God Shows No Partiality

Shortly after the close of the Civil War, a Negro entered a fashionable church in Richmond, VA, one Sunday morning at the beginning of a communion service. When the time came, he walked down the aisle and knelt at the altar. A rustle of shock and anger swept through the congregation. A distinguished layman immediately stood up, stepped forward to the altar and knelt beside his colored brother. Captured by his spirit, the congregation followed.

The layman who set the example: Robert E. Lee.

Today, when we should be seeing better racial relations. After all it has been over a hundred years since the Civil War, one would assume that racial tensions would be very minimal. However, that is not the case. Racial issues have forcibly reversed where just being born white will get you ridiculed for White Supremacy, White Privilege, and told to be less white. Racial tensions have escalated between Blacks, Asians and Hispanics.

We have been talking as a society about every person being equal regardless of color of skin and creed for several decades now to no avail. The government can mandate this and mandate that in order to correct these important issues. But one thing they cannot do is to be able to fix the evil and sin within the human heart. The government cannot mandate a change in the human heart.

But guess what? Nothing is new. Our text this morning, Acts 10:34-48, is a continuation of what began this chapter, “At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people and prayed continually to God.” (vv. 1-2). Cornelius is given a vision by God wherein he is told by the Lord to “send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter” (v 5).

Peter is then given the vision from the Lord wherein he sees a sheet being lowered down by its four corners which contained every sort of animals, reptiles, and birds of the air that God had created. God tells him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter insisted that he should not do such a thing because most of those animals, reptiles and birds of the air were “unclean” and therefore, not for a good Jewish boy to eat. Then God tells Peter, “What God has made clean, do not call common.”

So Peter, a good Jewish man, had issues with this because of the Jewish dietary restrictions given them while wondering in the Wilderness for 40 years. Animal prejudice! But this wasn’t all.

Cornelius’ men found Peter and took him to Joppa to see Cornelius. And upon Peter entering Cornelius’ house made the opening statement: “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation...” But this is not how it was supposed to be. This prejudice or partiality has been their greatest struggle all throughout Israel’s history.

God tells Abraham that “…in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). This was the reiteration of the promise made in the Garden to Adam and Eve of the Messiah, first and foremost, but it was never to be limited to Israel alone.

Instead of being inclusive and sharing the Gospel promise with the nations, they became exclusive and the “other nations” became a stench in their nose, so-to-speak. Instead of being a light to the world they became like the world doing what they did and shunning the the God of their fathers.

God has never been that way. Sure, their dietary restrictions were important, and shunning the unrepentant is also very important. But they had the attitude that if you were not flesh and blood Israel, you were a Gentile dog. But the promise of a Messiah was for all peoples, all languages, all colors.

When we visited Israel a few years ago, dogs are still not an accepted animal. No Jew will own a dog, they are beaten and kicked, even killed because of the kind of animal it is. They even treat Palestinian Christians with the same indignation. They are treated like dogs, forced off their land that has been in their family for a century or more. They are forced to tear down their homes, destroy their water supplies, and tear down their fruit trees and fields, usually at night without any notification.

“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.” (vv 34-35). In reality, God does the contrary. “In every nation” our Father accepts only those who fear Him and work righteousness. Jew and Gentile who fail to do so He rejects. God is a just Judge. This is the fear of which both Testaments speak constantly, the mark of godly men, the fear of reverence, faith, obedience. God is the true God who reveals Himself in the Scriptures and not the god that many imagine Him to be. He is not a God of our own understanding, but a God who has revealed Himself to us through His Holy Word.

So Peter, who has just a day or two before, rejected the Gentiles, is now in a Gentile’s home and proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus. “As for the Word that He sent to Isreal, 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 (vv 36-38a). He has learned that God’s love and mercy is for all people, regardless who, where they were born, what color their skin is. Christ died for all.

You got to remember that God sending His Messiah to Israel, for they were the people of the promise, was expected, and so Jesus doing His ministry in Judah, Jerusalem, and in Galilee made sense. But those outside of Judaism, for God to so lavishly give His grace, mercy and peace, as well as to anoint them with the Holy Spirit, to these outsiders, these Gentiles, that was an issue.

It is clear that God loves all people, regardless of who they are, where they come from, or what color skin they have, or the language that they speak. God’s will has always been the same. For God “...desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:4-5). The Lord gave Peter the vision of the sheet with all the animals in it to get across to Peter that all of God’s creation He has made clean through the blood of Jesus, and so there is no animal or human being that is to be considered common and unclean.

But there is a sense in which all people are common and unclean. Sin is the one thing we all have in common and it is the one thing that makes us unclean in the sight of God. In other words, we are all sinful and unclean. And God sees our sin clearly, in every person, every race, every nation and language. Sin causes problems for everyone.

Sin leads us to show partiality to people. Playing favorites is a sin. And with this sin, as with all the others, can lead us to God’s wrath and eternal displeasure. So, in our sinfulness, it might lead us to only regard our long standing members and the newer members might be ignored or made to feel that their opinion does not matter. And speaking of opinions, of which everyone has opinions and most of them are not very positive. Some of us might only listen to conservative talk radio, or read news and editorials from conservative news sources and anyone else’s opinion or point of view we scoff at if we even listen or make fun of others who hold a different political views. Our partiality toward others can result in making us seem superior or inferior, it leads us to attitudes that are not Christian. Attitudes like “this is my church, not yours,” with the result that others feel, “If this is your church, I don’t want anything to do with it!” or worse, “If that’s what your Jesus is about, I don’t want anything to do with him!”

The fact is, we need help! And God delivers that help to us through His Son Jesus. The sinless One of God shows no partiality. He came and while on earth He healed the sick, He touched lepers, He cleansed people suffering from demon possession. He hung out with people on the fringe of society, with tax collectors and prostitutes, with the woman at the well who had been married 5 times, He associated and healed and fed shepherds, women, children.

However, even though He was without sin, He suffered great injustice and partiality. He was arrested by His own people, falsely accused and suffered the most horrific death that anyone could. And He did that for you! Jesus bled and died with my sins on Him, with your sins on Him, with the sins of the entire world, the sins of all peoples, all nations, all languages, all socio-economic backgrounds, all ages, all races, all types of people throughout all the world.

God’s impartial love, mercy and grace led Jesus to die on the cross, but God raised Him on the third day. And now mercy and forgiveness are give to us freely which unburdens us from the sin that weighs us down, and frees us to love others as Christ Jesus loves us.

Nothing would stop the apostles from going out and proclaiming this good news to all peoples, nations and languages and colors. And we do the same. We tell others about God’s love and promises all find their ‘yes’ in Christ Jesus. We show no partiality in sharing this good news to others.

But there is far more to being saved and sharing the Gospel with others. For us, God is not satisfied with us the way we are; therefore, He gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit in which the love that God has had for us He develops in us. He transforms us from the people we used to be, showing partiality, and enables us to have the same love toward others.

What might this transformation in us look like? What does it look like in your relationships with others? How does God’s love change the way we look at and interact with our own families, our work life, or even a fellow student? We begin to see just how much God loves them. How much God saves them.

Even though we live in a very rapidly changing world, an impartial world, a darn right hostile world, people yearn for community. Especially these days of Covid. They look for a place they can belong, a place where they are accepted and loved. A place where they feel that they belong, welcomed, warmed and nurtured. A church with that kind of impartial love and acceptance will connect with others the love of Jesus for them and the love that Jesus has for us collectively. This love of Christ knows no boundaries, it holds no prejudice, no partiality, it forgives sins. For God knows no partiality, and neither does His Church.

You and I are all here today because the Lord shows no partiality. He has given to each and everyone of us the same love, the same Jesus, the same promises of forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. The same inheritance awaits us all when our impartial Lord returns to raise our immortal flesh to be just like His glorified and eternal flesh, ready to enjoy the wedding feast of the Lamb in His kingdom which has no end.

In the name of Jesus and for His eternal glory. Amen.