The sermon titled 'God Moves To Destroy Partiality in the Church' by Trent Moody focuses on Acts 11:1-18, where Peter explains his vision and interaction with the Gentiles. In his vision, Peter sees a sheet with various animals and hears a voice telling him not to call anything impure that God has cleansed. This vision is repeated three times, emphasizing God's message of impartiality. Peter recounts his visit to Cornelius, a Gentile, where the Holy Spirit fell upon them, confirming God's extension of the gospel to the Gentiles. The sermon addresses the initial contention among Jewish Christians regarding Peter's actions but highlights the necessity of breaking down walls of division within the church. Trent Moody emphasizes that God's grace and gospel are for all people, regardless of ethnicity, and calls for the church to reflect God's impartiality by promoting unity across diverse groups. The sermon concludes with a call for repentance of partiality and a prayer for the Holy Spirit to guide believers in embracing the gospel's transformative power, fostering unity within the body of Christ.

Morning. Acts chapter 11 we will be reading from verses verse 1 down through verse 18 and thus says the word of the Lord. Now the apostles and brethren who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God. And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those of the circumcision contended with him, saying, You went in to uncircumcise men and ate with them But Peter explained it to them in order from the beginning saying I was in the city of Joppa praying and in a trance I saw a vision an object descending like a great sheet let down from heaven by four corners. And it came to me when I observed it intently and considered I saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts creeping things and birds of the air.

And I heard a voice saying to me, rise Peter kill and eat. But I said not so Lord, for nothing common or unclean has at any time entered my mouth. But the voice answered me again from heaven, What God has cleansed, you must not call common. Now this was done three times, and all were drawn up again into heaven. And at that very moment, three men stood before the house where I was, having been sent to me from Caesarea.

And then the Spirit told me to go with them, doubting nothing. Moreover, these six brethren accompanied me, and we entered the man's house. And he told us how he had seen an angel standing in his house, who said to him, send me into Joppa and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter, who will tell you words by which you and all your household will be saved. And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them as upon us at the beginning and then I remembered the word of the Lord how he said John indeed baptized with water but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit. If therefore God gave them the same gift as he gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?

And when they heard these things they became silent and they glorified God saying then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, gracious Father, Lord, the giver of every good gift and the greatest gift, the granting of faith and repentance unto life. Oh Lord, I pray that you by your Holy Spirit would come and put your finger right on the very heart of our problem this morning. Lord it is so easy for us to look at this text and to think to ourselves how they could be so prejudiced one against another that we could be able to see their sins so clearly, be able Lord to point out the problem and the the speck that is in someone else's eye.

But Lord I pray this morning that you would as our brother prayed pull back the veil, allow the light of your glory to shine and that you would show us the log that is in our own eye. Help us Lord to see clearly what you would have for us today and I ask it in Jesus name, amen. You may be seated. I titled this this morning, God Moves to Destroy Partiality in the Church, and if you'll forgive me, I this morning I played around with the idea of titling this the bunker busting bomb of the gospel over partiality. Now I don't say that to make this statement a promotion of the events that took place yesterday because I'll be honest with you I'm still unsure of what I think about it but simply a correlation to bring home the point of the passage.

I believe that within each of us there is a real temptation to harbor some form of partiality within our own heart deep down within the mountain. And I want you to know this morning that God is a God who does not show partiality. But as he says in chapter 10 in verse 34 Peter, then Peter opened his mouth and said in truth, I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation whoever fears him and works righteousness is accepted by him. The word which God sent to the children of Israel preaching peace through Jesus Christ, listen, he is Lord of all. The Lord Jesus Christ is not only the Lord of the Jew but also of the Gentile.

Within the Gentiles there is a whole vast innumerable host of all of us here this morning. I don't know that we have any national Jews here or ethnic Jews here but we are all Gentiles as far as I know and and that truth should hit us right between the eyes that our gracious God thank God shows no partiality to men but in every nation among men whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him. This is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And my prayer is that the gospel will begin to destroy all remaining remnants of prejudice in every heart this morning when it comes to the unity of the body of Jesus Christ across all people groups. There is no place for partiality in the body of Christ because there is no part of partiality in our God and we want to be like him.

Partiality in this sense must be destroyed before it does more damage to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to remember that what takes place within the church and and the things that are said whether in the church or on social media are those things by which the Gentiles blaspheme the name of God. When we show ourselves to be full of partiality, When we show ourselves to be utter foolish in our words and unloving and unkind, brothers and sisters, it's fine to disagree. And we, I disagree with many people and I stand strongly upon the things that I believe in the Word of God, but to treat another brother or sister in Jesus Christ in such a way that would bring reproach upon the name of Jesus Christ, I believe is an abomination and it should be repented of. I believe that we should be able to treat one another with dignity and honor because we are the children of God.

It doesn't mean that we believe with every point. I doubt that there's a husband and wife here who agree on every point but God commands us to show love and grace and honor one to another and how much more should we do that with the very members of our own body, the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. So as we begin chapter 11 I don't believe that we can enter into this section only by looking forward. I've already taken you a little bit into the past of what we read and heard a few weeks ago. We must also have our eye, if we're going to be honest and faithful to the text, on what we learned here in Acts chapter 10 regarding this great God, this great gracious God who shows no partiality, but in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him because He is Lord of all.

We must have this in our mind because I believe that this part, these verses in Acts chapter 10 are really a key, if you will, to helping us understand the larger context of chapter 10 and chapter 11. And I really find it fascinating that God has spent and given so much of his infallible inspired word on to this very point of partiality of proving to us and proving specifically contextually to the Jews that God is not a God of partiality but his gospel is for all people. If you'll remember I did quote for you Isaiah 49 in verse 6 in which it says this, I love this verse, indeed he says it is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel. I will also give you as a light to the Gentiles that you should be my salvation to the ends of the earth. Brothers and sisters, thank God for that verse because Jesus Christ is that great light that is shown not only in Jerusalem, not only in Judea, but also into Samaria and into the uttermost parts of the world of which we are the beneficiaries.

We have received that glorious light of the gospel but as that glorious light begins to shine into every heart and though we may be here this morning true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ I don't want us to fool ourselves to think that we are fully sanctified in this specific area. There is no doubt partiality in every heart here in some form or fashion. Now you can look out among our congregation and you can see different groups of people, ethnic groups of people, short and tall and all the arrangements there that you can imagine in the world. But I want you to realize that there is more to ethnicity than, or more to partiality than just the ethnicity of a person. We can actually show partiality and be unlike God for many other reasons.

We know that James spoke of this partiality regarding those who are rich and poor. We as people, we love to divide over anything that we can find to divide over. Just give me any little thing that I can distinguish you from me or them from us and boy we can lay a line of division down and begin to think that we are somehow received the grace of God because of something that he saw in us instead of what God has worked in us. I want us to be very careful and I want us to be very honest with ourselves this morning. I'm not here to give you every possible application that could possibly apply to this passage for each individual here that be beyond my comprehension and ability but the Holy Spirit of God has full capability, full power, and full wisdom to touch you right in that part of your heart that you may just be holding on to that may be very deep, but you better look out because the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ will penetrate to the very depths of your soul.

He will leave no stone unturned. He will leave no room without shining his light in it. He will put his finger on that spot and say, this is mine. And I pray this morning that that will be the case with every one of us, including myself. We see not only in Acts chapter 10 of this wonderful glorious passage about God showing no partiality and thinking back about the context of this chapter how God was doing multiple things at the same time.

We also see in verses 42 through 44 this glorious truth, and He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that it is he who was ordained by God to be judge of the living and of the dead. To him all the prophets witnessed that through his name whoever believes in him will receive remission of sins." Did you hear that? Did you hear what that said? Whoever believes in him will receive remission of sin. While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word.

When it speaks about them hearing the word is speaking very specifically about those who heard the word and received it as the truth that it was. In other words we could say on everyone who believed the word they heard. They heard this glorious truth of the gospel that whoever believes in the name of Jesus Christ will have remission of sins. There is no greater and glorious truth in all the world than this that God shows grace to sinners, that God gives his Word to us so that we would be radically transformed, in fact more than transformed, that we would be brought from death until life. And now as I said a few weeks ago, I want us to pull this context together because it's not just certain parts of a chapter, but it's multiple chapters in which God is trying to bring our thoughts together to help us to understand what he is wanting to communicate to each one of us.

As I said a few weeks ago God is not only working in your circumstance he's working in multiple circumstances. God can do more than one thing at one time. He is working in 10, 000 things, in 10, 000 people, multiple times, more than that, at one time, through one event, to accomplish all things that he desires. I know what's eminent upon the minds of all of us is the things that have transpired in our world yesterday and we no doubt are thinking about those things, but I want you to think about it from this perspective, that God is doing all things according to his will. And he is doing more things than we could ever fathom.

He was doing the same thing in this context right here before us, God was working in the heart and life of Peter to destroy his partiality. He was also working in the heart of Cornelius to destroy his lack of understanding about who Jesus Christ was. He was also working in those three servants of Cornelius who went to find Peter. He was also working in those six men who went with Peter to preach the gospel to Cornelius. He was also working in all of those men when they went back up to Jerusalem and there was a contention among the brethren against Peter because he ate with Gentiles.

God was doing all of this at the same time and preparing that and he's preparing you this morning to receive something from his word so that you would be more conformed into the image of his son. You see God is in a sense on the war path to destroy partiality in your heart. God is not a god of partiality. The glorious gospel is for every person and every people across this world. It will do one of two things.

It will either bring a softening to that heart by which it will be aroma of life into life. But that same gospel will come down like a hammer upon that person who has a hard heart and it will be an aroma of death unto death. And God is the determiner of all these things and I would just say who is sufficient for such things as this? Not I. In this text we are given a glimpse of this and it and its glorious context.

Not only was God preparing Peter to broaden again his scope of his understanding of the extent of the gospel into the Gentile nations, but at the same time he was lighting up the substance of the gospel in the person of Jesus Christ in the heart of Cornelius. As one event is never an end in and of itself but carries with it great consequence and great reactions to future circumstances and even the conversion of more people because of what has happened in the past. And I pray this morning as a result of these conversions there would be conversions here this morning. God is able. But this is where we pick up in chapter 11 and I want to point to you and show you something regarding the Jewish Christians reaction to Peter's interaction with the Gentiles.

So the Jewish Christians reaction, I apologize on your handout, I believe it's a little bit muffled there, but my apologies, but the first point that I want to make, the Jewish-Christians reaction to Peter's interaction with the Gentiles, verses 1 through 3, Let's read this again. Now the apostles and brethren who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God. And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those of the circumcision, they contended with him, saying, you went in to uncircumcise men and ate with them. Boy, news travels fast even without the internet. With just a short amount of time this news had traveled from where Peter was and in Caesarea all the way back up into Jerusalem and the apostles and the brethren it says had heard about these things they had heard there was a buzz going on that the Gentiles the Gentiles had received and heard the word of the Lord That was an amazing thing for them to hear no doubt.

But I want you to see something that is very unusual as I read this. And I think what amazed me about this passage the most when I first started reading it was to think about the complaint of these Jewish believers. I mean imagine receiving the news and the news comes to you, hey the Gentiles had received the Word of God. You went in and ate with him? That was not the first thing that came to my mind.

I would think that the response would be praise the Lord the gospel has gone to the Gentiles how wonderful is this but we're hearing these things with Americanized ears We're hearing this with ears that we're okay with the Gentiles. We are one. I don't know how to bring you into the context of the Jewish mindset. The context is this, that for thousands of years the Jews did not mix with the Gentiles. They kept them at arm's length.

They believe that interaction and eating with a Gentile would spiritually and morally defile them to such an extent that they could not worship God. So imagine drilling this into your heart and mind and soul for a couple thousand years, and now all of a sudden, Peter, Peter, one of the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, hey I'm glad you took the gospel to them but you went in their house and you ate with them? This was a radical thing that has just happened here. This was something that struck the ears even, listen, it struck the ears even of a believer to such an extent that they were shocked by it. To get this picture they had heard that again Peter was preaching the gospel to the Gentiles but their concern that was that Peter was willing to enter their house.

It never ceases to amaze me how people can swallow camels and get all strangled and choked up on the gnat. Isn't it interesting how that happens not only in their time but in ours? We get so worked up on the secondary and tertiary issues that we fail to see the centrality of Jesus Christ in His church even among, sit down, be careful, among other denominations. There are more than reformed Baptists who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and will be in heaven singing glorious songs to the King. You will be sitting with them and you will not be thinking about all of these secondary issues because you will be so focused on what was supposed to be so central to your heart and mind on this earth.

And I'm not saying that we throw out all of our doctrine and just stand in a circle and sing Kumbaya with everybody, but what I am saying is, is that when we speak to other believers or when we consider other believers in such a way that would bring reproach upon the name of Christ when we look at somebody who is a member of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ and we are willing to say I can't relate with them I cannot fellowship with them, eat with them. May it never be that God despises that heart. He wants to drive that out. He's wanting to obliterate that kind of thinking in our minds. We need to look at people as God looks at people.

We need to understand what God is doing. They were so concerned though, but didn't even consider that God was willing. Listen, they were concerned about Peter entering their house to dine with them, but they had not considered that Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, had entered their soul to dwell with them. Here they were, both believers, both indwelt by the Spirit of God, and their concern was, you went in their house. God is in my heart.

Should there not be fellowship among those who have God in their hearts? Couldn't we not see things as God sees things? And again it's easy for us to sit here and say I don't feel like I'm partial to anyone. I don't feel like I'm showing partiality. I don't feel like I'm prejudiced.

I feel like I love everybody but I want to tell you something. Be humble this morning and make way for the Holy Spirit to put his finger on that spot. It may look different than exactly what is presented here in this text but no doubt it is there. It could be just simply a thought, it could be in a word, it could be in a culture, it could be in a context that's all your own and God wants to do business with you about it this morning. Don't let this day pass without considering seriously.

But I also want you to see that this leads us to believe that these Jewish Christians did not have a problem with the Gentiles receiving the Word of God, but the thought of them being unified as a church was more than they could handle. So in other words let me put it this way they were fine to preach the gospel to those people I just don't want those people in my church. It's okay for you to take the gospel and take a meal to them. I just don't want to invite them in my house. I just don't know if I want them to sit across from me at the table.

Because hey the gospel is good for everybody but fellowship, now that's a different story. What is it? It seems as if these Jewish Christians believe that there needed to be two churches. There needed to be a Jewish church and a Gentile church. And for some crazy reason in our day we have all kinds of churches.

We have black churches and cowboy churches and biker churches and reform, we have all sorts of things. This thing's giving me a fit, I apologize. But what is it, why is it that we feel the need to divide the body of Christ over things in this case that the Gentiles could do nothing about. It's one thing to divide over a blatant sin of another group of people where we look at their doctrine and it's a blasphemous doctrine and it is contrary to the Word of God but to divide and to separate with somebody because of how they were born and because of something that they could not do they were Gentiles what are they gonna do about it? Can a leopard change his spots?

No. But praise God, God can change the heart of man. He can change your heart and He can change my heart to see that the gospel is for all people. And when the gospel goes to all people that they are now part of the body of Christ. We are members one of another not only in this local congregation but within the universal church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Guess what? There's coming a day when we will all be in heaven together of every tribe, tongue, and nation and we will all glorify God together as one body. That's where we're headed folks. Let's taste it today. Let's enjoy the pleasures of singing the songs of Zion today.

But I want you to realize that whenever you see someone in the Bible doing something that seems really dumb like you see here, you should first ask yourselves not who is like that, but you should ask yourselves how am I like that? Let's stop trying to contextualize everything and interpret everything according to everyone else but let's turn the eyes inward and see where is that in me? That spirit of partiality, that spirit that would hold somebody at arm's length and not have fellowship because of something that they can't do something about. One commentator, McLaren, wrote this, he said, zeal for truth is sadly apt to enlist spite and malice and blindness to a manifest work of God. They did not attack Peter for preaching to the Roman centurion and his men but for eating with him.

That eating not only was a breach of the law but it implied the reception of Cornelius and his company into the household of God and so destroyed the whole fabric of Jewish exclusiveness. We condemn such narrowness but do many of us not practice it in other forms. Wherever Christians demand adoption of external usages over and above the exercise of repenting faith as a condition of brotherly recognition they are walking in the steps of them of the circumcision. You see the truth is is that long-held prejudices don't immediately disappear when a person comes to Christ. Oh, how I wish I was sanctified instantly.

But this is an area that I need sanctifying, that we all need sanctifying in. I do hope that again our American ears are not deaf to the extraordinary events of this text and how God is tearing down walls. This is so monumental because he gives so much of the text of scripture to it and he also gives Peter a divine vision that you remember me talking about. He gives Cornelius an angel from heaven and he works all of these things together and I'm going to show you some other things that are really fascinating about this text that God is doing to break down the middle wall of partition and from the two make one new man in Jesus Christ. That's what he's doing, it's glorious.

This does not happen without strong contentions though. There's going to be some heated arguments, there's going to be some problems. The Jews considered eating with a Gentile again as being ceremonially unclean and defiling but literally that eating with a Gentile would disqualify them from being able to worship God. Perhaps a current illustration will help and I mean an immediate illustration. This is an imaginary illustration but it is an immediate context in what has taken place in Israel and Iran.

Imagine with me just for a moment a small group of Jews being converted in Israel and one of them feels compelled to go and share the gospel with an Iranian and that Iranian immediately believes the gospel then the two of them sit down together in that house and they share a meal in demonstration of the unity of the body and bond of Jesus Christ among brothers. This is much like the extent of the feelings that those of the circumcision felt when they heard that Peter had gone into a Gentiles home. Can you imagine the difficulty that would be there? I often think of Corrie Ten Boone and the struggle that she had within her own heart when she was sharing and that one of those guards came up to introduce himself to her. And by the power of the Holy Spirit and through prayer she reached out her hand to shake his.

That very guard who did such horrible things to her and others, through the power of the gospel, he destroyed the partiality. He destroyed all of those things that divided and he was bringing about healing and unity among those of different backgrounds and different cultures and different nations. And So imagine if you will Peter's surprise then as he goes up to Jerusalem eager to tell of the wonderful things that God had done. Have you ever been that way? Had something great happen and you can't wait to go tell your friends and your brothers and sisters and and then instead of having this warm welcoming committee the cold water committee shows up and they just dumped cold water all over your joy.

That must have been what Peter felt like. He goes up and when Peter came up to Jerusalem, can you believe I'm not out of verse 2 yet? I apologize. When he comes up to Jerusalem, those of the circumcision contend with him. Welcome home Peter.

Let's fight. They were upset. Matthew Henry says the imperfect state of human nature strongly appears when godly persons are displeased even to hear that the Word of God has been received. Because their own system has not been attended to. And we are too apt to despair of doing good to those who yet when tried prove to be teachable.

It is the bane and damage of the church to shut out those from it and from the benefit of the means of grace who are not in everything just as we are. But next I want us to see in the verses 4 down through 16 Peter's response. I won't spend as much time here because he's repeating much of what we talked about last time but simply just to point out a few points that I think are significant and are significant because of this context. I want you to see Peter's response to their contentions. You know one of the natural responses to a contentious person is what?

Lash right back out. They hit me, I'm gonna hit them just a little bit harder. They bring something against me, well guess what, let me show you something that you got a problem with. But it's interesting to me how we see the power of the gospel sanctifying the heart of Peter in his response. The Bible says, but Peter explained it to them in order from the beginning.

Here they are coming with contentions and they're ready to fight over this thing and Peter says, hey brothers, and maybe part of this is because he was of that same mindset until just a few days ago. When God had to do a supernatural work through a vision to turn his thinking and his thousands of years of wrong thinking around to God's way of thinking. To show him that he should call nothing common that God calls clean. And so here's what he does. He brings him or Peter brings them into his context.

He wants to show them something. He wants to just explain it to him. He sympathizes with their difficulty of understanding this. Again, it would have been easy to clap back at them and contentious arguments back and forth and we could get on X and do these things and show the world how mad we are at each other. But Peter does not do that.

This is what he did. A soft answer turned away wrath. A gentle spirit, an understanding mind, a humble brother. He didn't contend back with them but took the time to give this explanation of what had happened. Perhaps Peter was more gracious again because he knew the turmoil in his own heart over this very thing when he actually said, no Lord.

I think Peter sympathized with him. Not so Lord, nothing common or unclean has ever entered my lips." It seems as a general rule those who understand the extent of grace that they have been shown in a certain area are much more likely to show much grace to those who have not yet been enlightened in the point of their ignorance but are patient in explaining their responses for their own actions. This was Peter's case and what we're going to see is that this would produce a good harvest in the end. But Peter again retells the events in verses 5 through 15. He's laying out if you will his apologetic for what he had done, and it was based upon much confirmation from God.

And I wanted to show you, I'm just gonna walk right down through these things, you can write them down if you want to. In verse 5 we see that Peter was praying. Peter was in a submissive state. He prayed. He was seeking to know the will of the Lord.

Next we see that God in this divinely appointed way had given Peter a vision and so God divinely intervened in Peter's heart and mind so that he could accept what he was about to let loose upon the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was tearing the middle wall at this middle partition down to reveal the glory of God, that the mystery of God from the foundation of the world was going to be to save the Gentiles as well as the Jews. That's what Paul talks about in Ephesians. That was the great mystery that the Jews could not understand. Next we see what God has cleansed in verse 9.

God spoke to clarify and to interpret what Peter had seen. Peter was not understanding at first And so it wasn't just the vision that was going to help him understand it. God spoke to him about it. It was God's word. It's not often just our understanding of something of what we read, but we need God's word to speak to us in that true sense of the word that the Holy Spirit of God through his word would begin to interpret for us what is taking place.

There was no room for private interpretation of what he had seen. God was his own interpreter and God would tell him in verse 9 what was happening, but the voice answered me again from heaven, what God has cleansed you must not call common." Peter didn't have quite the spiritual understanding and wisdom to just know that this sheep coming down from heaven with all kinds of four-footed animals and creeping beasts and birds of the air. What does that mean? He needed the Word of God, the very Word of God, the very breath of God to explain it to him and to give him understanding. In verse 10 we see that God did this and confirmed it three times.

He did it three times so that there was no mistaking of what the interpretation of this thing was. God wanted Peter to know because Peter was getting ready to go and have to face some contentious men in Jerusalem. There needed to be no doubt in Peter's mind. Next we see that three men from Caesarea in verse 11, God confirmed the testimony of Cornelius by sending three men to speak what was going on in what was happening with Cornelius and Caesarea. In verse 12 we see that the Spirit told him something.

God confirmed to Peter by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit told me to go with them doubting nothing. And Then Peter in verse 12 took six brethren, twice the number of witnesses that he needed because of the significance of this moment I believe, to be a testimony and to be a witness to what had happened. He took six men because of the significance of this event and to validate the testimony and to prove what had actually happened. In verse 13 we see that Cornelius saw an angel of God. God confirmed it further to Cornelius and to Peter by Cornelius telling him of his divine encounter with an angel.

In verse 14 we see why that happened because salvation needed to come to Cornelius and his whole household. It was confirmed to Cornelius the purpose of the meeting by telling Peter what the angel had said regarding that they needed salvation. He needed it and his whole household needed it. In verse 15 we see that the Holy Spirit fell upon them as upon the apostles and the disciples in Acts chapter 2. Peter shows that God again had confirmed what he was saying.

The event of the Spirit's validation of the conversion of the Gentiles was God's stamp of guarantee that the Gentiles are now believers and part of the family of God. They needed to see all of these things. In verse 16, Peter remembered the word of the Lord. This is important. I think it's important to note that all of this was based upon the Word of the Lord.

From verse 1, they heard that the Gentiles had received the Word of God, and now Peter is remembering the Word of God. And it's only by the Word of God, through the power of the Holy Spirit that hearts of men are changed to such a degree as this. And so in Matthew 3 he remembers what Jesus had said. Jesus said, I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance But he who is coming after me is mightier than I who sandal I am not worthy to carry he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire and so all of these events That I just read in these verses 5 through 15 are Confirming and are confirmed by the triune God. I don't know if you saw that.

God the Father spoke to Peter, God the Holy Spirit fell upon them, and then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, the testimony of Jesus Christ and what he had done and he says it also in Acts chapter 1 verse 5 about how the gospel they were going to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth and think about this again this is to help you to understand the significance of this moment God validated all of it by the testimony of the triune God. That's how important this thing was. So don't allow your American mind to think light of this thing. This is a big deal. This is like the veil of the temple being rent in two.

This is the middle wall of separation between Jews and Gentiles being broken down so that these two groups of people could now be one new man in Jesus Christ. And there's only two types of people now in this world. Those in Christ and those out of Christ, that's it. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither male nor female.

There is neither Jew, there's no barbarians, it's all one in Jesus Christ. We need to understand that and we need to grapple with the truth of this, that God was doing something so momentous that the triune God put his stamp of testimony upon all of it. This was a mighty work of God. Now the third thing I want to show you is is Peter's question to these Jewish Christians to help spin this around so that they would begin to understand what was happening. In verse 17, if therefore God gave them the same gift as he gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus, who was I that I could withstand God?

What a great question. Again I'm fascinated with the spiritual maturity and wisdom of Peter at this moment. He had other moments, Don't we all? But at this moment, the Spirit of God was working in the heart of Peter, and he asked this question that began to take his shoes off and put it on them. He wanted them to experience and to understand his perspective of this thing because it was so radical what he had done.

And so he turns this question upon them. Peter's logic here is very sound. And you know sometimes the best thing to do when people are contending with you on something that you have done based upon the clear teaching of the Word of God is to turn that question back around on them and ask them the same question in a slightly different way. The Lord Jesus Christ did this often with those who were trying to contend with him. They would ask him a question, he said, no let me ask you a question.

And so that's what Peter did here. He had learned from the master. And so what had happened here was he turned that question back and Peter based his question upon one infallible proof. If God gave the Gentiles the same gift as he gave us, The same gift, I want that to settle in just for a moment, he's reasoning with them if God gave the Gentiles the same gift that he gave us, what does that mean? What does that mean?

Peter is pointing to the fact that salvation is the gift of God and might I add in the words of Paul not of works lest any man should boast. It was the gift of God to the Jews and it was the gift of God to the Gentiles. And so this verse shows us so clearly why there can be no thought of boasting, there should be no thought of partiality in ourselves regarding our own salvation because it is the gift of God. Why do you boast in that which you received as if by some good thing in you, you received it. You see he's wanting to press upon his brothers and his brothers here And I want to press upon you my brothers and sisters, God has given you a gift.

It is an unearned gift, an unmerited gift, and often, too often, an unappreciated gift for what it actually is, God's gracious gift. He didn't look at anything in your past, he didn't look at anything in your present, and he didn't look at anything in your future to make him want to say there's one worthy of my gift. No, in fact, the opposite is true. He wanted to demonstrate the glory of his grace by picking the most vile and the weakest and the most foolish. That's our group.

And he wanted to demonstrate and display the glorious nature of his grace upon us. And I want you to realize if God gave it to you then please tell me why he cannot give it to anyone else as he pleases. And when he does should we not treat them in the same way that God has as his very own child. If it was given to you based solely upon his good pleasure then why are we to say that because he cannot give it to any other person based solely on his good pleasure? What makes us to differ?

Again it's not our goodness, it's not our ethnicity, and it's certainly not our wisdom. Salvation is solely the gift of God to those most undeserving and to the Jews who was more undeserving than the Gentiles so Peter's logic again is sound He teaches them that they were undeserving and the Gentile was undeserving. Then both are perfect candidates for salvation. Are you here this morning and you have no hope in yourself? Like You view yourself, you see your sin as so wicked that you think God could never accept me.

You're a perfect candidate for salvation. Because guess what? You have nothing to offer God. You have nothing. In my hands, no price I bring.

Simply to the cross I cling. You just come with nothing and Jesus gives you everything. That's who our God is. He has come to give salvation to the most undeserving of candidates. And it is the same Spirit that worked in them, Peter says, that is working in the Gentile.

God demonstrated this by giving him again that same gift. It wasn't a different type of Holy Spirit that he was given to the Jews and another type of gift to the Gentiles. It wasn't something less, it wasn't something different, it was the same gift of the Holy Spirit and it was not by measure. He gave the fullness of the Spirit to the Gentiles and to the Jews. If they had the same spirit then it would reason that they should have the same fellowship with that same spirit.

And then Peter says this wonderful thing, who was I? Who was I that I could withstand God? What a great question. This is reminiscent to the question that Peter asked the religious leaders in Acts 419. And he says, whether is it right in the sight of God to listen to you more than God, you judge.

Who was I to withstand what God was doing? I don't know. I wonder sometimes because of some partiality within our heart that we don't even recognize, are we withstanding God? Because of some external ridiculous division that we have caused and created and think about. Who are we?

Who do we think we are if we ever consider a sinner too sinful to receive the grace of God and to think that somehow we needed less of God's gift of grace to save them or to save us than it would take to save them? Have you ever considered somebody else that way, maybe walking around and you see someone and you think, there's no way. They're not going to believe. You've just said more about what you believe about God than you did about them. Like that person, there's no way.

I would say that because of oftentimes our own self-righteousness, it is most likely that it took more grace to save us than the most vilest of sinners who beats upon his breast saying, God, have mercy upon me a sinner. I just love what the commentator Barnes says regarding this. He said, withstand God, oppose or resist God. He had indicated his will. He had shown his intention to save the Gentiles and the prejudices of Peter were all overcome.

One of the best means of destroying prejudice and false opinions is a powerful revival of religion. More erroneous doctrine and unholy feelings are overcome in such scenes than in all the bigoted and fierce contentions that have ever taken place. He said If people wish to root out error from their church, they should strive by all means to promote everywhere revivals of pure and undefiled religion. The Holy Spirit more easily and effectually silences false doctrine and destroys heresy than all the denunciations of fierce theologians, all the alarms of heated zealots for orthodoxy, and all the anathemas which professed love for the purity of the church ever uttered from the icebergs on which such champions usually seek their repose in their home. Did you get that?

So often these who want to contend so much for the orthodoxy and the purity of the church are sitting on icebergs. I've heard it termed, we can sometimes seem like the frozen chosen. We think that because we have been chosen of God and we believe in the sovereign election of God that hey there must have been something good in us. And we can begin to divide over things that have no point of division except pride. And may God help us not to become these high-seated theologians who want to blast all of our all of our nastiness to other believers on a social media platform and bring reproach upon the name of Jesus Christ when what we should do is perhaps humble ourselves and look in the mirror and read Acts chapter 11 and James chapter 2 and realize in chapter 10 that God shows no partiality.

Why am I? That the gospel is not only for the Jew but for the Gentile. You see this, for since there's no division in the Godhead why should there be division among his members? This was Paul's desire in Galatians In chapter 3 he says, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you are Christ then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise.

And as Scott preached a few months back in Romans 10, for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon him. For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Shall be saved. So what do these Jewish Christians do with this explanation? Again I think the beginning of this shocked me almost as much as the ending of it did.

In the beginning of it I was shocked because they said, the only thing they took from this glorious story, you ate with them? But here in verse 18 I'm shocked at their response at such clear logic, the logic of God in the gospel of God coming to them and being explained to them by a brother who treated them with respect and love. And he said, brothers, let me explain it to you. He didn't call them names, he just explained it and this is what he said or this is what happened, this was the result. In verse 18, when they heard these things, they became silent.

When has that ever happened? Would to God that all of the arguments on the Twittersphere would go silent. They became silent and they glorified God. This tells us something about them. I think it tells us that they were true believers.

I think it tells us that they were true believers. I think it tells us that they were humble. They heard the Word of God. They were humbled by the Word of God and therefore they glorified God. And I pray that that spirit rest upon us this morning.

Perhaps the greatest thing we could do in response to this sermon is to fall silent and glorify God. They didn't stay silent too awful long though. They wanted to acknowledge a truth that needed to be acknowledged and it was part of their glorifying of God. Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life. There is so much in that statement that it would take me another sermon and it may to preach it.

God has also granted repentance, dear brothers and sisters, is the gift of God. When you see repentance, true repentance, that is a work of God's Holy Spirit and it is always accompanied with faith because no one repents apart from faith. They are distinct but not separate. They are intertwined because they go together because it is the believing heart that is the repenting heart. And this is how they glorify God.

They testified to the gracious gift of God's repentance. And I think that's how we should end as well. So would you pray with me? Our Heavenly Father, we should take note of these brothers here who fell silent in response to such glorious truth. Lord, I pray that you would be glorified this morning through granting repentance of life to someone here this morning.

Lord, I don't care what kind of external outward differences there are among us. They mean nothing. Lord, I acknowledge there's only two types of people here this morning. There are those who are your children and there are those who are not. There are those who are redeemed and there are those who are not redeemed.

And Lord, my desire is that we would leave here all redeemed. I pray God that you would break down the hard heart Lord that you would penetrate that that one who is who has been so hard or perhaps just blinded or perhaps has never heard the truth of the gospel that Jesus Christ has come to save sinners and that whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. God we glorify you for the granting of the grace of repentance and therefore Lord we acknowledge that our salvation is solely from beginning to end the work of you. Oh God do your work here this morning and we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.