Acts 10 - God is no respecter of Persons

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Let me invite you to turn to our passage we'll be considering together. in Acts chapter 10.

Let me just add a word of greetings to you. Good to be here with you this morning. I don't think I know anyone here, but glad to be here first time in Iowa. So I'm just a northeastern urban kid. So it's nice to see actual cornfields and to just be present with you. So I was really thankful when Brian, your pastor, contacted me to be able to come out and be with you this weekend.

Acts chapter 10. And just quickly before, we'll be starting at verse 34. But in the first 33 verses, the first part, you have this man, Cornelius, who was called a God-fearer, which means he was just someone who respected the God that the Jews worshipped and was a part of the synagogue. But because he was a Gentile, he just had to sit in his own special separate but equal section. But he feared God and prayed. And an angel comes to him and tells him that, your prayers have been heard, Cornelius. Go sin for Peter. And then the scene shifts to Peter where he's in prayer, but he's very hungry. And the Lord puts him into a trance there. And he basically has a nightmare about breaking Jewish kosher laws. And that was a vision for him to know that he was to go and go to Cornelius house. And then he goes to Cornelius house and says, why did you summon me? And Cornelius said, everyone gathered together in his house. And Peter then begins to speak to them. The sermon you have in verse 34 to 43, we'll pick up the reading there. And this is indeed the word of the Lord that endures forever. May we have ears to hear it as such right now.

The scripture reads, so Peter opened his mouth and said, truly, I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. As for the word that he sent to Israel, Preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, he is Lord of all.

You yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed. How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did, both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people, but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be the judge of the living and the dead. To him, all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.

Prayer for Illumination

This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray together. Father, I pray now that you would take The words of my mouth, the collective meditations of our hearts, and make them acceptable in your sight, oh Lord, our strength, our redeemer. And Lord, may we have ears that hear, and eyes that see, and hearts that are set to obey all that you show us. May these words on the page the words that are spoken. Show us the word of life himself, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Sermon

In this chapter, chapter 10, it's just continuing the purpose of the Book of Acts itself to show how the gospel goes out from Jerusalem and to Samaria and to Judea and to the uttermost parts of the world. So it's making its way out. It's doing, as our confession tells us, what the purpose of the church is, the gathering and the perfecting of the saints.

And chapter 10 is basically about two figures, two representative figures we mentioned, Cornelius, the Gentile, a devout gentile, and Peter, a Jewish apostle. And how as the gospel goes out, it doesn't go out always in this easy, facile, triumphant way where people come together and basically have a Christianized version of Kumbaya. But there's often cultural conflict. There's often difficulties as people from different places and different cultures and ethnicities are called out and brought together. And you see that reflected here in this account in Acts chapter 10.

But more profoundly, we get insight into what the God of our Lord Jesus Christ is like. His character and nature. And what is thundered home is that the God of our Lord, our God, is a God who is not tribal. He's not cliquish, but is working to call out people from every place, every tribe, nation, tongue. and to make of those people one multi-ethnic, multinational people of God who all bow the knees of our Lord Jesus. And so you see some of that here. So let's take that up. But it goes by way of pointing out some cultural difficulties that often attend that process of the gathering and perfecting of saints. So we'll take a look at this.

Peter's sermon, his point is really a point about God. And he states it right up front in verse 34. So Peter opened his mouth and said, truly I understand that God shows no partiality. He opens up with his main point, that God does not play favorites He's not partial, or positively, he's impartial.

I love the way the classic KJV puts it in Romans chapter 2, where the Apostle Paul is talking about how, yes, the Jews received the law of God, and that's a special providence, to be the nation that actually gets the inscribed law of God is a special kindness. Gentiles had the law written in their hearts and sometimes obeyed it better than the Jews did. And Paul says the reason that is, in chapter 2, verse 11 of Romans, he says, for there is no respect of persons with God. Fairness is inherent to God's nature. That's what he's like. completely, absolutely, perfectly equitable, as we sang about in Psalm 67.

He doesn't look at Germans and think one thing and then Argentinians and think another, or those from Kazakhstan, from Lagos, Nigeria. He is no respecter of persons. Now, that's not just an abstract quality without reference. It is a quality that is with reference specifically to nations or to ethnicities. You see that in verse 35 when Peter qualifies what he means in verse 34 by no partiality.

He says, but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. And the word nation is our word for ethnicity because for most of the human history, nations and ethnicities have been closely tied together. So God's impartiality is with respect to differences in nationality and ethnicity. He's impartial with regard to those things.

Now, The reason that gets underscored so stringently, I think we could say, by the Apostle Peter, the reason he just hammers down on that is because he was someone who actually had a hard time coming to that straightforward realization. He had to grow into fully understanding what that means, that God is no respecter of persons. He mentions in verse 28, which we didn't read, he says, as he approached and came into Cornelius' house, one of the first things he says to them, he says, and he said to them, you yourselves know how unlawful, how illegal it is for a Jew to associate with or visit anyone of another nation.

There was part of the ritual impurity. It was an act of ritual impurity to have close associations with an unclean Gentile. If they did, if they shared business, a business transaction, they had to go through a process of ritual cleaning, not moral cleaning. They didn't see it as a fundamental moral category, but a ritualistic impurity issue. If you sat down and ate with Gentiles, it was an issue of ritual impurity.

And Peter's just underscoring what he grew up in his own, just the way he was taught and trained to apply the Torah as a good Jewish kid. He needed to purify himself. He says, you know, this is unlawful for us as Jews to do this, to come into your house, Cornelius. And his scruples about that were so strong. It wasn't just a kind of incidental thing, he notes. It was a deeply embedded psychological, emotional, religious sensibility. They were so strong that in order to change Peter, God had to give him a nightmare about eating unclean.

We didn't read it with the sheep coming down and opening up and it has reptiles and different kinds of like unclean things that Leviticus 11 very clearly says, if you're Jewish, you don't eat these things. As a way of training them in ritualistic purity versus impurity. The difference, learning to make a distinction. They were not to eat certain kinds of things. And here he is very hungry. And God says, take and eat this. And he reacts to that, as you would expect him, but therein is the new lesson. God saying to him, don't you call unclean what I have made clean. And he still didn't fully get that, because he says he went away pondering that. What is this new reality of clean, of a thing being clean that I was taught and learned and that the law says is unclean?

We know he didn't fully get it because there's an episode in Galatians chapter 2. where Peter somehow maybe took it on board to some degree and was eating at the same table with Gentiles. But when ambassadors came from Jerusalem, he separated himself from the Gentiles, didn't want to be seen with them. He was willing to be seen with them as long as no important Jews were around. But then he separates, and the apostle Paul had to tell him that if you wanna create two tables in Christianity, then you're basically denying the truth and the power of the gospel. So Peter took a while to learn. He struggled with partiality. So you can see why it would be important for him to state in such clear terms, having come to this point, that God shows no partiality.

Now, I think we live in the 21st century here in North America. And I think we probably look back on Peter and can easily castigate him and say, what is wrong with you, man? What's wrong with you? We're a melting pot today. We feel better. We feel morally, ethically, sociologically superior to a guy like Peter. Thinking, ah, we're not like that.

But the truth of the matter is this. Partiality in whatever expression it takes runs deep in the bones of fallen humanity. We're partial over the most simple, basic things. It doesn't even have to rise to the level of racial segregation or ethnic bigotry.

I, some years back, was with my pastor, a Korean pastor, and he took me to lunch after a meeting in K-Town, which is a part of Manhattan that has a bunch of Korean stores and restaurants, and we had lunch, and after we ate lunch there, we went out to pay, and I remember him saying something in Korean that I didn't understand, and then the cashier taking his money.

And he told me what he said. He says, if you say a certain thing in Korean, you get a reduced lunch price. I thought, so basically the only people that speak Korean are Korean. So if you're Korean, basically you get lunch off. But people like me or anybody who's not Korean doesn't get a reduced lunch. I said, that's partiality. That's partiality. Right, I mean, it's relatively small, but very real. They're saying, you look like us, you get a benefit. Everyone else doesn't.

I went to college in the Deep South 30 years ago. And I knew of churches that still did not They would allow, this was the late 80s, so anyone could come in, but if you had a darker hue, you couldn't become a member. They would politely point you to a church across town. And I know that happened in churches with people, full of people that look like me that wouldn't want any lighter hue folks in.

This was just 30 years ago. And of course there are thousands of little Muslim children right now who are taught chants to hate anyone with Jewish blood flowing through their veins. Merely because they're Jewish. So this kind of thing happens at all kinds of levels.

I mean, even a small thing, I posted a picture from, I was in South Dakota yesterday, and I posted a picture, the welcome sign that said, welcome to South Dakota. And someone who lives in, a friend of mine who's a pastor in North Dakota, posted a comment saying, you're one Dakota too far. You need to come to the better Dakota. So even North and South Dakota people, partiality.

It's something in the fallen heart. where we want to bolster our sense of identity and significance and meaning, or in its most crude religious forms, as a way of thinking we please God, to demonstrate some measure of partiality, of assigning inferior or superior status to some difference. It doesn't even have to be race or ethnicity. That has classically been a big manifestation, because those are differences that are so clearly seen. If you live a thousand miles away, you're clearly different, or if you look different physiologically. Those are easy things to latch on to, but the human heart is incredibly given to partial treatment.

Now, why should we not show partiality? Why be Impartial. Peter makes some arguments here, answering that, why we should not be partial and why God more fundamentally is a God who does not respect persons and God shows no partiality. The first one, he doesn't state here, but very fundamentally throughout the scripture, we should show no partiality because we are all created in the image of God.

By virtue of creation, we have a status of equal dignity and worth. Regardless of the physiological differences, we are stamped with the image of God. That drives our interactions and treatment and view. This is why C.S. Lewis, in his profound essay, The Weight of Glory, says, when you see a human being, you're not seeing just a mere mortal. You're seeing someone who's been, as David says, the psalmist, been crowned with glory. And that if we should get even a glimpse of the meaning of that, it would blow us away. We would be prone to worship each other and break the first commandment. So the first reason is that that more fundamental reason that we are all equal image bearers of God. But the one that Peter gives here, you see in verse 36, right?

As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, then parentheses, he is Lord of all. universality of Christ reign over all nations and individuals implies that all nations and individuals are equally accountable to submit to him.

Which further implies that all individuals are to be called to bow the knee Scandinavians are not exempt. No people group is exempt from the command to repent and submit to King Jesus. God is not partial that way. All are accountable. And consequently, all are accepted before him as Peter lays out. if they come, submit, and love him and fear him.

So really a kind of implication of a redemptive, Christ's claim on every single human being, calling them, commanding all, the universal call, not the inner special call. That implies that God is not partial because he commands every single human being. to repent, and if he is not partial in his acceptance of all kinds of people, and he's not partial in what he expects from all people, then by implication, we should not be. If there is no affirmative action in the call of the gospel, then we are not to show that. And the early history of the church bears out this universality. Christianity, on this basis, became known as that faith which did away with tribal deities.

In the first century, it was not unusual. You go into your average Greco-Roman home, they had a household deity. They had city deities. They had ethnic deities. You could recognize where a person came from by the God they worshiped. And here Christianity does away with all that. It says there's one God, one Lord, all are commanded to worship him. It became the first trans-ethnic, trans-national religion. And it was known as that religion that had barbarians, Scythians, Greco-Romans, Jews, Parthians. It had people from every nation and tribe. Because it did not, it's not tribal because God is no respecter of persons.

But all who come and bow the knee are acceptable before him. Now, how does this happen? That's all wonderful and beautiful to think about and to see and to hear. But what brings that about? What brings about this multi, this trans, racial, transnational, church that is a gathering of people from every tribe, nation, and tongue. What cures the human divisions that would keep that from happening?

It is, as Peter goes on to explain in his little sermon here, the one thing that does this, and the only thing, is the victorious death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is the straightforward message of the gospel. Peter expounds it here, he gives testimony to who witnesses it as verification, but then he goes on, he says in verses 39, at the end of verse 39, he says, and we are witnesses of all that he did, both in the country of the Jews and Jerusalem they put him to death by hanging him on a tree but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear. They put him to death and God raised him. The death and the resurrection of Jesus And then what that brings about, the reality that brings about, you see in verse 43. To him, all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. So it is the death and resurrection of Christ that cures and solves our deepest problem.

There was a, I'll never forget an evangelist who had a jingoistic way of kind of stating things. He would say in light of this, he says, our problem is sin, not skin. It's our need of saving grace, not our race. This is what Christ's death and resurrection deals with. and it brings about the reality of forgiven sin, cleansed, done away with, not held to our account. The penalty being satisfied. The wrath of God taken care of by the death of Christ, which is vindicated in his resurrection. That deals with our biggest problem, our sin problem. And it brings about this dynamic that verse 43 talks about. This forgiveness of sins through his name.

How does that change a dynamic whereby people that are different can get together? Here's how. Paul says in Ephesians, talking to the believers there, working out the implications of being changed, that you are to be kind, tender-hearted, he's not bulls in a china shop, but affected by your fellow believer. Tender-hearted, kind, right? Not steel-fisted. Firm, but kind. How? How does that work?

Forgiving one another as Christ has forgiven you. The person who knows Christ's forgiveness is the person who can extend forgiveness to others. And life requires a lot of forgiveness. We're constantly bumping and crashing into one another, being offended, wounding each other, indirectly, passive-aggressively, or even directly and maliciously. And if there is going to be cohesion, if there are going to be people who are very different being together in a lasting way, there's gonna need to be a lot of forgiveness. And who can extend forgiveness? Those who have actually experienced forgiveness. More than just a head notion, but it's gotten down into the heart. You know you've been forgiven in infinite to an infinite degree. You needed the death of an infinite person to deal with your sin. Therefore, you can forgive the sins of other humans.

Jamil McGee was this young black man in Michigan, and he was framed by a cop. He was said to have drugs on him when he actually didn't. And the cop, his name was Andrew Collins. And as a result of Jamil being framed, he went to jail for four years. And he said, all he could think about when he gets out, I'm going to get this guy. He wanted vengeance. Well, Andrew was caught. The cop was eventually caught falsifying records himself. And he ended up in jail for a year and a half. And then sometime later, both of them ended up in this ministry that helps men get back on their feet who've been felons. And they both ended up in the same place and saw each other.

And Andrew went up to Jamil and said, He confessed what he did. He says, I don't deserve forgiveness from you, but I did this. And Jamil forgave him. And not only that, this wasn't just a kind of awkward tolerance. They actually became good friends. and started going to churches and speaking and telling their story. And the reporter who asked him about this seemed perplexed when Jamil said, I'm doing this because of my faith.

I know Christ, I've been forgiven. So I extend forgiveness as has been extended to me. So that's the only way we can practically come together. There's gotta be a lot of forgiveness, and the people who forgive are those who know the forgiveness of Christ. When a person is changed and converted and regenerated, and they come to know Christ's forgiveness of their sins, that creates this dynamic where people who are strangers and enemies and aliens come together. There's movement. It creates movement, reconciling motion between parties. Just like with Cornelius and Peter. Peter didn't associate with Gentiles. The Lord worked. He moved toward the Gentiles.

This is what the gospel, when it changes us, does. When we're reconciled to God, we're reconciled to others. So they move, there's this horizontal coming together. But there's also this vertical. It brings people who feel that they're of a higher status and people who feel they're of a lower status together. When Peter arrived at Cornelius' house, we didn't read this part, but Cornelius gets down and wants to start bowing to him and Peter says, stand up, I myself am a man. It lifts, they're on equal footing, they're on equal standing. The person of high degree and the person of low degree come to see themselves as together.

I think this is why the Apostle James says in James 1.9, let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation. You feel you have low condition? You feel like you're low social status, low value, odd person out?

The gospel says boast in your exaltation. Christ lifts you up. But it says, and the rich in his humiliation. Let the lowly brother boast in his exultation and rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass, he will pass away. You come at high status, you're used to being the leader, the head person, you feel superior, you come together and you feel, I'm with everyone else. The rich in his humiliation, because like a flower, you realize that this passes away.

But there's life everlasting. So it takes people over here and brings them together and takes people like this. It lifts up the lowly and it humbles and gives a realization of our co-mutuality in the family of God to the high and lift it up and exalt it.

That's what the gospel does. This is how this no partiality works out in practice. And just look at the beautiful practicality of this in closing. The beautiful practicality. God is at work doing what he was doing in Acts 10. He's doing that today all over the world, bringing people together, growing the church, gathering the saints from different places and spheres. And he's doing it in a straightforward way. There's not some sophisticated strategies.

He used prayer, the proclamation of the word, and hospitality. They were both, Peter and Cornelius, were both praying. And it gave them direction, and that makes sense. Prayer is an ordinary way that Christ's kingdom comes and his will is done, as we pray in the Lord's Prayer. His kingdom is extended as his people pray. He shows us, he reveals and works as his people seek his face. As we get on the same page as the Lord in prayer.

And Peter and Cornelius were doing that. Not a sophisticated strategy, kingdom prayer and preaching. When Peter arrived at Cornelius' house, he preached. And then verses 44 show that the spirit blessed and added to the church. Proclamation of the word, the word and prayer. Even it could be Bible study. It's engaging the word. And then the hospitality. Cornelius just opens up his home. This was a time, of course, where there were no hotels. So hospitality was really the safest and best way for a person who was traveling from town to town to kind of be safe.

It was actually a necessary cultural reality, and Christians practiced it in a profound way. And meals together, the height of social intimacy, their demonstration of what it means to be the people of God together in the closest possible way, which is why the end of history is where the church is gathered together in Christ is seen as a feast, a marriage feast.

Closing Prayer

That's the way we show that we are together and that we are a family. And so one pastor says a repeated fundamental assumption in the New Testament is that if you let Jesus into your heart, you will let strangers into your home. God has made room for us. And we move out as people who make room for others. And he works simple ways, not some expensive diversity program, but simple, straightforward prayer, preaching, a personal demonstration of hospitality. May God help us to Embody this just wonderful vision of how he is indeed building this church and gathering out his people By his means let's pray together Father. Thank you for your word Blessed to our hearts and lives May we be participants in what you're doing to build your church in the particular place you've called us here in morning sun and surrounding communities, as well as throughout the state and throughout our nation, even throughout the world itself. Father, we're thankful. Blow away the dross. Let the pure word, weed of your word remain. May we be doers of your word, not those who just hear it and go away. We're thankful for your spirit that works in us and quickens us to your truth. In Jesus' name, amen.

Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.