Set Free to Live Free - Against the Grain - November 9, 2025

Did you grow up in a house where you were told to not rock the

rock? The what?

The the cradle? Don't rock the boat.

You know, I, I think sometimes we're, we're told to just sort

of be calm, be cool, chill out. Don't stick your hand in the,

the oven, the fire, the cookie, the hornet's nest.

Like we're, we're told to just take it easy sometimes.

But all of us who are followers of Jesus will find that there

are moments in our life where we must rock the boat.

We must disturb the status quo. We must speak up, speak out, act

out so that we can be in line with the gospel and with Jesus.

In a sense, we're going against the grain of our culture or

against the grain of particular crowd.

Even at times we find we're going against the grain of all

church or an institutional expression of church.

This summer we made our way through the book of Acts and Sam

preached on one of my favorite churches in the book of Acts,

the Church of Antioch. This was in Acts Chapter 11, and

Acts 11 · chapter mention

Antioch seemed like a perfect church.

Things were going great. In fact, through Acts, we see no

evidence of conflict in Antioch. It's like reading the book of

Ephesians. You see no evidence of conflict

in the book of Ephesians. But if you read Acts, Paul sort

of foresees conflict in Ephesus. And then you read Timothy and

you discover, Oh my goodness, that church blew up.

Well, Antioch almost blew up as a church.

And it seems strange when we read the book of Galatians that

we actually are getting Paul's account of a crisis in Antioch.

In fact, it should be comforting to us in some ways that if you

hang out with church long enough, you'll find there's a

crisis, you'll find there are conflicts, you will find there

are disappointments, you will find there are hurts.

Because we're all trying to work it out.

What does it mean to follow Jesus?

What does it mean to have the power of the Spirit and the

truth of His word in our lives? It creates conflict.

So there was a crisis in Antioch.

Paul speaks of it in those letter to Galatians because it

seems that some have arrived in the area of Galatia with their

own version of the conflict. And in their version of the

conflict, Paul loses and he's like, hey, that's not the truth

of the gospel. I'm going to tell you the truth

of the gospel. And I'm going to remind you, let

you know what actually happened in Antioch, that Paul had to go

against the grain. Paul had to rock the boat when

even the greatest leaders of the church were present.

He calls them pillars of the church.

Whatever they are, he says they're just men.

They're just people trying to work out their life with Jesus.

And I saw that they were not acting in line with the gospel

and had to speak up. Let's see how it goes.

When Cephas, that's Peter Cephas.

It's interesting that Paul uses that name.

But when Peter Cephas 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 belong to the circumcision group.

The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their

hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

So here's the conflict. This is what it looked like.

He's recalling a moment where a group of followers of Jesus who

were Jewish arrived in Antioch where they had seen both Jew and

Gentile background people get to know Jesus and enjoy table

fellowship. But when Peter and this group

arrived, Peter withdrew. He rejected the fellowship with

Gentile Christians. How does rejection feel?

It's like a broken heart. I saw that Juno rejection

actually feels like if it's just words even, or if it's just

social withdrawal. Social scientists tell us that

in the measures of our Physiology, it actually does

feel like a punch in the gut. And so the gentile believers had

had a punch in the gut. Peter had withdrawn from

fellowship with them. The leader of the Church of

Jerusalem with James and others had withdrawn from sharing the

table with them. They had given up their freedom

of association in Christ to associate across the barriers of

Jewishness and gentileness of the Torah and those who didn't

have the Torah. There was a ripple effect from

the this move. Every move has unintended

consequences. Or maybe they intended them.

It says that other Jews joined Peter in this rejection.

And even Barnabas. If you all were really with me,

you'd go, oh, even Barnabas, Not Barney, not Barney, Even

Barnabas rejected them and joined in.

What was at stake was not just table fellowship.

What was at stake was an understanding of the gospel of

Jesus, What actually makes people acceptable to God.

You ever been stuck at an airport?

Unacceptable. They had become stuck outside

the table because people were not acting in line with the

gospel. So Paul moves forward then, and

he begins to argue for their freedom of association.

He argues for their freedom in Christ.

Let's see how he argues it. So this is what he shared with

Peter. And when I saw that they were

not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to

Cephas in front of them all. You are a Jew, yet you live like

a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it then that you force

Gentiles to follow Jewish customs, we who are Jews by

birth and not sinful Gentiles? He, he sort of gives him a

little bit of a, a line there, You know, like those pagans,

those sinners, those people who didn't have the law.

He uses that word. Sinful Gentiles know that a

person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith

in Christ Jesus. So we too have put our faith in

Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ and

not by the works of the law. That probably should be capital

L law, the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, because by

the works of the law no one will be justified.

And by that word justified, he means made acceptable to God.

But if in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews

find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn't that mean that

Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not.

If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a law

breaker. So here's a summary of his

argument. It's got four parts.

Here's the first three really quick.

Paul argues first that Peter's table manners are incongruent

with his life. He's like, I know you, Peter,

before you got here, you, because of your life with Jesus,

would follow everyone. Remember, Peter had had that

second conversion experience in the book of Acts where he saw

from heaven God dropped down a sheet with all kinds of animals

and said, let's have a feast, kill it and eat.

And every time Peter was like, no, no, no.

And then finally God says to him, you know Peter, it took

three times to get stuff usually.

Finally God says to Peter, don't call unclean that which I have

made clean. And Paul came out of that vision

and experience saying, oh, I get it.

God actually shows no favoritism between Jew and Gentile, but now

all are made clean by Christ. And it became a real living

experience when Cornelius knocked at the door and came in.

Or actually Peter went to Cornelius's house afterwards and

saw the Spirit of God work in their lives.

And he's like, I get it. God shows no favoritism between

Jew and Gentile, but now all are justified by Christ.

Look, he's given the Spirit. What can keep them from being

baptized? In other words, immersed into

our fellowship with God and with us?

So Paul points back and says, hey, Peter, I know you.

I I know you've had this experience.

I know you have different table manners.

What's going on? It's incongruent.

Then he points to Jesus's saving work.

He says, look, we know it. We had the law, but the law did

not make us acceptable to God. Our attempts at keeping the law

did not make us acceptable God. Our moralism didn't make us

acceptable to God. But Christ Jesus has made us

acceptable to God because now, through Christ, the perfect Lamb

of God, we have been forgiven, cleansed, made righteous, he

says. We know that you know that this

is the truth and reality of the gospel.

God provided forgiveness of sin to the Jews.

He's provided forgiveness of sin to the Gentiles and it's

fundamentally changed our identity.

Now he introduces the dilemma of following Jesus that perhaps

they were sharing as a He raises their rhetorical question.

Look, if following Jesus makes us hang out with sinners, then

is something wrong with Jesus? Couldn't we correct this problem

by making the sinners become Jewish?

They should be circumcised. They should follow our diet.

And Paul says no, that's not it at all.

Don't you know that Jesus was a friend of sinners?

Jesus was accused because of his company and those he associated

with. And so he's saying, look, if

following Jesus, the friend of sinners, brings us into the

fellowship with sinners, does that mean Jesus promotes sin?

And he says absolutely not. He uses the strongest of phrases

there to say no, no, no, not at all.

And then he says, do I need to rebuild the law that separates

Jew and Gentile? No, of course not.

We don't need to do that. So what do we need to do?

Paul keeps going in his argument.

It's incredible. Paul actually presents a new

vision for discipleship, and I believe this vision of

discipleship wasn't just for the Jewish followers of Jesus who

had the law, but this was a vision of discipleship for those

who were Gentiles who knew nothing about the law either.

They didn't know all the rules of God.

They didn't have the 10 commandments.

Now they got it as they perhaps read the Scripture, but Paul's

vision of being a follower of Jesus was actually incredibly

profound and startling. In fact, the Galatian church,

when they read this, would have been gripped with maybe fear.

Maybe we've become so familiar with it that we don't recognize

it. And so read it with me.

Here we go. This is his vision of

discipleship. Here's one more thing.

Well, what about the grumpy guy here?

Now I, I want to, I want to remind you that every vision of

discipleship doesn't always make us immediately happy.

You see the grumpy guy there, it doesn't always make us happy.

You know when Jesus spoke to the rich young ruler, he said to

him, come follow me but first go sell all that you have and then

come follow me and you will be perfect.

The rich young ruler had brought up the law and how he had kept

the commands and and Jesus just looked past that and said, we'll

sell all you have. And there he found the idol that

was in this man's hands and heart.

And he says he went away sad. I hope he didn't become a grumpy

old man. I hope he actually found that

true movement of discipleship that Jesus talks about many

times. And now Paul is going to talk

about it's a kind of discipleship that goes against

the grain because it speaks of death.

OK, now we're ready for through the law, I died to the law so

that I might live for God. I have been crucified with

Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

The life I now live in the body. I live by faith in the Son of

God who loved me and gave himself for me.

I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could

be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing.

So here's Paul's vision of discipleship.

To be able to say I have been crucified with Christ.

Say it with me, I have been crucified with Christ.

This is his confession. And it would have been shocking

to them that the people in Galatia were actually had a lot

of retired Roman soldiers and Roman citizens, and they knew

the activity of the state of Rome in its fiercest expression

of capital punishment was the cross.

What, I'm going to so identify with Jesus that I too would be

crucified? What are you after, Paul?

This sounds crazy. I am crucified with Christ and I

no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

He's talking about a fundamental exchange in our lives.

Jesus put it this way. If you want to be my disciple,

you must deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow me.

That there is a death to self. Not the death of yourself, but

there is a death to self. That's required in following

Jesus and in being spiritually formed as His.

There are so many times and so many original stories of how

followers of Jesus have been invited to Jesus and he finds

the idol in their hands and heart and says that must die,

that must go. There have been occasions in

each of our lives where we were moving forward in life and

life's reality itself seemed like death to accept.

Because how am I going to live with that shame, disappointment,

problem, experience? And to move forward in it feels

like death. And so Paul says, look, if we

are actually to move into the life of Christ, we must somehow

become adept at this experience of dying to self with Christ so

that he might live in us. We'll come back.

There's more to it. The second thing that he

envisioned is that I live by faith in the Son of God.

Would you say it with me? I live by faith in the Son of

God. This is the second part of the

experience. It's not just that we die now,

but we live because Christ is living in US.

And what he engages us in is an active exercise of faith in

someone. And he uses a very real and

present term, not just the Messiah, but Son of God.

He wants us to know about Jesus in the flesh.

And so he says, this life I now live in the body.

This life I now live in the body.

Check and see if you have one. You've all got a body and this

is the only place you have to live your life in Christ.

This is the place. Would you say that with me?

This is the place. Welcome to Peru, one of our

favorite restaurants. I don't know if it was because

of the food or just because of the guy out front would all the

time greet us every time we came down the sidewalk in Machu

Picchu. This is the place.

This is the place right here. So this is the place that you

have to live your spiritual life of faith in Christ.

You're not going to transfer your soul to someone else or to

your computer someday, but your soul was meant to be alive

before God and in this body now, and all the difficulties and

suffering and experiences and troubles and joys that come,

this is the place you are meant to live by faith in Christ.

So he says I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and

gave himself for me. That fundamental experience of

knowing I am loved. The person in this body is

loved, the person in this body is known by God, The person in

this body is still becoming, and every decision made by faith

means I'm becoming more like Jesus.

Our vision here at Origin is that we would joyfully invest in

relationships to spark a life journey with Jesus.

What is a life journey with Jesus?

A life journey with Jesus is 1 in which you get to know Jesus.

It's one in which you become like Jesus, and it's one in

which you join Jesus in his mission.

Now that gets me really excited. But I know that we can never be

that kind of people together unless we will learn the ways of

dying to self, being crucified with Christ, unless we will

learn the ways of living by faith in Christ Jesus, making

decisions based on our relationship with Jesus.

And then third, that we would hold on to the grace of God for

righteousness. So say it with me.

I hold on to the grace of God for righteousness.

Paul says I don't let it go. I don't nullify it.

I don't make it empty or turn it vain or into nothing.

Instead, I'm always holding on to the grace of God for

righteousness, for whatever makes me acceptable to God.

This is Christ justifying us. And so whatever righteousness

develops in my life because I'm following Jesus, I don't point

to that and say so good, so good.

Did you see that? So good, LG I'm looking good.

Not at all. Instead I say, oh, so I

consecrate even that move of being able to recognize, oh God,

look, there's some good today. Wow, God, I'm so happy about

that. That was a win in my life.

And then I say, Oh God, thank you so much for your grace in my

life that that that's come about because that's the fruit of your

spirit in my life, which Paul's going to get to later in

Galatians. That's more Lovejoy, peace,

patience, kindness, goodness. Thank you for finishing that out

there. That's more of the fruit of the

spirit. That's more of the righteousness

of God. And when accused by others and

accused by Satan, the accuser of the brethren, I point to, oh,

look, it's all Jesus. It's not up to me.

So there it is, his vision of discipleship crucified with

Christ, living by faith in Christ and holding on to the

grace of God. God, this is how we become

disciples of Jesus. That's how it starts for some of

you. You've been on the cusp of

wanting to trust Jesus, of getting to know Jesus, of having

a relationship with Jesus, and some of you've checked that box

off every week on the connection card.

We see you, we're praying for you.

But we know that part of that step isn't just to be a fan of

Jesus. Part of that step is to say

there's something that's going to die in my life and now I'm

going to follow Jesus 'cause I'm going to lay it down.

I'm going to lay it down and trust this with Jesus.

My friend Bryce had been a follower of Jesus and he loved

football. He loved football.

He's a short guy, but his vision was of playing football forever.

And as he began to follow Jesus, he realized, I think Jesus is

asking me to give up football. And it pained him to give it up.

He began to pursue his life and mission with Jesus.

He accepted a position to go to France to serve as a missionary

with a team in France. When he got to France, they

said, we are actually so happy you're here because we want you

to coach American football in France.

He was so excited God gave it back to him.

He didn't know it. You never know what God's going

to give back to you when you lay it down.

But for every one of us, this move and discipleship means that

we have to die to something. Paul says I face death every

day. He's like in reality he did.

But I think he was also suggesting that he, he dies

daily to himself and he lives by faith in Christ Jesus who loves

him. He knows he's loved.

And then he keeps holding on to the grace of Christ, the grace

of God. And here's the strange thing is,

you and I are actually called to live against the grain.

Do you see the cross there in the Timbers and he's leaning on

the back of it? Have you ever seen a bear get up

to a a tree and scratch their back?

I saw my wife do that once in in the hallway.

She was like, I've got an itch in my back and she's leaned up

against the the post there in the hallway and scratched her

back. But here's the thing.

You've got to lean on Jesus. You've got to lean on the cross

of Christ. You've got to lean against the

grain of the cross in order to be the kind of person who can go

against the grain. So that you can live in line

with the gospel, so that others can live in line with the truth

of the gospel, So that your church can live in line with the

truth of the gospel, so that your neighbor can live in line

with the truth of the gospel. You've got to be the kind of

person who puts their hand in the hornet's nest.

You've got to be the kind of person who sort of rocks the

boat and says, hey, have you ever thought about Jesus?

You've got to be the kind of person who invites others to the

table of your home. I want you to think of the most

holy person you know, the most holy, lovable Christian you

know. One of my heroes in the faith

has been Dallas Willard. And years ago I read an article

where Dallas Willard says I hated my neighbors and I was

like, not Dallas, no, not him, he says.

I realized I did not love the people next door.

They were dangerous, they were unpleasant.

They were ex bikers who made their life by selling drugs and

he said they made our lives miserable.

And he said it began to wear on my patients.

And as I brooded over them one day, indulging my irritation,

the Lord helped me see that I really had no love for them at

all, and that after all the suffering of these years, I

would secretly be happy if they died.

I had to admit, I had never earnestly sought to be possessed

by God's kind of love to become more like Jesus.

And now it was time to seek it. He had to let something die.

Not his neighbor, but something in his own heart had to die.

Peter, James, and John, when confronted by Paul, had to let

something die so the truth of the Gospel could happen and so

that you and I could be seated here today.

They did it. They entered into the cruciform

life and they gave up their social preferences in order that

you and I might have a spiritual place in heaven and in their

hearts. That's good, isn't it?

So let's live that way. Heavenly Father, as we come to

you today, we thank you for the life and love of Jesus who love

us so much. We thank you for the faith of

Jesus, that in you that He could take up that cross, He could lay

down on that cross, and he could say that no one took his life

from him, but that he had authority to lay it down and to

take it up. But we want to have that kind of

authority in our lives, the kind of authority that you give, that

we might lay our lives down for our friends at work, our friends

in our neighborhood, and even our enemies, that they might

know you. But Lord Jesus, we know that if

we refuse that kind of death, that if we close our heart to

the compassion of God, that our life will reek of death, of

stinking, rotten relationships. And So what else is there except

for us to truly enter into life with you and surrender our lives

to You? The Spirit of God is inviting us

to the costly table of Jesus. He serves us there, His body in

the bread, his blood in the cup. It's Jesus's freedom of

association to transform sinners into Saints, and it's glorious.

So if you would take a step now even in your heart, if you say

I'm not a follower of Jesus yet, but would you now surrender your

life to Him? He would meet you even in this

moment. For those who've been holding

out from a decision that felt like death, would you lay it

down before the Lord right now? Would you bask in a move of

faith that says you are loved, you are known?

Would you hold on to grace even when it feels like no one's

holding on to you? Would you hold on to grace?

Because the truth is, God is holding on to you.

Nothing can snatch you from His hands.

Let's stand together as we wish.