is our doctrine. We may disagree with some secondary, third issues. But I want to tell you, Christians are not the enemy. Satan’s the enemy. Lost people aren’t even the enemy. Satan’s the enemy. You know why lost people act the way they do? Because they’re lost.

But even in the church, we can be at bars with each other. I was at a preaching conference one time with a guy, and one of our speakers was a guy named Bill Hybels. He was telling us about a situation in his church. They were having some inner problems, staff. People were always trying to do it.

And they had gone on a retreat, a staff retreat, to kind of organize the new year. And so they’re going back and forth, and they’re getting on each other’s nerves. Then they had an exercise, kind of a neat exercise, where they came into the room, and everybody, and they had a real large staff, because it was a massive church. But in front of all the staff people were poster board in the shape of a tombstone. And it was enough for all the staff members. So he gave them an assignment for the day. Here’s what the assignment was. I want you to write an epitaph that would be on the tombstone of everybody on staff. If something was to happen to them, how would you remember them? What would you write down? They’re all thinking, that sounds like a stupid thing, but they did it because he was a pastor.

So they came back that night, and they had the poster board tombstone. And around the room, they went, and they they said, well, this is what I would write about Bill. And they would talk about what they put on the tombstone. This is what I would write about Sarah. And this is what I would write about Jim. And they did that with every person. And all of a sudden, you could see all of a sudden heads popping up and eyes getting a little bigger going. And later you found out they were saying things like, well, I didn’t know she felt that way about me. I mean, she actually noticed some of my, you know, things that I’d done. I didn’t think anybody noticed when I did that or when I said that or when I did that job. And all of a sudden, they started looking at each other different. He goes, how do you want to be remembered in the end? At the end of the conference, one of the staff guys goes, Pastor Bill, what are we doing with those things we made, those tombstones we made up? He said, well, we’re probably just going to throw them away. He said, could I have mine? And everyone said, I’d like mine too. Everyone said, well, yeah, I want to take mine home.

And all of a sudden, you know, when we start lifting each other up and we start, and folks, I want to tell you, even pointing out things that are wrong is important. It’s how you serve it up. See, everything in Scripture is how you serve it up. Everything in the church is how you serve it up. People from the outside world are looking at us and they’re saying, I want to see how you treat each other because how you treat each other is going to determine probably how you’re going to treat me when I come.

See, that brings us to number three. Our convictions release or squelch the Holy Spirit. And I want to tell you, sometimes things go down real deep. Al, I don’t know if I could do that. You’ve been doing it that way. Think about these Jews. They were raised from the time they were babies to do the things that they were doing. And now, all of a sudden, they’re being taught a new way. There’s a new life. There’s a better life. There’s this thing called grace and what Jesus did on the cross. And it’s not about eating food. And it’s not about that you’ve got to pray a certain way. You’ve got to observe things a certain way. It’s about where you give your life to Christ and how He comes into your mind and He changes your heart. And then when you go out into the world, you show Him.

You know, we do this little thing at the end of the service where I say, you know, you may be the only Jesus that the world ever sees. And that’s true. But I want to tell you, you may be the only Jesus that someone else doesn’t want to see because of you. You can squelch that Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit’s ready to work in someone’s life. And you go up and you make some kind of business decision. Or you say something in the heat of the moment. Or, you know, that you’ll probably end up regretting. And you’re sorry for it, but it’s already come out. And you squelch the Holy Spirit.

This thing has been ingrained in these folks for a long time and it’s new. Even for Peter and James and John. And if it was hard for anybody, it was hard on Paul. Paul was a Pharisee. Paul had been taught. I mean, he’d been through The highest of education in the Jewish life. Paul said, if you can change me, it can change you. He doesn’t tear into Peter. He explains to Peter. And look what he says. He says, “Saul, I can’t bring you back.” And Peter, we can’t bring this back. We got rid of those things. Let’s not bring them back.

Then I love just what he says. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. It’s not about what I believe and what I want. It’s what Jesus wants. But Christ lives in me. In the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me, listen, and gave Himself up for me.

We’ve got to keep reminding. You know, Paul said, we’ve got to keep reminding ourselves of those things. How important it is. Guys, we’ve got to be unified. This is where it started. This is where all the missionary journeys came out of. It was Antioch. It was there they were first called Christian. This is where the church really gets its start.

Listen to what the Bible says about this thing called unity. 2 Corinthians 13:11. Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice, strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. This is when God’s love and peace is only with us when we’re together encouraging each other. One mind, living in peace.

Acts 4:32. All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was of their own, but they shared everything they had. What was going on in Acts 4? The church was starting. And the Bible says, man, they were so excited. They were just, you don’t have as much as I do. Let me just give it to them. Let me help you out. I mean, they loved the Lord. They felt, I’ve been so released. God is just doing some amazing things, but they were unified.

Galatians 3:28. There was neither Jew nor Gentile, slave or free, male or female, for you are all, what? One in Christ Jesus.

I like John 13:34 and 35. A new command I give you. This is from Jesus’ lips. Love one another and do it as I have loved you. So you must love one another. And by this, everyone will know that you are my disciples. How? You love one another.

I like Philippians 2:2. This is Paul. Make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and one mind. When a church comes together, I’ll tell you, it’s just amazing.

Which takes us to the final thing. Our convictions must show the world our new life and a loving Savior. You do it not because you want to, not because you emotionally feel that way at the time, not because, you know, we got to quit acting out of emotion. Emotion’s a wonderful thing. You know what? If you go back to, you know, 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter says, Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not keeping account of wrong. All those things are in there. And I know there’s emotion in love, but is there any emotion in that passage? It’s this, this, this, this, and this. What’s in that passage is what Paul is telling this church of Corinth is love’s an act of will.

See, whether I feel like it or not, I’m still going to love it. There are times when my wife loves me more than other times. I know it’s hard to believe. But see, love is an act of will. I’m going to love you regardless. See, that’s what God does to us. See, it’s not if you do, if you eat just the right foods. God looks down and goes, if you only eat the kosher stuff, I’m going to love you. If you only do this, I’m going to love you. If you only act like this, I’m going to love you. God doesn’t do that. The Bible says when we bring Him into our life and our heart, He comes in and He comes in permanently. God’s going to love you anyway. Now, there may be consequences to your sin, but He’s still going to love you.

You’ve got to show Jesus. Like I said last week, it’s all about Jesus. See, you go to the world and you say, do you want to become a Christian? They’ll look at you and probably go, are you kidding me? No. If you look at him and say, Do you want to be a follower of Jesus? Tell me more. Do you see the difference? Do you see what sometimes we’ve done as Christians? We’ve made it into this kind of organized, you know, you’ve got to be here and do this. And, you know, the reason we come to church is because we want to be around each other. The reason we come to church is we need each other. We need each other’s encouragement. The reason is because we learn from each other. It’s a place where we corporately come to worship. And all those things are important. The world needs to see something deeper. You’re a follower of Jesus. You tend to act like Jesus if you follow Jesus.

You know, a book was written that said, do you want to be a follower or a fan? A whole lot of fans out there. It’s like a one big time college football coach one side says, you know, it’s kind of like a football game. You got 22 guys down on the field killing themselves, you know, using that exercise. And you’ve got, you know, 90,000 people in the stands who need the exercise. Rooting them on. There’s a difference between being in it and just watching it. Being a follower and then being a fan.

Close with this story. I read this week. It’s about a. Again, it’s got kind of a football theme. And in the story, it was a young boy. He was playing high school ball, and he was one of those guys that he liked to hear the cheers. He liked to be around cheerleaders. He liked to say he was on the football team. He just didn’t like to practice. I mean, he was the kid on the team that always did it the halfway. He was always a kid just enough to get by. He was always a kid that really didn’t study the playbook, and he just didn’t care. Didn’t care about playing. He just didn’t want, you know, every coach’s nightmare. So needless to say, he didn’t play a lot. In fact, he didn’t play at all.

Homecoming game was coming up, and they were getting ready, and they were practicing for it. In the middle of the practice, someone walked up to the coach and handed him a note. Coach opened the note, and it was for this young boy that never did anything. It was just that kid that, you know, and probably the only reason he’s playing is they just need extra players. Probably need players for practice. In the note, it said that the young man’s dad had just died. So he brings the kid over. He hands him the note, and the kid’s running home. But before he leaves, the coach says, look, take whatever time you need. Take all the time you need. He was probably sorry that the kid’s father had died, but to him, the kid wasn’t going to play anyway, so he just didn’t need to be out there.

Homecoming game’s that weekend. Kid shows up, puts on his uniform, and all of a sudden he goes, Coach, any chance I can play today? Coach going, really? Are you serious? You want to play today? I don’t think so. This is a pretty important game. This is homecoming. So first quarter goes by, and this team, they’re playing pretty good, and they’re just racking up the score. Second quarter, score goes up. It’s almost over. It seems like at halftime. Third quarter starts. They score, and it’s just – and the kid all during the game is, Coach, can I play? Can I play? No, just go sit down. Coach, put me in. Can I play? No, just go sit your backside over there on the bench. Finally, the score gets – so the kid comes up and says, all right, go on in. I mean, the game was pretty much over as far as Coach was concerned.

Kid goes in, and it’s almost like the kid went from – all of a sudden he’s like an All-American out there. He’s making every tackle. He’s catching every pass. He’s scoring touchdowns. All of a sudden they start scoring. The game’s starting to get closer. All of a sudden they tie it up. And at the very end of the game, he ends up intercepting a pass and running literally the length of the field, scores a winning touchdown. The place goes nuts. They run out on the field. They put the kid on their shoulders, and, you know, he’s the hero. Coach is trying to figure it out. And he went up to the kid after the game. He said, where you been? What’s the difference? Here’s What the kid said. Coach, you know my dad died last week. I said, yeah, I read the telegram. Well, Coach, my daddy was blind. Today was the first day that he ever saw me play.

You know, when we go out there in life, sometimes we do things, and we think, and we act almost like if God is our judge. Every time you do something stupid or do something wrong, I’m remembering that one, checking that one off. God’s not looking at us like a judge. God’s looking at us like a dad. He wants to give us what we need, when we need it. Who loves us regardless of making mistakes. Who’s willing to use guys like Paul to explain why we do what we do. Who’s not sitting there just saying, okay, if you do two more, you’ll get above the bad stuff you’ve been doing in life. Got the little scales going. That’s not God, folks. That’s not Jesus.

When Christ lives with me, I have been crucified. There’s no longer I who live, but it’s Christ who lives in me. He’s watching.

So my question is, when you go out of here and you go into the world, whether you’re a teenager, whether you’re in college, whether you’re in the business world, no matter whatever you do. Your neighbors, your family. You’re acting. Are you doing it because you hope it makes Him happy? Or you’re acting on your emotion? You’re doing it because, you know, you’re all gone. Jesus died for me. He lives in me now. I’m something different. I don’t have to just, I don’t do it because I gotta. I do it because I wanna, the way I wanna be.

I don’t know what motivates you to do what you do, but I’m telling you, God loves you so much. And in this city of Antioch, He’s changing the world. He’s starting the church. Things are coming together. I’m telling you, Sauldam Baptist Church, when you come together and you’re unified and things are going, I’ll tell you what, you’ll change this community. People wanna be part of that kind of thing. And there’s a community out there. I’m telling you, Charleston’s coming to you. And the deal is this, it’s coming. And it’s gonna be looking at a place called Sauldam Baptist Church. How you treat each other, how you’ll treat them? Because they need family and they need love and they need Jesus. You get up in the morning, you say, God, use me today. Make a difference.

Let’s pray. Father, thank You. Even if it was a conflict, even though Peter was kind of doing the wrong things and affecting people like Barnabas and some of the other folks, Paul addressed it. Paul was not too happy about it. Paul made him think. Paul reminded him what Jesus was really all about. Sometimes we just gotta need to realize Christians aren’t the enemy. The world’s not the enemy. The enemy is Satan and his horde of fallen angels. You’ve come for us to seek and save and bring folks that were lost to You. Maybe there’s someone here today who just needs to say, you know what? I need to realize exactly what Jesus did for me and act different. I got people in my life who need Jesus and they need to see Jesus in me. Maybe I just need to go to folks and just say, man, I’m sorry. Whatever it is, help us to realize it’s about what You did and about being more like You. Lord, watch out over and take care of us. Help us make the decisions we need to make. In Your son’s name we pray. Amen.