May 9th - In Person

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for this morning comes to us again from our first reading, from Acts chapter 10: 34-35. 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." These are the words of our texts.

Partialities. We all have them. We may be partial to what we like to eat and drink, partial to where we like to go to eat and drink. Partial about sports teams, athletes, the type of weather we like, the type of clothing we choose to wear, the vehicles we drive. Partialities are a part of our very fiber and fabric. And sometimes, those partialities can clash. Especially when we think that our partialities are the correct partialities to have, and the other persons' are wrong.

Peter here is saying that he now understands that God shows no partiality.

Something has changed in Peter. Something has changed Peter's perception. Up until this point, Peter thought that God was partial to the people of Israel. Not surprisingly, because that had been the generation to generation to generation understanding of God being partial to the people of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, because God had chosen them out of all the nations of the world. So I obviously, He must be partial to them.

We see this, even in the Old Testament. I was downstairs for a few moments of the Discipleship Hour. And Jonah and the Ninevites were brought up. It's like ahh, yeah, Jonah and the Ninevites. You see, Jonah had partialities. He didn't think the people of Ninevah were worth God's forgiveness. Let along having God's word proclaimed to them. So, he doesn't go there. But God gets hime there anyway, doesn't He?

Jonah had a problem. He had partialies. That God is only partial to His people, and the rest of the nations of the world, well they're doomed to destruction just because God isn't partial to them. He's partial to us.

I'm going to share two German words with you this morning. The first is "hoch." And the second is "nasisch." Hochnasische. Maybe you don't know what that means, but it means "nose up in the air-ish." You know what that is, don't you? Nose up in the air-ish?

Those are people who have partialities that they're better than everybody else. Hochnasische. And that was Jonah. Even going through this city. He's amazed because the people of Nineveh are repenting. How about this? People who aren't of God's chosen people are repenting!

You see there's really no difference between them. I mean, God obviously had to choose somebody to be his messenger. In the Old Testament, it happened to be the people of Israel. They were no better or worse than any of the other peoples of the world. But God had to choose somebody to get the message across to the rest of the world. And that mindset persisted from probably before Jonah. Certainly passed Jonah, up until Peter's day.

And I wonder "Well Peter, what were you thinking? Was it just Jewish people who heard your sermon on Pentecost and believed?" Apparently that may have been the case. But before our text, something happens that changes Peter's mindset about God and how He views people, how He sees people and how He loves people. Up until this, Jonah thought God only sees people as either a Jew or Gentile. And He loves Jews and He doesn't like Gentiles.

But something happened. Peter's down in the city of Joppa, which is along the Mediterranean. And he's up on the roof. And he's having a siesta, I'm guessing. I bet it was nice and comfy, the warm sun, but then that cool breeze off of the Mediterranean Sea. And God gives Peter a vision.

I called the Red Lobster, Dave's BBQ vision. Because in this vision, coming down from heaven, is this big cloth. And in this cloth, there's all kinds of unclean things. Things like lobster and shrimp, other kinds of shellfish, you know like scallops, oysters, that kind of stuff. Things that were unclean. But also in there, are the pork chops in the hams and the bacon and all the other stuff, the briskets that, you know, were considered unclean.

And God says to Peter, "Take and eat."

And Peter's like, "No way, Lord! That stuff's unclean!" And God kind of yells at Peter, and says "Don't call unclean what I call clean." Yes, there was a time when these things were set aside as unclean. But now, God is saying, now they're clean. Feel free to eat them.

And likewise, I suppose there was a time when God favored His people Israel, was maybe partial to them, but now He's impartial. And about the time Peter's having this dream, there's a knock at his door. With a couple of men. A couple of men who are looking for him. They want to take him to their master's house, their master, Cornelius, who is a Gentile, but but he's a God-fearer. He fears God. But he's a Gentile. And they say, "Come with us. Our master has sent for you." Because Cornelius, in a dream has seen from God to call on this man, Peter, who will explain everything about His son, Jesus, and the Salvation that He offers.

So Peter goes, but you see there was a problem yet. It wasn't proper for a Jewish person to enter the home of a Gentile. But yet God had prepared Peter for that, and so Peter goes in, and he sees Cornelius and his entire household, young, and old alike. And Peter begins to speak to them. And he says "I now understand that God shows no partiality. But in every nation, anyone who fears Him and does what is acceptable to Him is acceptable to God.

And as he's speaking about the events of Jesus coming into the world, from His being baptized by John up until His resurrection and how he's a witness - something happens. The Holy Spirit comes down upon all of those people. All those Gentiles. They have the Holy Spirit descend on them. And they begin to speak in tongues. Languages. Just as the apostels had on Pentecost. And Peter understood - they were extolling the glories of God. And Peter asked those who are with him who are of the circumcision - that is of the Jewish people who are now believers in Jesus Christ - "Can anyone withold water from these being baptised? Because they too, have received the Spirit as we ourselves have." And so, Peter baptised the whole lot of them. And later had to pay the price.

Peter, by that vision, had understood now God's impartiality. That God accepted all people. There's no one that is so common as to be unacceptable to God. But yet, all are so common in that they are all sinners in need of that salvation that Jesus Christ has come into the world to bring. All people are special in God's eyes. All are in need of salvation. He wants everybody to turn from their sin to believe on the Lord, Jesus Christ and live. He doesn't want anyone to perish or die. Becuase God sees all as sinners.

There is no difference. Just as there was no difference between Jonah and the people of Nineveh. Even God says to Jonah - who after all, when you think about it, really isn't very repentant about the whole thing. He's pretty put out that God forgave them and didn't destroy them. And God Himself says, "Shouldn't I have had pity on them? They're like little children, they don't know the left from the right. Shouldn't I have pity on them, too?"

And sometimes, because we are sinners, we too sometimes are a little hochnasische, aren't we? We think God's partial to some and not others.

In my early years of ministry in North Dakota, there was an article in the Aberdeen paper from South Dakota. There's a picture of a bum. A dirty, stinking bum. Sitting out in front of none other than a Lutheran Church. And the caption made it quite clear which church it was. And the article contained the whole story behind the picture.

There was a dirty, stinking bum. Lying in front of a church. Not in front of the doors, but aside of the doors. And the people were coming for worship, and here's this bum sitting in front of the church. It was rather disgusting. He stank. He's dirty. He was unkempt. And he was what appeared to be drunk.

And so, people came in, some tried to ignore him altogether. Some kind of kicked at him to kind of get him to, you know, "Move along, buddy. Move along."

Others, when they got in were searching for the congregational chairman, or the head of the elders, or somebody in charge to get rid of that bum. What does that say about our church having a bum lay out in front of it? What will the visitors say? Pastor couldn't be found. They even went as far as wanting to call the police, the sheriff's department.

Well anyways, it was time for church to start. And there was some muttering and grumbling and mumbling about this bum outside of church. But the organist started the first hymn, and they started singing, and they were getting into the church service. Still no Pastor, so one of the elders began with the Liturgy and they're going on. And they had pretty much forgotten about the bum outside. Now, it's time for the sermon, and Pastor still hasn't shown up up front where he's supposed to be. And then suddenly the doors - you know swinging doors like we have back here - they swung. And the people heard their squeak and they looked, and they were aghast. Who should be coming in but that dirty, stinking bum. Walking down the center aisle of the church.

That was just a little bit too much. And it's got to be even more when he came up to the front, and believe it or not, stood at the pulpit! Who do you suppose that dirty, stinking bum was? He was the pastor. Nobody recognized him, well, partly because he had his hat over his face so that he couldn't be recognized. But how shocked they were when they saw that it was the pastor.

And then he said, "What changed? Before, you were kicking at me, yelling at me, shouting obscenities at me, wanting to get rid of me, and now, all the sudden, now that you know I'm your pastor, everything is okay. Well, it's not okay."

You see, they were pretty hochnasische. They didn't think that their congregation should be open to somebody like that. You see, they had forgotten to see as God sees. That we're all sinners in need of God's forgiveness, God's mercy, God's grace. Because none of us does what is acceptable in His sight. It's only by faith in Jesus Christ and what He is done, that the Father sees us as acceptable. Because He sees not what we do or have done, but what Jesus has done in your place and in my place.

We can't see as God sees apart from faith. We can't see as God sees, unless we take sin seriously. Our sin, as well as that of others. And once we come to that understanding, as Peter did, that God shows no partiality, but that in every nation, those who fear Him and do what is right are acceptable in His sight. Belief in the Son of God.

Not every Christian looks like you and I do. Not every Christian worships the way you and I do. Some of them speak different languages. Some of them have different customs. Some of them have different partialities.

When you're called to serve on a jury, you're called to be impartial. That is looking purely at the evidence, the fact. Not presuming the person innocent or guilty until you've weighed all the evidence.

It isn't that God wants us to be walking around with our nose in the dirt. But He wants us to be walking upright. Not with our noses in the air or down in the ground. But simply looking out into the world and seeing as He sees. People. People in need of salvation. People in need of salvation. And yes, some will, by the hardness of their own heart and mind, reject that free offer of God's grace. But many will receive that. And heaven forbid that we should stand in the way of that. Because we can't see as God sees, or we won't see as God sees.

There's a contemporary song. I'm bad at song names. Actually groups, too, so don't have me on Trivial Pursuit: Music Edition. But one of the lines is "Give me Your eyes, Jesus, to see what You see. Give me Your eyes, Jesus, to see what You see."

What if everybody saw the way Jesus saw? We wouldn't see differences. But we'd probably see similarities. That we're all facing death. We're all afraid. We all have guilt and shame. We all make poor choices. We all sin. We're all lost.

And God loves us.

And if we began to see things as God sees, in those terms, then we begin to love as God loves. Not conditionally, but unconditionally. God didn't put any conditions on your love or my love for Him. He doesn't say "If you do this..." or "if you like that, you can be my friend," like we often want to. You know, "If you do this, you can be my friend." "If you dress like this, you can be my friend." "If you act like this, you can be my friend."

God accepts us as we are.

To Him, all the prophets bear witness - that is Jesus - that everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name. We all receive forgiveness for the same name of Jesus Christ. Whether we're a Jonah or a Nineveh, whether we're a Peter or a Cornelius, or no matter what we are, may God's Holy Spirit work in us.

For apart from that, we certainly cannot, but with His aid, we can begin to see as God sees and love is God loves. And then the message of salvation will go forth. And even those who maybe at one time, we thought were undeserving of it, will find ourselves rejoicing that they have received that same salvation which we have through the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. And now may the peace of God, which surpasses our understanding, keep our hearts and our minds in faith in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.