September 7, 2025
In The Shadows Of Giants: Your Biggest Giant
Galatians 2:11-13
Over the course of this sermon series we have looked at many different issues when it comes to fighting the giants who cast large shadows in our lives. We have looked at our need to be determined to actually fight our giants. We have seen that these battles are always spiritual in nature and we must fight them spiritually. We must do so by being filled with the Spirit and walking by true faith. We have to make sure that we are fighting just as faithfully when no one is watching that we do when all eyes are seemingly on us. When it comes to the specifics of actually fighting our giants we have been intentionally vague because of the wide spectrum of our actual giants. There are very different ways to fight addiction than fight bitterness in your life. Even though Scripture gives us a clear battle plan for every giant we will ever face, we do not have the time to examine each of these in the handful of Sundays that this sermon series has lasted. However, this morning as we close out this series, I do want to look at how to fight a specific giant. It’s one that we all have to fight and many times that fight is daily. I would even venture to guess that this is the biggest giant we will ever face and it is the giant of “self”.
A few weeks ago we saw that Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, was able to stand firm and fight against the Sanhedrin when they called upon him and John to stop preaching the Gospel and causing problems in Jerusalem. Even as Peter was an example of how we are to fight filled with the Spirit, this didn’t mean that Peter was perfect. Peter still struggled at times with the giant of “self” and as a matter of fact this is a battle we see all throughout his life. When Jesus was walking on water, we see him call out to Jesus during the storm, “Lord, if that is you, tell me to come to you”. When Jesus called Peter out of the boat to him, everything was going fine until he began to fear, took his eyes off Jesus, and began to sink. There was another time during Jesus’ ministry that Jesus spoke to the disciples very plainly about His upcoming death and Peter took Jesus aside and reprimanded Him saying this will never happen. Jesus called him Satan because he was viewing things selfishly from a mere human perspective. On the night Jesus was betrayed, Jesus told all His disciples that they would all abandon Him that very evening. Peter said, well sure, those others will abandon you but never me. Jesus told him that not only would he abandon Him that very evening, but he would deny even knowing Jesus 3 times before the rooster crowed and that’s exactly how it happened. Each of these shows how he constantly fought himself. He let fear and selfishness get the best of him and made a conscious decision to not walk in the light, but to run back into the shadow of “self”. Now I know you might say these were all before Pentecost and surely after receiving the Holy Spirit this mighty pillar of the church didn’t have those same struggles, did he? Well, if you have your Bibles this morning, turn with me to the 2nd chapter of the Book of Galatians and let’s see what this giant of “self” looked like in the life of Peter even after he had the Holy Spirit. Then look to Scripture on how we can fight this giant that we have to look at each day in the mirror.
Peter’s Struggle - Galatians 2:11-13
But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong. When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile believers, who were not circumcised. But afterward, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision. As a result, other Jewish believers followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.
In Galatians 2, Paul had just finished telling the church how the apostles (Peter, John, and James specifically) had accepted him and Barnabas when they went to Jerusalem and that they added nothing to the Gospel that they were preaching to the Gentiles. They even spoke of the false believers who tried to condemn them by adding Jewish regulations found in the the law of Moses to the Gospel of Grace. However, Paul and Barnabas did not budge from proclaiming the true Gospel message which is salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This unwavering steadfastness to the Gospel of Grace is one of the main messages that Paul was trying to communicate in the Book of Galatians. There were some who came into the church and were trying to add legalism to the Gospel of Grace. Paul even says these people are objects of the wrath of God because of their distortion of the Gospel. That leads us to verse 11 when Paul becomes very pointed concerning Peter and a wrong he had done. Paul says that he confronts Peter face to face about this problem. Paul then begins to explain the problem by first speaking positively about Peter’s interactions when he came to the Gentile capital of the world — Antioch. Paul tells us that Peter, a Jew, is eating with the Gentiles. This was something that the early church had to confront to bring unity amongst believers. Peter was at the forefront of this as recorded in Acts 15. He declared that we are all saved the same way by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus — no matter if you are Jew or Gentile. However, it’s after this that Peter's actions started speaking louder than his words. When “some friends of James” came to Antioch, Peter changed his behavior. He was no longer enjoying the freedom from the law that he had in Christ, but instead because of the company he was in, he began to change his attitude. His actions began to say that there was a division between Christians who were once Jews and those who were Gentiles. Paul tells us exactly why he did this. He says Peter was afraid and don’t forget, giants always bring fear with it. In this situation Peter was afraid of being criticized by ones who added to the Gospel that Paul had already said were objects of the wrath of God. Why would you want to be accepted by those whom God condemns? Not only was Peter walking in disobedience to God, he was taking others with him because Barnabas was beginning to emulate this sinful behavior. As we have said, our sins never just impact us.
There is no doubt that Peter was struggling with “self”. It was what was causing him to extinguish the Holy Spirit’s fire in his life and walk with these former Sanhedrin who were still trying to hold on the legalism of the law and distort the true Gospel. He was afraid of what these friends might say about him back at his home base in Jerusalem. In this seemingly simple interaction, Peter was losing the fight against “self”. This is a giant we all must face from time to time if not each and every day. Jesus said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me.” This was a daily battle for Peter and is going to be a daily battle for us against our old sinful nature. Paul even struggled with this as well and proclaimed it in Romans 7 by saying what he doesn’t want to do he finds himself doing, even the very things he hates. Paul even tells us why the Christian walk is so tough a little later in Galatians when he says in chapter 5 and verse 17, “The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions.” So if Peter, one of the pillars of the church, struggled, there is no help for us in the battle against ourselves, right? Not at all. It's not going to be easy, but Scripture gives us several things we must focus on in order to find victory over ourselves. However, I just wanted to mention three that are great starting points in the fight.
Surround Yourself With Honesty Over Comfort.
Peter had someone in Paul that we all need in our lives. Someone who will speak truth into our lives and do so in love even when it is uncomfortable. Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” The word rebuke here gives us a picture of being brought out of the shadows and into the light. God’s Word is the light to our feet and a light to our path (Psalm 119:105). When we surround ourselves with those who will love us enough to correct us in God’s Word, we are brought out of the shadow of “self” and into the light of Christ. Just a little further in 2 Timothy 4:3-5, Paul encourages Timothy again saying “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.” If we are going to fight the giant of ourselves we must surround ourselves with people who will not tell us what we want to hear, but through sound doctrine, will tell us what we need to hear. Just as iron sharpens iron, so does one man sharpen another.
Be Teachable.
One of the hardest parts of life is remaining teachable, but it’s something we are encouraged to do over and over in Scripture. When the Bible talks about being teachable it means that we acquire knowledge from God through His Word and change our behavior based upon God’s Word, rightly divided. This is how we are corrected. We can choose to remain unteachable but when we do we need to understand that the Bible tells us that the results of not having a teachable spirit are astoundingly harsh. Solomon speaks of the issues being unteachable causes in Proverbs 1:24-33, “But since you refuse to listen when I call and no one pays attention when I stretch out my hand, since you disregard all my advice and do not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh when disaster strikes you; I will mock when calamity overtakes you — when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you. Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me, since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord. Since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes. For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm.” When we find ourselves thinking we have all the answers and think that our ways are the best, we are going to find ourselves with an unteachable heart. It will slowly lead us to destruction. When this goes on unchecked in our lives, we will find that when we are confronted with the truth of God’s Word and rebuked and corrected, our hearts are hardened, and we will no longer fear God. When we fear God, in the words of Oswald Chambers, we will fear nothing else, which includes any fear the giant of self brings with it. It’s curious that Paul never tells us Peter’s response to this rebuke. We also don’t see this causing a problem or him reacting negatively. We even have Peter’s 2nd epistle speaking favorably of the letters of Paul. It is assumed that one of those he was including was the letter to the church in Galatia that had him being rebuked. If Peter could be wrong, all of us can be wrong. We all must remain teachable.
Hold Tight To The Gospel.
Paul ends this rebuke of Peter with a wonderful reminder to all of us, about what we have through the power of the cross of Jesus Christ. In verse 19-21 of Galatians 2, Paul says, “For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law—I stopped trying to meet all its requirements—so that I might live for God. My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.” Paul’s motive was not to knock down Peter or even make sure he got his own way. It was to restore Peter in the Gospel of Grace. He does this by reminding him of what we have in Jesus. It's not rules to follow, but it’s grace to live by and share with others. It’s not the old self being appeased, but it’s a reminder that the old self is dead. We are made new in Christ and because of Christ, “self” has been defeated once and for all.
Like we said before, we all have the same Spirit that filled Peter (The Holy Spirit) as he fought as long as we have put our faith in Jesus Christ and have been saved by His grace. There is something else we share with Peter, we all have the same faults Peter did. We constantly are fighting our self and our own fears. We let them rule over our lives instead of letting Christ and His truth reign. We all need to be reminded of what we have through Jesus and His crucifixion and what He did for us once and for all to bring us victory. One of the ways we are commanded to do that as a church is by observing the Lord’s Supper. To remember what Christ did for us and how we now proceed because of that. That old self was crucified with Christ. It no longer needs to be a shadow that we hide in. Because of Jesus, we can walk in the newness of life.
