So it was right around 500 years ago. There was a young man who had become absolutely petrified, uh, frozen terrified, uh, when confronted with the holiness of God. That might sound strange to you, but this guy, uh, it kept him up at night. He was so worried that, uh, God was so perfect and was so powerful and was so terrifyingly holy that there was no way that he could stand before him and not just be absolutely consumed. And he, he was trying to figure out a way out of this, and he was just completely stuck. So if you were here last weekend, we, we talked about this idea of being stuck and groping around in the dark, trying to find your way through it. Well, that's where this guy was. So he started going to the church and saying, can, can like help me? What do I do with this? And the advice he got was less than comforting. What the church essentially said was, listen, you just have to keep doing the practices of the church. Be like a perfect Christian. And then what will happen is after you die, after you die, you will go to a place that's just short of heaven where you will be purged of your remaining sin. We think this might be a painful process, could take hundreds, maybe thousands of years, but eventually, eventually you'll get to a place where you can finally then be in heaven with God and all will be well. And in this guy's mind, he was like, that's not what I wanted to hear. So he started to search the scriptures himself and started to figure, try to figure this out. And he got to the New Testament. He started to read some of the letters that the Apostle Paul had written. He got to Romans chapter one, and he read a verse that changed his life. It's verse chapter one, verse 17. And here's what it says. It says, um, for in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed, a righteousness that is from faith to faith. Just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith. And you have questions about what I just read, and we're gonna unpack this a little bit, but almost overnight, this guy's life was completely changed. And because this guy that I'm talking about some of you know, is Martin Luther, it changed the church. And over time, the world was changed. And today, 500 years later, we still live in the wake of the Protestant reformation. That all began with this verse, Romans chapter one. So what was the message that Luther read that changed his life there that Paul had written? It was simply this. You don't have to stay stuck in your relationship with God. Truth is, it's not really about what you can do. You can't go to church enough. You can't pay enough money to the church, which at that time, this was a big deal. You can't con go to confession enough, meditate, pray, read your Bible enough to make things right between you and a holy God. No matter how hard you try. Uh, the truth is you'll still fall short. But the good news of the gospel is that Jesus did it for you. That Jesus went to the cross on your behalf, and he took all the punishment of your sin on him. And now, when you stand before God, Jesus gives you his righteousness, and you are declared saved, righteous, justified before this holy God. And he embraces you as his son or daughter. That's the good news. It changed Luther's life. Now, you might be hearing all of that and going like, that's pretty heady stuff. I mean, that was pretty, we came at it pretty strong. And I already have questions. And maybe you're fairly new here, uh, to the crossing and you're exploring some of these things. Maybe you're in a place right now where for the first time you're going, man, I just find that I'm open to these spiritual conversations in a way that I haven't been before. I'm open to talking about this stuff and hearing spiritual truth and wrestling with this wherever you are on this, this is the message, uh, uh, of the gospel of grace. It's the good news. And in Luther's words, he would say, we accept what Jesus has done for us on the cross, and we receive this gift of grace. And it is by that grace alone that we are made right with God. It's by that grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Now, Luther would keep reading and he'd eventually get to Galatians chapter two in this little letter that we started studying last week. And he gets to a verse and he reads it, and he saw the same message in this verse that he had seen in Romans chapter one. So here's what Galatians says. Paul says, we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. When Luther read that, he saw the same message. And before I go any further, let me just tell you this, I have staked my life on that truth, that it is the gospel of grace that makes things right between me and God. And now I get to come to him boldly and enter into this loving relationship with the God of the universe who created me for a life of purpose and joy and meaning and hope and freedom. And if you were to take a poll in any of our rooms right now, what you would find is that you're surrounded by people who have received this same message, and they would agree it changed everything. His grace is real. It's true. It's everything scripture promises it to be. And it changes everything. And at the same time, uh, we would say, if there are some of you who are trying to figure all of this out right now, and you want to live the life that God created you to live, well, then you should consider this message of grace. You should, you should keep asking questions and keep exploring and we'll keep figuring things out together. But ultimately, um, it's just this, this gospel of grace is something that we're inviting you to consider now. It's such a big thing. It's so hard sometimes to wrap our brains around that. One of the best ways for us to understand it is to hear different voices and different stories that kind of help us kind of paint this picture. So Luther's one voice, I wanna come back to his voice here in just a minute. But, um, before we get to back to him, I want you to hear another voice right now. So Diego, come on up here. Um, this is my friend Diego Garcia. Diego. Uh, you and I were talking earlier this week and uh, when we were unpacking the opening of Paul's letter to the Galatians last weekend. Yeah. You said there were a couple of things that struck you. Yeah. Well, uh, Paul would write great birthday cards. Uhhuh Really, really good birthday. He's Got away with words. He does. Yeah, absolutely Does, does. Yeah. Absolutely. As long as you don't get 'em angry right? Then it kind of goes south. Send Them back. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Right. So why don't you take a second and tell these people who you are and then I've got a couple questions for you. So I'm Diego. I'm the associate youth pastor here at this campus. Uh, I get to hang out with middle and high school students and talk about Jesus and play games and just do a bunch of fun things. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, you need to know that both of my boys who've been through Youth Crossing, one of 'em is in it right now. And, uh, they love this guy. They love this guy. Uh, he's one of their youth pastors. We have amazing youth pastors at all of our campuses. So we're grateful for what you do here, Diego. Thanks. Yeah. Uh, even for our family. But, um, okay. So you were looking at this le the intro to Paul's letter, to the Galatians. There was something else that stood out to you about that. Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, in Paul's intro to the Galatians, he mentions grace and peace. And I, as I look through every single one of his letters and every single intro, he mentions grace and peace every single time. Right. And with the Bible, when you see repetition, you gotta look at it and think why, like, what was Paul trying to draw attention to? Yeah. Yeah. So it really comes down to that word grace, right? Uh, h help us get our heads around that a little bit. Yeah. So, I mean, we all know this, but like in our, in our world now, we have a bunch of different definitions for what grace could be. So I mean, it could be the, uh, approval or favor that we experience. It's also mercies and forgiveness, you know, a grace period. We've heard that before. Um, something my wife will never say is Diego parallel parks with such grace, that is not a sentence that will exist. Right, right. Um, but there's a lot of different ways we can go about it. There's also the, the, when we offer kindness, uh, to someone who may not deserve it, that's grace. But I think as meaningful as all of these definitions may be, that they still miss the mark, um, to, to what Paul was talking about. Mm. To compare that grace to the grace that Paul is, is mentioning, I think is like believing that a beautiful, that a picture of a beautiful view captures the view better than the view itself. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So then how would you like, uh, give us another picture of this? What's a better way of thinking about it? Well, it's a quote from our grand trail Pastor Angela Bias. She has a video, uh, on a an A Q video where she talks about grace. And her definition was so good. I need to read it straight from it. It was Grace is an extravagantly expensive gift from Jesus that makes a relationship with God possible. That's so good. It's so good. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and I know great that this grace is really personal for you, Diego. So would you just give us a snapshot of how did this grace find its way into your life? Um, well, I was 15 years old. I was living my life the way I wanted to live it, doing as I pleased. And if anybody was gonna talk about God or religion to me, I was out. Don't even want to hear it. Um, and so eventually my youth Pastor David, that guy over there, he, uh, gave my parents an offer they couldn't refuse with a free trip to summer camp. And, uh, they, you know, so they, they just took me, they brought me to summer camp. They Said, you're going, it's not like we're packing your bags. Absolutely. I, I thought we were gonna chuck E Cheese and we ended up going to church, to summer camp. Um, but it was at summer camp where I thought, I, I realized living my life my way was not the way. Yeah. And I'll never forget that, that feeling of Jesus lifting weight off of my body, like I felt lighter. There was no condemnation, there was no judgment. I felt my shame and my mistakes, they all just melted away by the grace of God. Yeah. It was that grace. It's amazing. Yeah. I changed that day and You've never been the same. And, uh, you've kind of devoted your life to sharing it with other people. Right. That's so cool. Yeah. Um, and I love the way you said a minute ago, this idea that, um, it believing that a, that a picture of a beautiful view could be better than the view itself. Is that how you said that? Right? Yeah. So I, it's such a hard, grace is such a hard thing for people to, to wrap our brains around, but I, but I'm, I'm, we're just gonna keep giving pictures of this Right. To see if we can start to try to make sense of it so that you can experience the thing itself. Um, so I'm gonna go back to Martin Luther, but will you come back before we're done and you've got one more picture of this that you wanna give us, so Absolutely. You'll come back, be back. All right, Diego, we'll be back. Um, yeah, go Diego. Um, so I, I I I, I love this. But, um, here's the thing. When we look at what Luther was saying, the way he read Galatians chapter two, uh, when he looked at that verse, he saw the same message there that we saw up in Romans chapter one. And today, I actually think we need to read that verse a little differently than Martin Luther read it. Now, some of you hear me say that and go, well, who do you think you are? You're gonna go toe to toe with Martin Luther, Tim. Really? Really? He was a hack. Is that what you're saying? You know what you're doing here. Listen guys, I I'm not that stupid, okay? I like, I I, I know that this is like a guy we stand on his shoulders. He started the Protestant Reformation. There are actually a lot of scholars who would say that in those days, what was going on historically around Martin Luther was so significant that he couldn't help but read this passage any other way. Uh, in fact, uh, do you remember last weekend when we talked about, uh, how we read the scripture through three different worlds? Some of you were here and we said, we read the world behind the text, the world within the text, and the world in front of the text. Well, if you think about it, the world in front of the text in Martin Luther's Day was screaming so loudly in his ears that he couldn't help but read it into the passage that was sitting in front of him. So for him to read about the works of the law that Paul is talking about there in the, the Jewish customs, he just saw the Catholic church in that. And he viewed himself as a, a kind of Paul who was gonna try to set the record straight. Now, even though that may be the case, I wanna make sure that I say this. He was right about what he was saying about Galatians chapter two. What I mean is that truth of grace. You see it throughout scripture. And there's no question that his legacy reverberates even till now. It helps us understand who Jesus is and what he has done for us. But if we now can go back and look at this text with fresh eyes and start to explore the world behind the text again, and start to look at really what was going on that upset Paul so much, I think we can get to a place to where we'll start to see things that Paul is saying that are speaking to our world that is now in front of the text. We've got things that are for us today. So that's what we're gonna kind of do. Does that make sense? Some of you're nodding your head, some of you I lost somewhere in, in that somewhere. Okay. So I've gotta get us all back on board. Gotta get us back on the same page. I I, I think in order to understand what Paul is saying in the passage we just looked at, we've gotta go back to chapter two, verse 11, where Paul says this, when CFUs came to Antioch, and just so you know, that CFUs, that's just the Aramaic version of the name Peter, this is Peter. Alright. When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned. Here we go. Let's get ready to rumble. Right? Oh my gosh, you guys do I need to make you guys like shake your neighbor and make sure that everybody's awake and, and whatever. We're gonna do this. Are you ready? Are you ready to get into it? Yeah. In this corner, you've got the famous heavyweight champion, apostle himself, Peter the Rock Johnson, probably not his last name. And in this corner you've got the famous former Pharisee turned follower of Jesus, this Greek scholar, the intellectual heavyweight champion. Paul, let's go. There we are. All, all right. Here we go. So we're gonna, actually, we should pray first. Let's do that. Will you pray with me, father? Um, it's so fun and interesting and helpful and, uh, to, to dive into your word and understand things. And I, God, I just want, I want to thank you for the grace that you have offered us through your son Jesus. And at the same time, I want to confess to you, I feel in the midst of this very important passage that has been looked at from so many different angles, God, I feel woefully inadequate. And so I wanna pray a prayer that I know many of our pastors have prayed, uh, in the past. God, if there's something I have to say in light of this passage that is not from you, and it's not God, would we just all leave today and forget that I said it, but would your word ring in our ears and in our hearts? And would it change us from the inside out? And would we be, um, would we be moved by the message of your gospel to be a part of what you're doing in this world? Speak to us now through your Holy Spirit. We need you and I pray this in the name of Jesus Messiah, my savior. Amen. Amen. Okay, while we're away from the text for just a second, let me just slow down and say, hey, to all of you that are at the sites. And it's so good to be with you. And there's so many amazing things that are happening in this church right now. I hope you signed up for that Financial Foundations class. Uh, it's gonna be so good. Uh, you've heard that it's a five week class. Greg helped write it. He's gonna be teaching part of it. He was in, uh, cooperation with Dave McNeil, our director of Care ministries, and they're just, um, it's gonna be so good. I hope you're signed up for it. But I also need to let you know that because of the snow we had a couple of weeks ago, we've kind of had to adjust our schedule a little bit when it comes to our weekend services. So, um, this is our second week diving into the book of Galatians in this Unleashed series that we are in next weekend, we're gonna take a pause from Galatians and we're gonna go back. Greg will be here and he wants to tell us some things. Uh, remind us of some things that he said to us back in the fall about who we are as a church, where God's leading us, where things are headed. He's got some updates for us, some really exciting things that, that we're excited to share with you. So it's gonna be a really important weekend, next weekend, and we want to invite all of you to come and hear this and be a part of it with us. We'll do that. And then the week after that, we'll dive back into Galatians for two more weeks. So two weeks of Galatians vision weekend, then two more weeks of Galatians, and we go on from there. Does that make sense? Everybody with me? So, uh, so keep coming. I can't wait for you to hear this stuff. It all connects, I promise. But, um, but here's the thing. When we get back into this passage, Paul is opposing Peter to his face. Here's the rest of the story. Now I'm going to read that verse again and then keep reading. When CFUs Paul came to, uh, Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned for, before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, hypocrisy. That's we, that's a tough word, but that's exactly what's going on. And so, um, this whole conflict between Paul and Peter, it takes place in a town called Antioch. If you'll remember last weekend, we looked at Southern Galatia. These are the towns that Paul visited who he's writing to, just east Southeast of. There is this city of Antioch, which um, was home to one of the most influential churches in the first century. In fact, uh, the church in Antioch and the church in Jerusalem is where a lot of really important things were happening. And Paul has kind of set up his home base there in Antioch. Peter is in Jerusalem, so now he's gonna go north to Antioch to pay a visit to Paul and that church and get a report on everything that's going on there. So Peter comes up to visit Paul, and this is where we get to this line where apparently Peter's eating dinner with the, with the Gentiles. He has no problem sharing in these meals until these agitators come along and they start to intimidate him. Now, um, we'll get to why here in a second, but I can't overstate how important it is that these meals were like pivotal, like, uh, central to the life of the early church, go to any town where the church was developing and they would gather together on the weekends, just like we do to worship and to open up God's word together and to celebrate communion and all kinds of important things. But in between the weekends, they shared in a lot of meals together, this is just what they would do. It seems like every night there was a dinner party somewhere and they would all talk about life and how things are going and all the things they're learning in light of their newfound faith in Jesus. And over time, if you had a friend or a neighbor or a coworker who came to accept Jesus as their Lord, well then you would go, Hey, now that you're a follower of Jesus, do you wanna come to dinner with some of me and my friends? Like, like we're all going over to so-and-so's house tonight and we want to invite you to come be a part of this with us. And over time, what started to happen because of the, the, the mix of these different towns is that these little dinner parties would have Jewish people and non-Jewish people all sharing in a meal together because of Jesus. Now, that might not sound radical to you, but I'm telling you that was radical back then. And the reason for that is because in those days, uh, because of Jesus, or before Jesus, the Jews did not share meals with gentiles and they had really good reasons for that. Um, I'll just give you a couple. One was this was, this was a part of the law that God had given them that was, uh, designed to show them how to be the people of God. God was saying to them, listen, I want the world to know who I am through you. You are my chosen people in one of the ways that you're going to demonstrate this is that you're gonna be different from everybody else that am setting you apart. And one of the ways that they would distinguish themselves from everybody else is that they would only share meals within themselves. They would not share with other people. But there was also a really practical reason. So lemme just ask you, um, do you guys remember, I think it was like five years ago, about this time there was a little news story that broke out that people were getting sick on cruise ships and it might make its way over to the us. Do you remember that story? Yeah. Whatever happened with that a lot, right? Uh, we, we like kinda started to freak out and then the covid pandemic happened. And the early days we didn't know what was going on. We didn't know how these little corona germs were finding their way from one person to another. And so, I mean, we sanitized our groceries for crying out loud. We we had no idea, uh, how to do this. And so there was a rule really early on that we were supposed to stay how far apart? Six, six feet we're supposed to. It's still just, it's like embedded in our subconscious now six feet of distance from anybody to make sure that we don't get each other sick. Well, Tom Wright, who's a theologian who studied the first century a lot, says that in those days, um, this is kind of what it was like, uh, to be Jewish. He said the devout Jews looking in horror at the lifestyles of the pagan world saw the threat of contagion everywhere. Now what's he talking about? Couple of things. First of all, uh, in those days, if you were not Jewish, uh, you probably participated in all kinds of religious activity that was going on in those days. There were little temples and worship spots set up to all kinds of pagan gods. Greek gods, Roman gods Emperor worship was starting to find its way into the culture. And at these temples, things would go on, um, in some cases really dark things like stuff that you and I wouldn't want to be a part of. But then also they would sacrifice meat at these temples to all of these little g gods. And then if you were a gentile who had participated in this stuff, this meat that was sacrificed to idols is what you would bring home and that would be dinner for the family. And so for a Jew in those days, one, I'm not eating food that was sacrificed to an idol, that's idolatry. There is only one God. I worship him and I'm not eating that meat. But second of all, uh, because of all of this, they couldn't even guarantee that that meat had been prepared properly. And so this was one of the ways that they kept themselves healthy. So all of that were the reasons why Jews would only eat, uh, by themselves. And they historically avoided eating with the Gentiles until something happened because of Jesus that changed all the rules. You can read about it in Acts chapter 10. There's this crazy moment where this apostle, one of the famous ones, has a dream in the middle of the night where God comes to him and says, listen, it's okay for you to share in meals with the Gentiles. Now don't worry about that because of Jesus, that rule doesn't apply anymore. You can eat meals with the Gentiles. And so the next day this apostle gets invited to a man's home. The man's name is Cornelius, he is not Jewish. And he invites this apostle into his house and they share in a meal together for the first time. And in that moment, this apostle starts to see that Cornelius and all of his family, they've all accepted Jesus for themselves and they've received the Holy Spirit. And so he baptizes them there. It's amazing. He goes home to his home church and says, guys, listen to what's happening. And he starts to tell them about all of this. And there's this beautiful verse in Acts chapter 11, verse 18, where the church responds to this uh, story and says, so then even to Gentiles, God has granted repentance that leads to life. In other words, even Gentiles now get invited to the dinner table. Even Gentiles now get to be a part of the family of God. It's an amazing story. Here's the kicker. Do you know who that famous apostle was that had that dream and ate with Cornelius Peter? It was, it was Peter. He started the whole thing. And so now he's going up to Antioch to see Paul and these agitators come in and intimidate him and he backs away from everything that God had told him. This is a part of what makes Paul so angry. Ah Peter. Now before we go any further, let me just defend Peter A. Little bit. Okay? For one thing, I always feel bad for him 'cause he's the one who's dirty laundry seems to get aired out in scripture, right? Chances are, if it would've been me in that story, it would've been me doing this stuff. It I relate to Peter. I bet a lot of us do. There's no question. Peter was one of the apostles of the early church, and we have, uh, there is so much to celebrate about Peter, but in this case, like in a few other cases, Peter just gets it wrong and Paul is furious about it. Now, we had some fun with Paul's anger last weekend. Lemme just ask you, when, when we were talking through all of that, is anybody a little uncomfortable with Paul's anger in this letter? Is anybody looking at that and going, I don't know if that's okay for him to be that mad? Anybody feel that way? Especially when you go to a church where we talk all the time about how, um, you know, uh, in, on the internet there's all these evil trolls with strong opinions that are stirring stuff up and being real ugly with each other. And one of our callings as followers of Jesus is to do what, what do we always say? Turn the volume down. Speak love instead of anger and hatred into these things. And let's, let's be, let's love each other. Let's be a different kind of voice in all of this. So if that's who we're called to be, then what about Paul's language here in this letter? Is it okay? Let me ask you this question. When is it okay to be angry and when is it not? Okay? We haven't talked to each other yet today, so maybe this would be a good conversation with your neighbor. Why don't you turn to each other and just a little bit, what do you think about Paul's anger here? Is it okay or not? When is it okay for us to be angry and when is it not? Okay? Take a shot. Answer this question. I'd love to hear here in Chesterfield what you guys are talking about. Okay, let's just, uh, I want to hear what you guys are talking about in here. Let's just start on this side of the room. Anybody say something good? What do you got? When is it okay to be angry? And when is it not? What do you think? Nothing. Should I go over here now? Is that just walk away? Is anger's okay angry? Oh, I like that. Anger is okay if it doesn't control you. Yeah. Uh, somebody I think in a previous service said in your anger, do not sin. Um, so there's this idea that like, first of all, you don't wanna bury that anger, but at the same time you can't let it like get the best of you. Okay? All right. Cool. What else? Yes, I'm gonna come to you. He Was good when Jesus was angry in the temple when we turned over the Tables. Yeah. Yeah. It's another story in scripture when Jesus got angry and turned over tables in the temples. And of course, he's Jesus, right? So we gotta go. I mean, I think he can, but the root Of that though was, was yeah, very wrongdoing. And so that's Why what he saw was, was absolutely, uh, kind of the opposite of what the temple was intended for. And that's what made him so mad. Yeah. Yeah. What were you gonna say? I have an example. It's not okay. Okay. Yeah. Tell me when it's not okay to be angry when it's with children. When it's with children. Yeah. Yeah. So it's funny 'cause I hear parents in the room going, well, yeah, but no, no, no. I you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. So it's one of those things where I think it goes back to what she was saying, isn't it that sometimes people just make us angry. It's how we respond to that anger that really matters, isn't it? So like, yeah, I think that's it. It's, and so when we see things on the internet or we see things in our lives or in a conversation with somebody or whatever, we might hear stuff that makes us mad. It's how we respond. I think sometimes we just have to say, God, I'm giving this to you. I'm angry about this. Help me know how I can respond with grace and with love and with patience and kindness, all of that kind of stuff. The thing is with Paul, he's direct with Peter. He says some things in this letter that are tough. And so sometimes people read this and go, well, what's going on with Paul? Does he have a right to be as angry as Jesus was when he turned over the tables in the temple? I think he does. And I wanna make sure we understand why for Paul, he would say, this message that I'm sharing about the gospel that Peter's now and these other guys are now messing up. It's not my message. This came from Jesus himself. Now, Paul's gonna spend the whole first chapter of the letter to the Galatians trying to defend, uh, his justification in getting angry in all of this and defend his reputation. He says, I want you to know brothers and sisters, the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, rather I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. So he goes on to say, listen, there was a particular visit where I went to Jerusalem and I met with the apostles and I shared with them this gospel message. And they all agreed, this is from God. Paul, you go preach this. That's what we want you to go preach. And so he went with that authority. Now, real quick side note, the message for us is unless you have received a message from God himself, which has been affirmed by a apostolic authority like James, John and Peter, uh, you probably don't have a right to get as angry as Paul is getting in this letter. And by the way, let me just help you. That's none of you. That's none of us. It's not me either, right? But, um, but Paul's angry and, and, and the reason is because he's like, this is the message Jesus gave me to deliver to you all. And it's really good news, and I want you to get it right. He's, his anger is a righteous anger. It's a godly anger. And he's calling out Peter for being a hypocrite in this moment, violating the very thing that God was clear with Peter about. And so the result is that it breaks Paul's heart and it breaks God's heart. And it may not break your heart yet, but when you see what's really going on here, I think it breaks our hearts too. So Tim Keller says, Paul does not primarily see his fellow apostles behavior as rude or unmanned or unwelcoming as we might. Fundamentally, he sees something deeper is going on. So what is it that he sees here? Ultimately, Peter is giving into the lie that there are two classes of Christians. There's the first class Christians, the Jews, the ones who have been circumcised. They're the ones who've been the promised people of God since the very beginning. And so, so they get to sit at the, at the, at the table, and they get to be the first class Christians. And then there's the second class Gentile Christians, and they have to sit at the loser table. Have you ever had to sit at the loser table? I have. It stinks. And so when this is happening in the early church, uh, listen, there were somewhere saying, listen, you don't have to sit at the loser table. You could take care of that. You could just get circumcised, just become Jewish, and then you can sit at the big boy table with the rest of us. That's all it takes. You get to be with the better Jewish Christians. And that was the logic that Paul was desperately trying to argue against. Why was it just because circumcision was painful and awkward and people didn't wanna put up with it? Now it's because Paul's saying, listen, if you do that, if you make that the rule, then you have missed the point of the gospel completely, which finally gets us to the question that I know so many of you have been looking forward to. It's what I said last week. And so it's why you came back this weekend. We now get to talk about circumcision. So I brought some medical diagrams that I wanna share with you guys. And, um, no, here's the thing you need to know about circumcision. This is kind of a weird thing in our heads. And we go, what does this have to do with God? And why was it such a big deal? And why do we associate it with spiritual matters? You just need to know that for the Jewish people in those days, and really even up to today, it has always been a physical, tangible marker of the covenanted people of God. This is outwardly how people could say that they were a part of the, of the covenant. This has began all the way back in, in, uh, with Abraham in Genesis 17, and it carried forward. And as strange as it might seem to our ears today for the Jewish people, it's been very, very important. Now, I love, uh, the way Eugene Peterson writes. He's a pastor. He writes about, um, this idea of circumcision. He says It's one of the most brilliantly conceived symbols of life and relationship to God. Now, why is that? Well, Peterson goes on to give us some reasons. First of all, he says, um, circumcision is physical. And so it was a sign to the Jewish people that their relationship with God is physical too. This is not some ethereal, mystical, spiritual only kind of a covenant. It's flesh and blood, it's earth. It's, it's, it has to do with our bodies. It's real. That's the first reason. The second reason is it's very intimate. And Eugene Peterson says, uh, for the Jewish people, it was a reminder that their relationship with God was intimate. The Jewish people would've continually found themselves in context where all kinds of dark, pagan worship, often sexual in nature would be happening around them. And this was God's way of saying, I want even into the intimate corners of your life. I want all of it. And then this last point that Peterson may makes is that it was vicarious big word, but I love the way he says this. He says, each person does not have to bear the symbol in order to be in relationship with God. Since the sign of circumcision was only carried by males, it could not be regarded as necessary for females who were obviously God's people quite as much as the males. In that way, the sign could never be identified with the reality itself. In other words, he's saying that this sign of circumcision was an outward symbol of an inward reality. Now, does that sound like anything we talk about around here? Yeah. And so, uh, he's saying, uh, this is like really connected to what Paul is saying in his letter to the Galatians. Now later on, Paul will remind his readers, Abraham, he wasn't justified by being circumcised. He wasn't justified by the works of the law. The law hadn't been given yet. And Abraham was, was justified by his what? Faith. He had faith in what God was doing. And that's what, uh, was credited to Abraham is righteousness. And so we'll talk about that more in a couple of weeks. But the point is, circumcision is no longer what defines the people of God. That's what Paul is saying. He's, he's, and he's arguing with Peter about this. When we get to that verse that we looked at earlier, the one that Martin Luther read. So it's taken us a while to get there, but let's now look at that again. By the way, if you read this in your Bibles, it's in quotations because Paul is actually saying this to Peter in the moment when he's calling him out. He says, we who are Jews by birth and not sinful gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. Now, I know it took a long way around for us to get to this, but now you have the context of these words. And now I think we start to get a glimpse of the God-sized, unbelievable world changing grace that, that Paul was writing about. When Luther read this again, what he saw was that Paul was talking about how a person is made right in their relationship with God through faith in Jesus and not by works of the law. And there's nothing wrong with that. Paul's clearly stating that here. But Paul's point is that what's making him so angry in that moment is not that the Galatians were believing in some kind of work-based righteousness. It's not that they were still believing that the law is what saved them. What makes Paul so angry is he says, you guys are taking a step backwards from one of the most important things that God's grace is meant to do in this world. Reconcile, bring people together in unity under Jesus. See, because of what Jesus has done, this gift of grace moves not just into our relationship with God, but into our relationships with each other. And now Jews and non-Jews all get to come together and create a new kind of community where everyone is invited, where everyone belongs, where, uh, all of humanity and all of the nations are brought together under the Christian unity and the Lordship of Jesus Christ. This is what this is supposed to be. And this was always, always, always the plan. This is why God's promise to Abraham is the whole world will be blessed. All the nations will be blessed through your and your offspring. This is why Paul writes about this in all of his letters. Like in Ephesians when he says, Jesus has broken down the dividing wall of hospi, of hostility between Jews and non-Jews. It it, it's this beautiful vision that the Apostle John gets in Revelation where he sees, uh, the throne of Jesus sitting on his throne and he's surrounded by a multitude of people from every tongue and tribe and nation, and they're all worshiping Jesus together. And what does John call it? The new Jerusalem. This is what this is supposed to be. What Paul is saying to the Galatians is this, guys, Jesus has come, Messiah came just as God promised he would. And he fulfilled all of the Old Testament on our behalf. And now we have this unbelievable gift of grace that has been unleashed in the world and in our relationships. And now anybody who trusts in Jesus is invited into this new community. I can't help as I'm saying that, but think about another guy whose name was Martin Luther King on this of all weekends, who called it the beloved community. This was his vision that people from every, uh, background would be able to come together and be united in unity where everyone belongs, where everyone is invited to the cool kids table. What brings us together isn't our heritage. It's not our our ethnic identity. It's not the church we grew up in. It's not the faith that our parents handed down to us. What brings us together is not how we vote or our political opinions or anything else. What brings us together is the grace we have received through Jesus. And now we have that in common. The Messiah has come and he has set us free, and that changes everything. This is what defines us as a church. This is what we are doing in these days. It would come back next week and you'll hear more about this, but listen, we're almost done. I just want you to hear this from one more perspective. And so Diego, why don't you come back up here and just wrap this up for us. Would you? So I was in Zion National Park a couple years ago, and I got to go on this trip with my friends and it was a really fun trip. We had all the hikes planned to see all the views and do all the trails. It was gonna be a lot of fun. But in the last day, we were ready to do this hike that we had planned. It was called the Narrows. So the, and it was, if you haven't been, it's this, it's this little river. Well, it's winding and it's between two canyons. And I took this picture, I took this picture. So this is my application to go on all your family trips, to take pictures for you guys as well. Just this is my invitation to myself. And so we went on this trip and we were so excited to go, but on the last day it began to snow. The weather started to take a shift and we got really bummed, but we still went to the booth to go to get the rental gear and just see what was up. And the guy up front gives us the rundown as to what we can expect. And so this is what he tells us. He says, well, it is snowing up in the canyon, so just be ready for that. The water is also so freezing, so be ready for that as well. And there's also this, uh, flesh eating bacteria in the river that you might encounter in different little spots. So be ready for that as well. And so we're all just kind of sitting there with hands in pockets looking at each other, like, okay, all right, what do we do about that? And he's just like, well, don't let the water touch your skin. And I was like, okay, well thank you for that amazing tip, uh, to figure that out. So we asked him, are the boots, are they waterproof? Are they, are we gonna be good? And he, he just kind of said, yeah, yeah, you know, so okay, great, cool. So after that vote of confidence and all those warning signs, we decided we're still gonna do it. And so we went, uh, we went, we got there and we did the full hike in the freezing weather. And it was a crazy experience. But now we look back years later and it's a story that all of us remember. We all, we all have these inside jokes and these really cool moments we get to look back on. Um, and we get to laugh about it. We get to say, you know what, yeah, it was funny 'cause the boots weren't waterproof and we only fell in twice and we still have our skin, so we're okay. I think the truth for all of us is that we all have this one trip, this one story, this that one night summer camper, winter blast where we had a shared experience with someone and it created this bond with the people that we shared it with. And that I think that's the beauty of sharing, uh, experiences with each other, is that there comes this, this unspoken bond. And at the same thing happened for me and my friends. There is a, this professor from Tennessee, his name is Gary Steinberg, and he is an expert in shared experiences. And he talks about it. He says, shared experiences form this minimal social connection that doesn't require us to share identities. The idea that we are in the same room together, that we might be watching the same news, is an important social bridge upon which things can be built. In other words, when we get to experience something together, that experience can become a foundation on which we can begin to build relationships. And if that's true, if something like the news or current events or a crazy trip in a river between two canyons is enough to make us connect to, to grow closer to one another, then how much more true could it be that through Jesus we could have these deep, meaningful relationships built on the foundation of the cross. To quote another writer, there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female for you all are one in Christ Jesus. Jesus changed everything, including how we handle our relationships. There is no difference, uh, between us that can overcome the connection we shared through the blood of Jesus Christ. That's how, that's how, that's how it works. All of us, no matter how different we may be, no matter how we're wired, no matter where we come from, we're all welcome to the table. We're all invited. That's how those family dinners work. It's, it's different people with different opinions all gathered under one roof at the same table, eating the same food, sharing stories and growing closer to one another. And I think that this is a great picture of the table of communion, that when Jesus is surrounded by his followers at the table, he's surrounded by people with completely different perspectives on life. He's surrounded by people who have disagreed, who have fought, who come from the most different backgrounds, and yet somehow they all are in one place at the same table. And it's because of Jesus. It's because he is the foundation. He is the cornerstone of our faith. He brings us all to the table. And so as followers of Jesus, when we come to the table of communion, we get to be reminded of the sacrifice he made. We get to honor that. But I know that there's some of us in this room who, who hear this and are just like, ah, it's just not my story. I'm just not there yet. I would say this to you. Keep asking the hard questions. Keep being honest about where you're at. But I would also suggest to take a step back from practicing communion with us for now because it's through Jesus that we all come to the table. You're all certainly invited, but is when we accept this truth that we take steps towards the table together. And so as we do communion together at all of our sites, before we get there, I would love to pray and then we'll do it. Lord, I am grateful. I am grateful for your grace. I am grateful for this gift. God, thank you for being so patient, compassionate, uh, forgiving and loving towards us. Father, I pray that we would not, that we would be reminded of the access we have to these deep, meaningful relationships through Jesus. Holy Spirit, please lead us this way through, through our daily lives. Help us live this out with the people that we come across with the people closest to each other, closest to us. Lord, help us connect through you. And Jesus, thank you for what you've done on the cross. Thank you for what you did for us. I pray that as we take communion, that as we are reminded of your sacrifice, Lord, that we would be reminded of the lengths that you were willing to go to so that we might all experience this grace together. It's in your name we pray. Amen.