What are you building upon?

Today we’re in Galatians chapter 2. For those unfamiliar, Galatians is one of the fourteen Pauline Epistles, letters written by Paul to certain people and churches. Galatians was written to the church at Galatia, covering the doctrine of justification by faith and warning believers against reverting to their old ways. One of the most striking examples of Paul’s exhortation comes in this chapter.

In this section, Paul is addressing some instability and inconsistency in the life of Peter. Peter was a disciple who loved and followed the Lord. But here, we see he had a fault.

The first thing I need you to note is that Paul didn’t come to play games. He came to see Peter face to face because Peter was to blame.

Before we go any further, I want you to see a Christian being okay with calling out another Christian.

The Value of Being Called Out

I’m somewhat of a strong-willed individual, so more than once in my life I’ve had the blessing of getting called out. In April of 2024, I sold my jet black Mustang on Facebook Marketplace to a guy in Moncks Corner. I’d bought a Tacoma a few weeks prior and, because I didn’t have any sense, I had already transferred the license plate from my Mustang to the Tacoma. I had no plate for the Mustang.

The morning of the sale, I drove the Mustang to work with the old Tacoma dealer tag on the back of it, just so it looked like I had a tag. Bad idea. I started doing some Googling that morning and figured out I’d get in more trouble for having the wrong tag than no tag at all, so I went out to the parking lot at work with a Sharpie, flipped the paper dealer tag around, and wrote “otw to sell. tag already transferred” on the back. A stark white message on the back of a jet black Mustang. A dumb idea.

Not even fifteen minutes later, a supervisor barreled into my office.

“Sam, is that your Mustang sitting out in the parking lot with no tag and a handwritten note?”

“Yes sir.”

“Son, go take that tag off. You’re begging a cop to pull you over if you get on the road with that nonsense.”

That afternoon I drove forty-five minutes to Moncks Corner with no tag at all. I told my uncle later that evening about my adventure and he summed it up pretty well: “Evidently the Lord struck the cops blind and He struck you dumb!”

There is value in admonishment and reproof. That supervisor was right. I’d have gotten pulled over in a heartbeat had I pulled out on the road advertising that I didn’t have a legal tag on the back of my car.

Paul was right too. The Bible says Peter was to be blamed. He’d done wrong and Paul was coming to set the record straight. There’s nothing wrong with some good old-fashioned reproof, but it has to be done the right way.

I think we’d all be a better bride of Christ if more God-fearing, God-honoring believers had the willpower and wherewithal to call each other to task. Far be it from me to waste an opportunity.

Far too many people are sitting in buildings all across America right now listening to the song of fools. Through the error and foolishness of the modern-day feel-good preacher, the sword of God’s Word that slices through sin-filled lives and pierces hearts of indifference has been replaced with a pool noodle. A song of health and wealth and love and acceptance is belted from the stage, and the people leave the same way they came.

Paul didn’t take that approach with Peter at Antioch, and I would be doing you a disservice if I didn’t take that same approach here.

Peter Caves to Pressure

When the Jewish friends of James came to town, Peter, who had been eating meals with his Gentile friends, suddenly decided he needed to remove himself from the table. He decided he needed to distance himself from those Gentile friends. He did this because he feared the judgment and criticism he would receive from the Jews. As a Jew himself, Peter knew that Jewish law discouraged eating with Gentiles. In Jewish law, Gentiles who didn’t follow the principles of circumcision were considered “less than” and to be avoided.

So Peter caved to groupthink. He caved to the pressure of those around him. We see Peter get wishy-washy like this multiple times in the Bible. On one hand, in John 18 he was slicing off people’s ears when they came to take Jesus. Then, when Jesus was set to be crucified in Matthew 26 , Peter was cursing and carrying on, denying he even knew who Jesus was.

Why did Peter, a devoted disciple of Jesus, struggle with this? Was he not a strong believer? Was he not a pillar of the early church? What happened?

In that moment, Peter allowed pressure from people to overpower the principles of Christlikeness in his life.

Has pressure ever gotten to you? Maybe it’s pressure from a coworker, a boss, a friend, a church member, a parent, or a child. Maybe their actions are filling your life with emotional pressure, financial pressure, or spiritual pressure.

Have you ever wanted to give up? Have you ever felt the temptation to withdraw as Peter did? To step away from the table? To remove yourself?

What happens when you’re removing yourself from the people God has called you to encourage, witness to, and exhort?

Peter was sitting at that table eating with those men because those were the Gentiles God had called him to serve in that ministry field. Because of Peter’s position as one of the original twelve disciples, he was probably eating with men who looked up to him and depended on him to lead and teach and pray with them. Still, he folded. And it didn’t just affect him.

The Bible says others were carried away with the dissimulation. Dissimulation is just a big word for duplicity and deceitfulness. These other men were caught up in Peter’s duplicity. They were all acting one way when those certain Jews were around and another when they weren’t. They followed Peter. And it wasn’t just weaker brothers in Christ. The Bible says even Barnabas was caught up in it. Barnabas was Paul’s right-hand man for a while and a strong apostle in his own right.

This serves as a reminder that when you decide to cave, it often doesn’t just mess you up. Other people feel the effects. Other people get caught up in the aftermath. And there will always be an aftermath when you allow pressure to overpower the principles of godliness in your life.

What did those Gentiles feel when their Jewish brothers, led by Peter, abruptly stood up to leave them? Do you think they all laughed it off and went back to eating? Do you think they just shrugged and asked someone to pass the potatoes?

No. This event damaged the synergy and oneness of spirit in that group of believers. Pride and bitterness probably reared their ugly heads at some point.

The Gentiles: “Wow. I see how Peter really thinks about us. And here he was preaching to us to love as Christ loved. That’s the last time I take him seriously.”

The Jews: “Maybe Peter was right to get up and leave. After all, we know we’re supposed to be circumcised, and none of these Gentiles have done that. They must not be serious in their relationship with Christ like we are.”

Do either of those lines of thought sound beneficial or encouraging?

The Pull to Step Away

Do you feel the pull to step away from the table?

Do you feel a desire to withdraw?

Do you feel pressure from some person or event in your life?

Maybe you’re struggling to connect with a wayward child or parent. Maybe your workload is increasing and you’re finding less and less time in your day. Maybe you feel like your church is off-kilter.

Feeling those things often makes us want to withdraw. To remove ourselves. To quit trying.

Peter felt the pressure from his Jewish peers, but he failed to ask the question: “Would God be glorified with my decision?”

Don’t misunderstand me. There are times in life where it’s okay to apply some distance. But you should never take those steps before first asking, “Does my decision here align with the truth of God’s Word? Will He be glorified in this?”

Here we see that Peter’s choice to withdraw did not align with God’s truth.

Paul called Peter out to his face in front of everyone. “Peter, if you’re a Jew who, up until a couple of minutes ago, was living like a Gentile and eating with Gentiles, then why all of a sudden are you expecting the Gentiles to live like Jews? Why the double standard? Why have you shunned them?”

To put it in modern vernacular, he was saying, “What’s got you movin’ different? Why are you switchin’ sides?”

The Shift Peter Had Already Made

Paul tells Peter, “You’re a Jew living after the manner of Gentiles.” Why is this important? Because for a Jew to live like a Gentile, a Jew had to give up some things. There had to be key mindset changes, particularly around circumcision and diet. Throughout the New Testament, we see where Jesus and others had to fight against the “idol of the Law” in the life of the Jews. The Jews loved the Law. They took pride in their laws, their sacrifices, their traditions, and their works.

The Gentiles weren’t beholden to these laws. So for Peter to “live after the manner of the Gentiles,” he had to have given up his stance on some of the law. We can see this moment of transformation in Peter’s life in Acts 10:13 .

In this passage, Peter had gone onto a housetop to pray at the sixth hour. The Lord gave him a vision of all manner of animals coming down on something that looked like a big picnic sheet. Then God told him to do something:

God told Peter to eat of the animals, but Peter said he couldn’t because, according to Jewish law, it was unclean and common meat. God essentially said that He overrules whatever man’s laws are. God was trying to explain this to Peter because He was preparing Peter for a meeting with a Gentile man named Cornelius.

If we skip down a few verses, we see something interesting:

The Lord Himself told Peter to step away from the laws and customs of Jewish tradition, and Peter had done it. He’d learned not to call any man common or unclean.

So what in the world is he doing here in Galatians, separating himself from the Gentiles at Antioch? Hadn’t this matter already been resolved?

Paul tells us what Peter is doing in verse 18.

Building Again What Was Destroyed

Peter was building again things he’d once destroyed in his life. The fear of Jewish laws and customs came back. The things that God had told him to shed from his life in Acts 10 came rearing back up in his heart. In that moment, the approval of men was more important to him than the approval of his Savior.

Are you building back things you once destroyed in your life? Look back over your years. What were the sins and problems you struggled with last year, five years ago, fifteen years ago? Have there been instances where you found yourself in a dark place, God showed you a truth about Himself, and you resolved to rest in that truth and live in the light of it, only to find yourself back in that same darkness again?

I’ve preached messages on tearing down idols, but I felt a conviction on my heart this week that we, as God’s people, need to be called to task about how we build idols back up after we tear them down.

What do we do when we build things? We take bits and pieces of other things and put them together to make new things. If I’m building a house, I mix cement, gravel, sand, and water to make concrete. Then I pour the foundation and make the bricks. And I stack the bricks, row after row, one on top of the other. It takes time to build. It takes effort.

I have to keep going back to get more cement, gravel, sand, and water. I have to keep pouring molds. I have to keep laying bricks. Building something up doesn’t happen overnight. It’s gradual.

Similarly, if I keep going back to the same old vices, the same old complaints, the same old problems, the same old sins, and I just keep piling them on in my life, eventually I will have built back a thing that should have been destroyed.

If you build again the things which once, by the power of God, were destroyed in your life, the Bible says you’ve become a transgressor.

I like Paul’s use of the word “transgressor” in verse 18, because a transgressor is specifically defined as someone who has broken a law or a command.

One of the themes in this passage is a warning against following man’s laws when they contradict God’s laws. Regarding circumcision, one of the Jewish laws was that males had to be circumcised. They would be considered “less than” and “unclean” if they didn’t comply. This stood in direct contradiction to what Peter had learned in Acts 10 , when God showed him that he was to call no man common or unclean.

It’s almost as if Paul was saying, “Peter, in fearing judgment from those who follow the Jewish law of circumcision, you’ve broken God’s law. Remember what He commanded you. Don’t call unclean what He’s called clean. You broke that command. You transgressed. You’ve backslidden.”

Friend, if you know you’ve broken God’s laws in an attempt to placate, appease, or follow man’s law, God is calling you out of that. If you rejected a sin but it’s worked its way back into your life, God is calling you from that.

Eyes Forward

For a believer to keep living their life knowing they’ve built back things that should have been destroyed is to be like one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back.

When I was younger, I would help my Granddaddy on the farm. Every summer when I was a kid involved the family farm in Darlington out on Howell Lane off South Center Road. One summer, Granddaddy got the bright idea to teach me how to drive the tractor. There was a little acre plot in his backyard that he and Grandma had turned into a hobby garden for tomatoes and okra and squash and such. That day he decided we were going to disc it up to get ready for planting, so he put me on the tractor.

I did good the first few rows, laser-focused on keeping that tractor moving straight. Then I got too comfortable. I learned very quickly that when Granddaddy is behind you shouting directions and you turn your head to look at him while you’re driving a tractor with big blades on the back slicing through the dirt, it’s not a good idea. It had made sense to turn my head in the moment, but in doing so my arms and hands, which were attached to the steering wheel, also turned. Needless to say, Granddaddy had to get on the tractor and re-disc after I got done. Why? Because I didn’t keep my eyes on the task in front of me. I wasn’t disciplined enough to keep my eyes looking forward, focusing on what I was supposed to be doing.

Back in Jesus’s day you were using a mule and a plow, not a tractor, but the principle was the same. If you wanted straight rows good for planting, you had to be looking forward so you could guide the mules straight. Straight rows meant more room for planting, which meant a better harvest. If you turned around, your row would be crooked. Your harvest wouldn’t be as plentiful.

There are a lot of people planting crooked rows today because they lost their direction and discipline and decided to build back some of the things they once destroyed.

The plentiful harvests they should be reaping aren’t materializing.

The fruits of the Spirit they should be bearing in their lives aren’t being borne.

What should be a straight path onward to be closer to Jesus has become a crooked path with turns and dips and double-backs.

Such is the life of some of us today. There was a time when we put our hands to the plow and answered the call to plant seeds in the hearts of those God placed in our path. But since that decision, we’ve backslidden. We’ve lost the discipline of walking forward on the straight and narrow path.

Friend, don’t fall back to old habits.

Don’t allow the temptation of ease and pleasure in this temporary life to pull you back to vices you once laid down.

Don’t allow the pride of your past to influence the path you take in your future.

Peter built back up the sinful law of man in his life. He built back up the fear he had of being different from his fellow Jews.

Church, has the Lord laid anything on your heart today that you may be building back?

• A dependence on substance
• A dependence on money
• A dependence on a career
• A dependence on a person
• A dependence on a religious ritual
• A dependence on a political party

The only thing we should be depending on is the promise of salvation and restoration given unto us through the crucifixion and resurrection of God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

The Resolution

This is the resolution that Paul brings us to:

For me to be crucified with Christ means that when I accept Christ, the old sinful man that I was before I met Him is dead. No longer is that sinful man, with his anger and bitterness and pride and self-reliance, calling the shots. When people look at me, they see Jesus.

The life I live now is one that is built up on the faith of the Son of God, who loved me enough to die for me. It’s not built up on the sinful things that He destroyed when He came and cleansed me and made me whole.

This weekend, we spent the last few nights at my parents’ house. My sister works EMS and was gone on shift, so Sarah and I decided to crash in her bedroom since it’s the largest and has its own full bathroom. This morning at 3 AM, I went to use the bathroom.

When the room was mine many years ago, there were motion-activated night lights that made it very easy to see everything at night if I had to get up. I know I look like a pretty tough guy, but I’m into the night lights. However, my sister and my wife are not. So there are no night lights anymore. The room is pitch black at 3 AM.

I stumble to the bathroom, close the door, and flip the switch. The bright light suddenly all around pierced every physical fiber of my existence. My eyes squinted and tears started to form at the corners. Not a pleasurable experience.

A few minutes later, I turned off the light and went to leave the bathroom. As I opened the door into the blackness of the bedroom, it was darker than before. I couldn’t even see the outline of the bed across the room.

It’s hard to get used to the dark again after you’ve gotten used to the light. Getting used to the light may hurt a bit at first. But then you can see and all is good. When you try to go back to the dark after you’ve already been in the light, that’s a different story. After being in the light, I really didn’t have a desire to go back into the dark.

After being in the light, after knowing God, let’s not turn back to the dark.

Instead of building back dependencies and idols that ought to be destroyed in our lives, let’s make a commitment today to continue building and growing our reliance on and relationship with Jesus.

If a prisoner was given a key to remove themselves from prison but chose to stay anyway, we’d find that odd. Why would someone desire to stay in bondage to the sin in their lives?

If that’s you today, and the Lord is convicting you of building up things in your life that should have been destroyed, I ask you to take a few minutes to get alone in prayer and get it right with Him.

If you’re saying, “Sam, I’ve been thinking about what I’ve built my life upon, and I know it hasn’t been Jesus. I’ve never made the decision to destroy the old man and allow Jesus to come into my heart,” the Bible says that today is the day of salvation.

All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. You’re included in that all.

Our righteousness apart from God is as filthy rags. There’s nothing you can do in your own power to restore a right relationship between you and the Lord.

Jesus came and died in our place, paying the debt we couldn’t pay for our sins. He became the bridge between us and God, providing a way for that relationship to be restored.

Jesus rose again and sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven. One day He will return to gather all those who believe home to Him in glory.

Before that day, you have a decision. You can choose to admit you’re a sinner, admit that you need Jesus, tell Him you believe that He alone died so that you might be saved, and commit to living a life in service to Him following His Word. Or you can continue to live in a state of sin apart from Him and do as you please.

When the trumpet sounds, or when your eyes close in death, you no longer have the choice. You can’t game it. You can’t time when you get saved. No man knows the day or the hour that he will die or that the Lord will come back. Too much is at stake for you to say, “Maybe tomorrow, Lord.”

If you’ve accepted Christ, you will live in peace and joy for eternity in heaven.

If you don’t accept Him, you will live in hellfire and torment for eternity in hell.

There’s no redo. Because God is a just judge, He has decreed that sin must be paid for. He sent Jesus to pay it because He doesn’t want you and me to suffer. But He gives you the free will to make the choice to accept or reject Jesus’s sacrifice. There is no third option.

We will all stand before the Lord one day to receive our judgment. A condemnation to hell or a welcome into heaven.

Don’t let that day be the day where, in a panic, your mind flashes back to the day you sat at Southside FWB Church in Darlington, SC, and a preacher behind a pulpit begged you to get right with the Lord, but you chose to refuse. The memory will be burned in your mind as flames lick at your feet.

Friend, there’s a way to avoid that. Come down to this altar, grab me by the hand, and we’ll go off to the side and walk through what it means to be saved. You can leave this place secure in the knowledge and saving power of Jesus, free from the penalty and power of sin.

Let’s make the choice today. What are you built up on? If it’s not Jesus, it’s time to fix it. Ask Him to destroy the sin that has been built up in your heart. Make the choice to refuse to build it back again. Follow God’s commands and God’s laws. Leave this place this morning resolving to put your hand to the plow and never look back.

As the Lord works in your heart, please respond.