"God Shows No Partiality" (Acts 10:34-35)

Transcript:

We'll start in verse 34, and this morning we will read through verse 48. However, our sermon will focus exclusively on verses 34 and 35. But let's read the wider context here. Now, the Word of the Lord from Acts chapter 10, starting in verse 34.

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 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.

While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the Word. And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles, for they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and they asked him to remain for some days. This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. Please be seated.

And as you're taking your seats, let's join our hearts together in prayer. Gracious Father, we pray that you would indeed give special anointing to the preaching of your word. Father, we are so desperate for your word. Often without even knowing it, we feel restless, we feel unworthy. We feel eager to prove ourselves and to justify ourselves.

And Father, you declare that we are guilty, that we are unworthy, and yet you declare that you have set your love upon us by sending your own son, Jesus Christ, to die in our place and to rise from the dead for our justification. And so, Father, as we hear this text, I pray that you would once again fill us with your spirits to give us hearts to understand and eyes to see and ears to hear all that is contained in the good news of the gospel of your son, Jesus Christ our Savior. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

Well, this morning I had intended to preach upon this entire section that we just read from Acts, chapter 10, verses 34 through 38. But as I was studying this passage and I got as far as the first two verses and thought I really needed to focus here, especially in light of communion Sunday, to really frame what it is that we are about to do together in the first two verses. I think the Scriptures set out a great dilemma that we all wrestle with. Namely, we are people who are dead, desperate to be counted worthy. We are people who are desperate for approval in our workplaces.

We want to be approved. We want to be appreciated. We want to be recognized. We want to be valued for our contributions and our families. We want to be known and loved, known well and loved well.

It can be hard. We want to be worthy spouses, worthy husbands, worthy wives. We want to be worthy parents. We want to be worthy children to our parents above us. There was a Babylon Bee article, a satire article.

This is not real. This is a satire. And the headline was study finds Everyone else is doing a great job parenting and you're the only one having problems with your kids. Why does that strike us? It's because we want to be worthy.

We want to measure up, we want to match up.

And one of the things that social media does is to make this problem so much worse. You search, you scroll through the feeds and you see that everyone else is a worthy, perfect person living a worthy, perfect life. And you wonder, am I worthy? Do I match up? And where all of this comes to a head is in our relationship with God.

Am I worthy? Am I worthy to be loved by Almighty God in heaven? And we're desperate for this. We need this. This question is at the heart of whether we may come to the table today.

Because what the Scriptures declare is that in ourselves we are not worthy. We can try to say that we are. We can try to explain away our faults, we can try to excuse our sins. We can try to atone for the evil that we have done by what we prop up as good deeds that we think can maybe stand in the place of our sin. But at the end of the day, if we're honest with Ourselves, in the light of Scripture, all of those fall apart.

And so we have to ask a question. There's a table set today. We are told to come. On what basis can we come? Or maybe phrase this another way, why does God love me?

If I believe that God loves me based on some worthiness in myself, and that's the basis for it, then right away the enemy has an opening. He has a vulnerability that he's identified where he can, with truth, pick apart whatever we think makes us worthy to stand before God. And he's right. He's the accuser of the brethren. And certainly he breathes out lies, but not about our sin.

He loves to tell the truth about our sin. So why does God love me? Why does God call us to feast at this table today? Well, it's not because of something in me or something in you. It's because something in God.

It's because of God's free grace and his love that he sets upon unworthy people like you and like me. In our sermon text today, again, which is going to focus on just these first two verses where this is set out so clearly, our theme this morning is that God shows no partiality. Now, we'll have to define that word, but God shows no partiality. And so the first part of this sermon in verse 34, is that we are going to have to meditate on what's going on on God's side. And so we're going to talk about partiality versus election, Biblical doctrine of election, partiality versus election.

And then second, we're going to deal with our response. What's the right response, not only to come to the table today, but in the entirety of our relations, relationship with the Lord. And there we are going to deal with faith and obedience, faith and obedience. So let's start with partiality and election. The first part in verse 34.

And we have Peter. Again, the context is that Peter has been summoned to come to the house of a gentile Cornelius. And Peter is about to preach the whole Gospel, which we read in our scripture text reading. But to begin, he starts with identifying something that he has learned, something that he learned in the vision that he saw of the clean and unclean animal descending on a sheet where he was told to rise, kill and eat. And we'll get more into how that has taught him this lesson.

But let's just look at the lesson today. So Peter opened his mouth and said, truly, I understand that God shows no partiality. God shows no partiality. This word for partiality in Greek is a compound word. It's two words that are smashed together to make one word.

And if you separate those two words or that one word into two words and you translate it very, very literally, the word would mean face taker, face taker, or someone who takes stock or takes notice of faces, as Lenski defines. And I think this is a really good definition. He says this is like a judge who looks at a man's face before rendering the verdict. And he renders the verdict not in accordance with the merits of the case, but whether the face he sees is a man he likes or a man that he dislikes, whether he likes or dislikes that man, that determines the judgment that this judge is going to disperse. Now, maybe some of you understand what this is like.

Maybe some of you have been in a place where you have been judged, and especially you'll remember this if you've been found wanting. I remember to take a It felt meaningful at the time. And looking back in hindsight, it wasn't that meaningful. But as a child on the elementary playground, as maybe you've gone through that horrifying experience where someone picks teams. Now, I was a deeply competitive person.

And as competitive as I was, I had an equal but opposite measure of athletic ability. So I reached for the stars and fell so woefully short. And so I remember sometimes because of my scrappiness and competitiveness, I'd get picked somewhere in the middle, maybe not toward the top, but at least not at the bottom. But I remember a couple of times where I was picked toward the bottom. And even one time there was this girl who cared nothing.

She wanted nothing to do with the game we were playing. All I wanted to be was to be found worthy of competition. And she was the only person I beat out. And even today, I'm trying to justify myself in light of that poor girl. This is how we feel a lot in life, in our work, in our families.

Before God. How does God choose us? Does he bless those he is impressed with, those he likes? Does he curse those who do not match his exacting standards? That's a scary place to be.

And yet we are told here really good news, that God shows no partiality. Now, the key question we have to ask as we wrestle with this is how does this, how does this square with? How does this adjust to what the Bible says about the choice God does make and the basis on which God does make his choice, Namely, on the basis of God's election?

Because again, in the Old Testament, especially, the Scriptures declared that God chose his people, Israel and on the basis of his choice of his people, Israel. God blessed Israel in ways that he blessed no one else on the face of the earth. And maybe if you're someone who has struggled or maybe is continuing to struggle with the doctrine of election, the doctrine of predestination, maybe this is a question you're asking. Does God show partiality? Does he like his preferred people and does he reject those who for one reason or another don't match up to the mark?

Well, this is important to understand the basis of God's election because it's an infinite difference. God's election is not the same thing as partiality. God shows no partiality. And yet God elects. God chooses God predestines his people.

Now let's look at the differences here. The first difference is this idea of partiality to be a face taker is where is something that arises because of a reaction where we look upon faces and we judge something as favorable or unfavorable in that other person. But the scriptures declare that in the Old Testament, God did not choose Israel because of anything that was favorable about them. God says this is true about them externally. Externally they were not an impressive nation.

When God was choosing his team on the playground, he did not look upon this athletic Israel and say, you're the one that I'm going to have my first pick of. That's not what God did. Deuteronomy is so clear about this. Deuteronomy 7, verse 6. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

But. But it was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set His love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers. It's not something impressive in you. It's from the Lord.

It's not only external worthiness that God does not judge his people. That's not the basis of God's election. It's also internal worthiness. It's not because they were a righteous nation with upright hearts. Now, as much as I was competitive athletics, there was also something of a spiritual competitiveness in my heart growing up.

I told you this before, but I grew up with a part of my mindset that I was the good kid. There was something righteous and upright about me in my heart that separated me from other people that I went to school with. I went to a public school And I was surrounded by people who lived very different lives than what I had. And yet the Lord assured me, especially as for a time he gave me over much to my sin, to see that the sin in me made me utterly unworthy of him and in deep need of a Savior. And the same thing is true of Israel.

Deuteronomy 9, verse 6. Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people. God knew from the beginning that Israel was going to be stubborn. And he knows that you and I are a stubborn people as well. So why does the Lord love us?

Why does the Lord choose us? Not because we are externally worthy, not because we are internally worthy. It is because not something about us because of something about God. It's because the Lord chose by his perfectly free, undeserved, unmerited favor, mercy and grace to set his love upon us. Deuteronomy 10:15.

Yet the Lord set his love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above peoples, as you are this day. Now, John Calvin was not the first person to teach this doctrine. It's in the Old Testament, it's proclaimed throughout the New Testament. It was taught in the church for a thousand years and more before John Calvin was born. And yet he was a very clear teacher about this doctrine.

And going back to our passage, Acts chapter 10, verse 34, on this idea that God shows no partiality, Calvin writes this. The cause of this difference, the cause of the favor that God shows upon his people, should not be sought for in the persons of men. But it entirely depends upon the hidden counsel of God. For he did this, not being moved with any external respect, anything about the people, but the whole cause remained in his wonderful counsel.

God shows no partiality, but he is a God who graciously chooses, elects, predestines, his people. Three applications from this as we approach the Lord's table this morning. First, this is something that we should take great comfort from. If you've ever been an unathletic kid waiting to be chosen, you know that that process can be very cruel. How much more so if we were waiting to be chosen on the basis of our righteousness, we could wait an eternity and never hear that summons.

And yet the Lord does not show partiality toward outwardly impressive people, outwardly popular people, outwardly beautiful people, outwardly rich people, outwardly talented people, outwardly intelligent people, or outwardly powerful people. You were not received, and you would not be excluded on that basis. As Paul writes, in 1 Corinthians 1:27, 29, God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even the things that are not to bring to nothing, things that are so, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

You don't have to prove. You don't have to prove your worthiness this morning and praise God for that. But the Lord also does not choose us on the basis of our righteousness and uprightness of heart. All of us are sinners. None of us could ever qualify to come to his table.

It is only because of the blood of Jesus and because of the righteousness of Christ that even wicked sinners like you and me can come to the table this morning by faith so find comfort in this. Praise God for this this morning that the host of this meal, the Lord Jesus Christ, invites those who are unworthy to serve them at his table. Second, we are called to be like our Father in heaven by not showing partiality to others, as Peter learns here. You know, he's wrestling with the partiality that I guess he was under the impression of believing that God favored unduly favored, saw something worthy about Israel, that he then rejected the other nations of the world on that basis. But now he knows that God shows no partiality.

There's no racial, no ethnic superiority of the Jews over any other people group. And Paul repeats this in Romans chapter two, when he says that God will judge first the Jew and the Gentile, and God will bless first the Jew and then the Gentile. For God shows no partiality in Romans 2, verse 11. And as James reminds us in James 2:1 13, we must not show partiality to the rich over the poor. And so one thing to question in our own hearts and lives is as we prepare to come to this table, are we showing any partiality towards some over others for any reason whatsoever?

Jesus says that we are to be perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect. And right before that, in Matthew 5, verse 48, he says this, but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his Son the sun in the sky. He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and to the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?

Do not even tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers. What more are you doing than others? Do not even Gentiles do the same? You, therefore must be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.

As you approach the table this morning, is your love characterized by the partiality of this world, or by the perfect, free love of God toward a world that does not deserve it? Toward many who remain and persist in rebellion against him until this day? The third application and this really gets at the heart of the difference between partiality and election. The heart of election is that God holds His people accountable for their sin. God's election, God's predestination of his people does not mean that God gives a free pass to some, ignoring and overlooking their offenses, while demanding scrupulously justice and righteousness from others.

It's not an unfair bar. Indeed, God holds His people more accountable. We read this in all places. In Amos, chapter three, verse two, the prophet Amos declares to the people of Israel. He says, you only have I known of all the families of the earth.

That's what the Lord says, you only have I known of all the families of the earth. That's God's election. Therefore, on that basis I will punish you for all your iniquities on the basis that I have known you among all the families of the earth. For that reason I will punish you for your iniquities. There's a constant temptation for us to show partiality toward favor to those whom we prefer and disfavor toward those whom we do not prefer.

We're willing to excuse things among our preferred people that others would never get away with, at least in our hearts. But the Lord's electing and predestinating love not only chooses us, it demands a response. And this will lead to the second section of this sermon. I want to ask you, are you presuming on the Lord's kindness by leading a lax and loose life, thinking that because you are his people, because you are a member of the church, because you have professed faith in Christ, that you will get a free pass? That's not what the Lord calls us to.

Do you not know that the Lord's kindness was meant to lead you to repentance? The Apostle Paul writes, as we approach the Lord's table, this is a time to remember God's covenantal kindness and on that basis, to repent from our sins. Now, how do we do that? What does that mean? What does that require of us as we search our hearts to prepare to come to this table?

Well, again, as we've thought about the Doctrine of election. That's God's side of the relationship. God shows no partiality. He graciously, freely, sovereignly, mercifully chooses his people. And that is the only hope that we have that's on his side.

The second part, the second verse, verse 35, shows our side, our response to this. And that's a response of faith and obedience. And this comes to verse 35. Let's start again. Verse 34.

Get the whole sentence. So Peter opened his mouth and said, truly, I understand that God shows no partiality. Here's the second part. Faith and obedience. But in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

So what Peter starts off with is he defines what that no partiality means in every nation. This applies not just in Israel, in every nation, among the Gentiles of the earth, this applies. God shows no partiality. So on what basis do we come? Well, he acknowledges here, and this is what the rest of the sermon is, which we'll look at next week, Lord willing, the basis on which we come is by faith in Jesus Christ.

But in every nation, anyone who fears him. Anyone who fears him. Did you catch the statement about fearing the Lord and our call to worship from Psalm 147?

In Psalm 147, verse 10, it shows that God's love is not partial. His delight is not in the outward strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man. But the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him. What's the nature of fear? That is, in those who hope in his steadfast love.

Those who are looking to him in faith, who take him seriously at his word, who believe upon what he has declared in the promises of the Gospel. The Gospel, as he declares that Jesus came, the only begotten Son who took on flesh for us, who lived a perfect life, who died the cursed death that we deserve to live because none of us is holy, worthy, and then who rose again from the dead to save sinners. Now, Peter is so clear, that is the content that is the object of our faith. Jesus Christ is the only one who can save sinners. So what Peter is saying here, if this is a question that maybe arose in your mind, he is not saying here, as David Peterson says in his commentary, he is not saying that all religions lead to God.

It's not all. In every nation, whatever you believe, as long as you're doing the right thing and trying to live a good life, surely God will accept you. Because as Peter has preached earlier in this book, there is but one name under heaven given among men, by which we must be saved. And that's the name of Jesus Christ. It's why we must share the gospel with our neighbors, why we must send missionaries to the ends of the earth to share the gospel, so that all may come to believe from every tribe, language and people and nation that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Faith is the only basis on which we are saved. Not because of worthiness in us, but because by faith the Lord graciously bestows upon us, imputes to us, credits to us the righteousness of his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. But Peter goes on, it's not only anyone who fears him, but also who does what is right, who does what is right. Now he's talking about obedience. He's talking about responding in obedience to what the Lord commands us to do.

Now, what Peter is not teaching, Peter is not saying here that good works play some part in your justification. It is not that you need to believe, and maybe that opens the door a crack, but really, then you need to do these good works, or otherwise God will not accept you until you do these good works. You have not been justified. The Scriptures wipe all of that away. In Romans, chapter 3, verse 28, Paul declares, But we hold that one is justified, counted righteous by faith apart from works of the law.

Your faith alone saves you faith alone in Christ alone. And this is not only the message of the New Testament. This is the message going as far back in the Old Testament as possible. Take the example of Abraham. As Paul wanted to point out in Romans chapter four that followed right after that verse that I just quoted.

We hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. The next thing he does is to talk about Abraham's faith. Now we know in Genesis 15:6 that Abraham was justified by faith. Abraham believed God and he counted it to him as righteousness. That's Genesis 15:6.

He was justified by faith. But that faith then was proven to be genuine, real, living, active, saving faith. When? Then later, after Genesis 15. Now in Genesis 22, Abraham believed God and offered up his son Isaac as a sacrifice.

Now, he did not go through with it because God never intended him to go through it. It was a test. And God ultimately provided a substitute sacrifice. But by being prepared to go through with it, Abraham proved that his faith was genuine, that he truly trusted the Lord. And as James talks about in James 2:26, faith apart from works is that Abraham demonstrated.

He fulfilled what the Scriptures declared to be true. He fulfilled the fact. He showed the Truthfulness, the living, active, saving nature of his faith when he offered His Son up as a sacrifice. What the Scriptures in the Old Testament and the New Testament declare is that living faith is the root from which our justification springs, from which our life in Christ springs. But then, good works, obedience, doing what is right, is the necessary fruit.

As the Church has always taught. Faith is what justifies the person. We are counted righteous because of our faith alone. But works justify our faith. Works prove that our faith is living, true and active.

So, three applications as we do prepare to come to this table. First, the Lord elects us. He chooses us. He sets his love upon us. He summons us to his table by grace.

Apart from any worthiness on our part, no external impressiveness, no internal righteousness. We come freely this morning to. To eat Christ's bread and to drink from Christ's cup. Not by our worthiness. We come rather as people who come without money and without price.

And so the question is, do you truly come this morning with no other claim apart from the grace and mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ through what he did for you in his life, death, resurrection and ascension to heaven? Because if you were trying to smuggle this morning something else to the table in your heart to smuggle some claim of worthiness that comes from you that you stand upon, maybe it's Christ plus something else, Christ plus some works of righteousness that makes you feel justified before him. You need to turn from that. You need to repent. You need to look again to Jesus Christ, because He alone is the One who offers you gospel through faith in Him.

This morning come with new appreciation in the fear of the Lord for what God has done for us through His Son, Jesus Christ. Second, the Lord calls us to examine ourselves before coming to see whether our lives confirm, validate, justify the genuineness of our faith. We claim to live by faith, but the question is, what fruit is being produced in our lives? What works flow from that faith? Now, those works are not a part of our justification.

You are justified the moment you believe you will never be more or less righteous than the moment you lay faith, lay hold of Jesus Christ by faith, because your righteousness is not your own. It comes entirely and exclusively from Jesus Christ. The question is not whether there is something worthy in you, but the question is, as you approach, are you doing so in a worthy manner? Are you doing so in a way that is only looking to Christ by faith, but is also actively getting rid of anything in your life that is not worthy of an ongoing part of your life, which Christ now owns which he has redeemed, which he has purchased you at a price, the price of his own shed blood. You cannot atone for your sins.

You cannot explain away your sins. No one comes as a worthy person. But repent as you come to the table in order that you might come in a worthy manner, through true living, active, saving faith that produces the fruit of obedience in our lives. Finally, as we come to the table, let us consider all of these truths together on God's side. Let us reflect that the Lord Jesus Christ does not invite you to his table because he is impressed with you.

Hallelujah. Amen. It is not because he finds you worthy. Hallelujah. Amen.

Because none of us would meet that so standard. God shows no partiality, and thank God for it. Rather, the Lord Jesus Christ invites you to his table because of his mercy, because of his grace, because of the love flowing out from him that he has chosen to set upon you through nothing that is in you, but only what is in him in election. But on our side, we need to respond. You do not come because you are worthy, but because Christ died and rose for you this morning.

Trust in what he has done for you by faith, fear the name of the Lord, and as you come, examine your life and repent from anything whatever is unworthy of Christ. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do pray that as we come to the table today, that you would be gracious to give us Christ, that we would lay hold to Christ by faith, and that we would enjoy him as we eat and drink of this meal that he has provided for us. Father, let nothing of this flow in our hearts from some claim to worthiness. And let us come as those who have no money, who can offer no price, but who are clinging only to what Jesus Christ has done at the great price of his own shed blood.

We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.