God Shows No Partiality
Preached by Ben Bechtel
July 19, 2020
Scripture Reading
Acts 10:1-48
1 At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, 2 a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God. 3 About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, “Cornelius.” 4 And he stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. 5 And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter. 6 He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea.” 7 When the angel who spoke to him had departed, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among those who attended him, 8 and having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa.
9 The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. 10 And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance 11 and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. 12 In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. 13 And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” 14 But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” 15 And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” 16 This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.
17 Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean, behold, the men who were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon's house, stood at the gate 18 and called out to ask whether Simon who was called Peter was lodging there. 19 And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. 20 Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.” 21 And Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for. What is the reason for your coming?” 22 And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.” 23 So he invited them in to be his guests.
The next day he rose and went away with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied him. 24 And on the following day they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25 When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. 26 But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am a man.” 27 And as he talked with him, he went in and found many persons gathered. 28 And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. 29 So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me.”
30 And Cornelius said, “Four days ago, about this hour, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing 31 and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. 32 Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the sea.’ 33 So I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.”
34 So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36 As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), 37 you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: 38 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. 39 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, 40 but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, 41 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. 42 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. 43 To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
44 While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. 45 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. 46 For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, 47 “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” 48 And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days.
Well, this morning we come to chapter 10 in our study of the book of Acts. As Benjamin mentioned last week, the end of Acts 9 through the middle of Acts 11 could be called the reconversion of Peter, not because Peter was never a Christian but because in this period, he comes to understand the implications of Christianity for all of his life and ministry.
As I thought about this reality this week, I kept returning to the story of Jonah from the Old Testament. Jonah has always been one of my personal favorite Bible stories, at first because when I was a kid was obsessed with big deep-sea animals. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize the true reason why the book of Jonah is so amazing, and challenging. God calls Jonah to go preach the gospel to a terribly wicked people, a Gentile people, and he won’t go. Then after he is swallowed by the fish and thrown up he finally goes, preaches the shortest fire and brimstone sermon, and the whole city repents. And after they repent, look at what Jonah’s response is:
But [the salvation of the Ninevites] was exceedingly evil to Jonah, and he was angry. (Jonah 4:1)
When faced with God’s love for those who were different than him, Jonah’s true heart posture came out. And it isn’t pretty and he does not change.
In this chapter, God is going to call Peter to preach the gospel to Cornelius, a Gentile man, one who is unclean. In this text we will see God work miraculously to bring Peter to understand the implications of Christianity on the way in which he relates to those ethnically different from himself. And I pray as we study it together, he would do the same for us too.
While Peter is the main character in this text, the passage centers around Cornelius, a well-respected Italian officer in the Roman military. Cornelius was a God-fearer as it says in verse 2, a man who did not convert to Judaism but who was seeking the God of Israel. As he is seeking God, the Lord comes to him in a vision and tells him to send for Peter in Joppa, which Cornelius quickly does. Meanwhile in Joppa, Peter also receives a vision from the Lord, which might seem bizarre to us. Something like a sheet falls down with certain types of animals on it and God tells Peter to kill and eat the animals. Even Peter is confused about what this vision means. After this vision, Peter meets the men sent by Cornelius and they bring him back to Caesarea. When Peter arrives at the house of Cornelius, he recounts the meaning of the vision in verse 28:
You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. (Acts 10:28)
Wait, this vision seemed to be about food, but Peter takes it to be about people. What is this vision supposed to communicate?
Peter’s vision communicates the breakdown of two specific barriers to non-Jewish people being fully included into the people of God and receiving salvation in Jesus. First, this vision communicates the breakdown of the barrier of purity laws in Israel. In the Old Testament, particularly in Leviticus 11, God gave Israel laws around what foods they could and could not eat. These laws were primarily given by God in order to separate Israel out from among the nations. This is why, as Peter says in verse 28, Jewish tradition grew up that Jews could not eat with or reside with Gentiles for fear that they would receive food that was unclean. These laws, and many other ceremonial laws, were good and given by God but they were given to the nation of Israel for a specific moment in time. With the death and resurrection of Jesus a new era began, an era which does not have as its primary focus Israel as a nation but the church. Thus, these good, God-given purity laws had served their purpose but now, as this vision symbolized, that barrier to full Gentile inclusion into God’s people is taken down.
The other barrier which is torn down in this vision is sinister and sinful in nature. You see, the Jewish people used these purity laws to puff themselves up in pride and think they were inherently better than other nations. Israel started from an idolatrous man, Abraham, who was chosen by God in grace. They then grew and became helplessly enslaved in Egypt! It was God from first to last who delivered them and set them apart as his own people (Deut. 7:6-8). And yet they puffed themselves up in pride and thought that because they were God’s chosen, they were somehow inherently better than the surrounding nations. This caused them to look upon the nations with disdain and contempt, even when God was at work among the nations as in the story of Jonah.
Church we are no better than Israel on this front. Our pride, specifically manifested in our tendency to view our own ethnicity or nationality as better than others, is a threat to the spread of the gospel. Just like Jonah, we pridefully view our own ethnicity or nationality or political party or sex or social class or religiously obedient group as inherently better than others and we give the stiff arm to those whom God wants us to love and share the gospel with. We form our own purity laws based upon our own standards and push to the side those whom the Lord is working to bring in.
This is something that the Spirit is at pains to show us in this text. You parents in the room will understand this better than the rest of us. If a father wants his children to clean their rooms, he will tell them to have their rooms cleaned by the time he gets home from the store. Then, he will have them repeat back to him what he just said. And then, as he is going out the door, he will remind them again, maybe with a little extra force. He uses repetition. So, why do you think Luke under the inspiration of God’s Spirit recounts these two visions multiple times in chapter 10, and once more in chapter 11? Like a parent with a child, he emphasizes by repetition that our pride is a threat to the spread of the gospel to all kinds of people because we label people as unclean and off-limits.
Let’s just state it as plainly and as baldly as it can be said: verse 28 condemns any trace of racism, ethnocentrism, nationalism, sexism, and elitism in our own hearts because it condemns our pride. Discrimination is blasphemous against God and curses our fellow man because it places us above others whom God has equally made in his image. Racial slurs, uninterrogated superiority, and any other form of partiality have no place among the people of God.
So, how do we overcome this barrier to the spread of the gospel in our own hearts so that we can love those who are different than us? Let’s look at what Peter highlights in his presentation of the gospel after he undergoes this transformation:
And [Jesus] 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. (Acts 10:42-43)
Peter highlights the role of Jesus as Savior (v. 43) and Judge (v. 42) in the climax of his gospel presentation.
As Judge, Jesus tells us all that the line of good and evil is not drawn between us and them but is drawn between us all as humans and our Creator. All people stand equally as sinners before him. Purity laws aren’t the real issue. The real issue is the condition of our hearts.
As Savior, Jesus tells us that our Creator humbled himself by entering into our world and taking our evil upon himself. Jesus the Judge became the criminal so that us criminals might be forgiven. Jesus was made an outcast and was condemned for our sin so that we might receive forgiveness and be brought in. And it is not only those like us that are included in this forgiveness. This is what the baptism of Gentiles by the Spirit at the end of the chapter teaches us!
Even our worst enemies whom we exclude can be included in God’s salvation. This is why Peter throws up his hands in verse 47 and says “Can anyone keep these people from being baptized?” These Gentiles have received the Spirit, signifying they are part of the new covenant people of God. They then receive the new boundary marker signifying God’s people, not the way one eats but baptism. Baptism was the handshake of fellowship to these Gentile believers. We as Christians are not defined by ethnic, national, political, or any other boundary markers that we can pridefully use to keep others away. We are defined by our baptism into Christ which points to his grace for all undeserving sinners.
The question remains, is our primary identity found in our Christian baptism or in an alternative group identity? Basing our ultimate identity in our political affiliation or ethnicity or nationality can only lead to hatred, vitriol, fear, shaming, and a lack of love toward those who are different than us. A gospel identity allows us to reprioritize things which formerly controlled us as secondary like the American flag or the elephant or donkey. A gospel identity also allows me to have the grace to approach those who do hold to other primary boundary markers with love, even if they clash with my secondary identity markers. So, I can enter into relationship with my neighbor who flies the rainbow flag, or flies the Blue Lives Matter flag, or who votes differently than me because those dividers are not ultimately what motivates or defines me! Who cares if they differ with me on secondary things? They’re not primary, they don’t define who I am, and thus they are no barrier for the love of Jesus to flow through myself to others. This gospel message of Jesus as Judge and Savior is the explosive device in the wall of our pride because it puts us all in need of grace and draws us all together into the family of the grace of Christ. Our pride is no match for him.
When the Spirit of God takes away the barrier of our own self-consumption and pride look at what results! As he works on his heart, God leads Peter to humble himself and preach the gospel to Cornelius and his whole household. Look at how Peter grasps the implications of the gospel in verses 34-35:
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. (Acts 10:34-35)
Do you see what Peter has come to understand? God shows no partiality, so, how can he? Because God does not show partiality, Christians must humbly bring the gospel to and fellowship in the church with those who are radically different from us. When the barrier of pride is torn down, missions results! And there are those in every nation, even on our very own doorstep in Harrisburg, whom God would be delighted to save.
About a year ago our church hosted a showing of the documentary Jesus in Athens, a film about the ways in which the Spirit of God has moved in the last five years to bring people to Christ among refugees resettled in Mediterranean Europe. One common refrain of this film is the way in which countless people talk about a man in white being revealed to them speaking words of Jesus from the gospels. In almost every instance, this vision was shortly followed by an encounter with a Christian who explained the gospel to them. Does this sound familiar? God is still bringing together Peters and Corneliuses.
So, will we be the ones who bring the word of the gospel to those in whom the Lord is at work? Oh, let us be a church of Peters to all of the Corneliuses here in Harrisburg. People are being drawn toward God all over the globe just like Cornelius, and we are called to bring that gospel no matter what arbitrary boundary markers are in place. Even though the world says that our neighbors with a pride flag ought to hate us and we ought to hate them, it might be at your dinner table that this gay couple comes to know Jesus. Even though many would villainize and demonize immigrants to our country, God may be drawing those in our church together who are natives to America and those who are immigrants for his glory. Even though racial tensions threaten to divide us today, maybe it is by asking your minority neighbor to coach your kids’ soccer team with you that they come to know the gospel and you two exhibit true reconciliation. Even though there are voices everywhere telling you that America is the most important nation on earth, maybe God is drawing you this morning toward being a missionary for a Cornelius in another country. God is working and his people regardless of what is supposed to divide us have a part to play in the spread the gospel to all who are far off.
Way back in Acts 2 after the Spirit falls on the Jewish people at Pentecost Peter says this in verse 39:
…the promise [of the gospel] is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. (Acts 2:39)
When Pastor Benjamin preached this text in the fall, he stated that Peter was likely preaching better than he knew here. Peter probably thought that those who were far off meant those Jewish people like himself who had been scattered throughout the world since the time of the exile. However, Peter came alive to the radical non-partiality of God. We are not suck like Jonah. Jesus wants to humble us by his grace and change us. May the grace of God cause each of us to come alive to this same truth today in a new way, ready to lay down what divides us and pursue others with the love of Jesus.
