(Sermon by Pastor Michael D. Schultz 06/24/07)

INTRODUCTION:

In the short sentence,

Peter Caught It From Paul

what does the word “it” usually stand for?  If you catch it for something you’ve done wrong, the “it” usually stands for hell.  Now I know that “catching hell” for something is more of a slang phrase than a biblical phrase, but it’s still rather accurate for what we have coming for sinful behavior.  For what he’d been doing recently, Peter caught it from Paul. Paul told Peter he was wrong, that God should punish him, that he had earned hell for himself.

What will hold our attention this Sunday is the how and the why of this interchange.  Why Paul gave it to Peter as he did, and how Peter received it are a couple things the Holy Spirit considered important enough to have written in the Bible for us.  Your listening to God’s message today is a good way to tell God that you consider these things as important as God says they are.

To make a somewhat long story short, Peter had learned that he didn’t have to refrain from work on Saturdays anymore, he didn’t have to go buy a sheep and sacrifice it if he lost his temper, and, if he wanted to, he could eat all the ham sandwiches, BLT’s and butterflied pork chops that his stomach could hold.  The ceremonial laws were no longer binding, and in a rather bold move, Peter had been sitting down to eat non-kosher foods with non-Jewish people. 

Till one day he was a few hundred miles north of Jerusalem in Antioch, some believers from Jerusalem were in town, and, out of fear that they would go back to Jerusalem and tell on him to people who were not about to relinquish any of Moses’ laws, Peter started staying away from the Gentiles, and away from the pork products, and Barnabas and the other Jews did the same.  It was when Paul showed up in town that Peter caught it from Paul.  We want to understand why Paul admonished Peter the way he did.

It wasn’t just about pork products or Sabbath days or animal sacrifices... It was about the gospel.  When he rebuked Peter, Paul was saying, “Come on, Peter!  Not even we Jews observe the ceremonies anymore; why are you acting like this and making the Gentiles think they have to?  The whole reason we believed in Christ was to be innocent through trusting in Jesus, not through things we did or ceremonies we kept.  What you’ve been doing lately blows that all to bits!”

Paul admonished Peter for the welfare of his soul but also for the sake of the gospel.  The truth that our church was named for – by faith alone – was at stake.  “Peter, if your example is teaching people that they have to do certain things for God to love them, then Jesus died for nothing!  What you’re doing is that big of a deal!”

How did Peter receive it?  By God’s grace – and I’m not throwing that in as a cliché phrase – by God’s grace, because that’s what made it happen, Peter received it well.  He was probably what we would think of as a district or synod president, but he wasn’t about power or rank or reputation.  Humbly and penitently he acknowledged the accuracy of what Paul was saying.  The truth about his sin and the truth about his Savior gave him a changed heart, a cleansed heart, a heart recommitted to living God’s way no matter what people would think or say about him.

Can you see how Peter’s life looks if you put it on a chart?  You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (high) >> I swear, I don’t know him (low).  Repent and be baptized every one of you (high) >> What will these people think of me if they hear I’m hanging out with Gentiles and eating Gentile food (low).  Even after the much greater understanding and the much stronger faith he received at Pentecost, Peter was still a work in progress.  Suffice it to say that we are too, each one of us, myself most certainly included.  There’s an easy way to bear that out – what happens, to this day, when you catch it, be that from the pulpit or in private?  I am the fastest gun in the west when it comes to being defensive.  Shields up; denial mode engaged; excuses locked and loaded.  Wiggling our way out of sin equals working our way out of sin.

But whatever works they are, whatever form they take, no one will be declared innocent by works. 

I am and you are a work in progress.  Like Peter, still today you and I have minds that do all they can to go around grace and try to get in good with God by deeds.  We don’t even mean to and we still do.  We have embarrassments and fears and pressures that influence us to do things that we know we shouldn’t.  So when God sends a message like this that gets in your face and mine and says, “You are wrong,” God be gracious enough to us to let us say, “Yes, I am.  But Jesus, you did not die for nothing.  You died for me.  At the cross you were innocent and became guilty.  I was guilty and by the cross have become innocent.  Get my actions out of this picture.  They do me no good!  Only faith in Christ, supplied by God, connects me with Christ and makes me clean.”  Catching hell for what we’ve done leaves us clinging to Christ for what he’s done for us.  Lord, make my grip on Jesus stronger!

And (also evident from Peter’s example) because what we do and how we act and the way we say things does matter, because these things matter a lot, what else can we learn or relearn about how it will happen that we will not give in to fear or peer pressure but truly, openly, boldly live for Christ?  Galatians 2:20 – memorize it.  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives in me.  The death of Jesus is the biggest event in my life.  It didn’t only take my sins away, it changed who I am.  My sinful self is not in the driver’s seat – Jesus is.  For living God’s way, let your faith grab hold of that.  It’s another of those declarative sentences, a statement of fact that God invites you to believe.  I no longer live, Christ lives in me.

It’s not a matter of only threats or incentives that get me to do what God says.  The life I live in the body (what I do) I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.  To get our sinful self out from behind the wheel and to have Christ living his life through us, we do well to repeat this simple phrase around the clock.  He loved me and gave himself for me.  I am and you are a work in progress, but progress it is, because Christ does live in us, so let’s get on with it!  Forward march!

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