Galatians, Chapter 2, verse 11.  “I don’t know.  I don’t know everything.  I, the apostle, now need to be taught.  I need my life spoken into.  Who will love me with the Word of God?  I’ve gotten things reconciled back with Jesus.”  By the way, it was not instantaneous, because before the whole thing is over, he gets all caught up in John and whether John’s going to live, and “What about that disciple?”  He said, “That’s none of your business.  Feed My sheep.”  The good shepherd lays his life down for the sheep.  Love as you’ve been loved.  Galatians ends this way.  We all know the story.  Peter comes down to Antioch, and he comes rolling in with the Pharisees.  Now, this whole thing started off with the fact of Jesus calling him Satan because he was looking for the praises of men.  Amen?

So here we are again.  The good news is Peter never, ever in his life again got caught up in those kinds of things.  It doesn’t work that way, does it?  “Take up your cross daily, and follow me.”  Peter’s been doing pretty good.  Many of us have some good long stretches of doing good, and then we begin to think we are somebody again.  You are not your own.  You’ve been bought with a price, the precious blood of Jesus.  Our ways are lower than His ways.  So, in verse 11 of this second chapter of Galatians, it says, “When Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.  Because before that certain men came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.  It was so bad that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation.  But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all….”

Let me just share this with you.  Whenever you’re reproved or rebuked publicly, it’s the great test of your humility.  Many of us want to be humble, but not humiliated.  And yet Paul walked around with constant humiliation, whether it was his eyes that were running and possibly this eye disease that he references.  Whatever this thorn in the flesh was, we know that it was a messenger of Satan sent to buffet him, lest he should think of or be seen more highly (amen?) than he truly was.  We get our last glimpse this evening at Peter being rebuked publicly—to his face, in public—and humbled himself by acknowledging what every one of us has to acknowledge in every situation: “Let God be true, but every man a liar.”  “Thy word is truth.”  Amen?  Yes, even when it shines its light on me.

Father, we thank You for Your Word, and we just give You all the praise and all of the glory.  Strengthen us, Father.  Cause us to be not just hearers of Your Word but doers.  If we hear and do not do, we of all men are deceived.  Self‑deception is the greatest darkness that we can find ourselves in.  We cannot escape self‑deception until the lamp of the Word of God has illuminated us by Your Spirit, by one of Your vessels.  So, speak to us, Father, and we’ll obey.  And we give You the glory, the honor, in Jesus’ name, amen.