No Respecter of Persons

I do want to do a little bit of review before I read, and I think someone had asked a question a few weeks ago, and I'd like to answer that question. You know, in all this preaching and teaching the Word of God, someone asked the question, what about the verse, cast not your pearls before swine? And that's found in Matthew chapter 7. It's just one verse. It's one time in the Bible thrown in there.

And there's a principle there of not casting that which is a pearl, that which is valuable, that which is holy, before a swine. A swine is someone who has no respect for anything good or holy, and is going to, like, why would you cast a pearl before a swine? It'll just snort it and put it in the mud. It has no understanding of the value of the pearl.

And so the idea is, why cast the Word of God, a pearl, before people who do not care for it, do not want to hear it? And I believe that is the principle there. It's not to cast your pearls before swine. But here's always the challenge, and I think that you see examples of this in the book of Acts.

How do you know someone is a swine? How do you know someone has that attitude toward truth? You first need to try to minister the truth to them. You know, talk about racist and prejudice, but for us to think in our minds that all those city people in Columbus are a bunch of swine, and then not go to them, is the most arrogant concept and thought that we can have, because we have no concept what kind of people they really are. New generations are rising up on a regular basis.

And so when the Bible says, don't cast your pearls before swine, it means this, that if you preach the Word of God and you determine this person is belligerent, is not caring what you're saying, has no desire for it, does not value the Word of God, then you should turn and go elsewhere. When Jesus sent his disciples out in Matthew 10, he says, go into every city. If they will not hear you after you've preached to them, then what should you do? Shake the dust of your feet off.

And it's the very same thing of shaking the dust off the feet is the same thing as we're not going to cast any more pearls before this group of people. They are not going to respect and honor and receive the Word of God. And so here's the problem we have, and many people, they don't want to go forth and preach, and so they just include everybody out there is a swine.

And so that excuses me from having to do anything for anyone. But that's not true at all. There are many people out there who are sincere and hungry.

And when you go out and preach, you're going to have some swine around, but you're also going to have some people going to hear. And you see this example, I'll give you one example in Acts, I think it's Acts chapter 13, when Paul and Barnabas are out preaching the Word in different places, and the people did not hear it. They rise up against him.

And finally, Paul says, okay, we're going to turn away from you Jews. We're turning to the Gentiles, and they shake the dust of their feet off of them. In essence, you people are not willing.

You're like pigs who disregard these pearls. We're going elsewhere. And so I've always felt this way.

I'm going to go and preach for a while and see if these people are swine before I stop casting my pearls. If I'm preaching at a college campus and a heckler comes and I can tell he has no regard for the truth, doesn't want to hear the truth, I'll turn away from him, won't speak to him at all the whole day. I'm not going to keep trying to cast pearls before someone who is disregarding the truth.

So the idea here of not casting your pearls before swine. And so you're going to see this actually in the book of Acts. They're going to start preaching and in some places they're going to say, enough, we're leaving because we're shaking the dust.

You people aren't going to hear we're going to someone else. So let's not use that as an excuse to preach the word of God. Don't call someone a swine until they demonstrate they truly are.

All right, let's look at Acts chapter six. We're going to do some teaching here this morning. And I know every Sunday is teaching, but I'm going to look at a number of passages.

And by the way, I believe this is an evangelistic message, even though we're not going to talk about salvation, because if your attitude, if you have a heart that is respecting persons that certain groups of people you just have kind of a low view of, it will affect your evangelistic approach to them. And the early church, as we go through the book of Acts, this is a good lesson because they're going to learn those things. They still have in their heart a disregard for the Gentiles.

They have a disregard for the Jew, and it shocks them. Peter was shocked. And those who were with him, it says they were amazed that on the Gentiles, the Holy Ghost was poured.

And that tells you that in their heart, the Gentiles were still the dogs, the swine. And wow, God is pouring out his spirit upon all. Well, we've been looking at the early church and the outside work that the early church is doing is preaching the gospel.

They're facing some persecution for it. We saw that here in Acts chapter five, but now in Acts chapter six, we're going to go back inside the church and we're going to look at some of the inside ministry that's going on. There's going to be some problems start to rise up inside the body of Christ.

And so we're going to look at that starting in verse number one. Let's pray before we consider this verse this morning. Heavenly Father, again, we acknowledge you in all of our ways and we acknowledge that your ways are perfect.

The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. And this is the truth that we need to establish our hearts upon. We thank you for the privilege that we have of owning a Bible and opening up in freedom and being able to consider and study.

May we not waste these opportunities and even cast the things that we hear away as a swine with a pearl. Lord, may we receive them as valuable and things that we need and things that will guide our life into the truth. So bless us this morning.

Open our ears, we might hear in our hearts too. In Jesus name, amen. Acts chapter six, starting in verse number one, it says this, and in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there's church growth.

And with church growth comes problems. Church growth has growing pain. And the early church is starting to face some growing pains.

The number of the disciples were multiplied. There arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. Murmuring.

You know what that is? I was reading a little bit about a heart murmur. My father had a heart murmur when he was younger. That swishing, it's a light sound, you can barely hear it, but that swishing of the blood going through the heart.

Maybe the valve isn't closing properly. And instead of a thump, thump, thump, thump, there's a thump swish, thump swish. That murmur, that low undertone in the heart that shouldn't be there.

And you think of a congregation, we ought to be thump, thump, thump, thump. None of this murmuring, none of this undercurrent and grumbling and complaining and passing things along. The undercurrent of negativism throughout the Bible, complaining and murmuring is not a good thing.

As a matter of fact, it's said to be a selfish thing. The book of Jude says these are murmurous complainers walking after their own lust. I want my way, and if I don't get my way, I may not stand up and shout it, but I'll murmur, murmur, murmur, murmur underneath with an undercurrent.

I don't like what's happening, and I'll murmur. But anyway, there was a murmuring that was going on here. And notice what it says, this murmuring was, arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration.

Now, I think it's interesting as I was reading through that this earlier part of this week, I thought, why didn't the Lord just say there was a murmuring with some widows against others, or some groups of the church that had widows against other individuals in the group who had widows? Well, I think the Lord wants us to learn something here, and it's a good one for us to learn. And that is the Lord says two cultures are here, and two cultures, the Greek culture, which is oftentimes called in the Bible the heathen, the Greek culture, and the Hebrew culture, there is a murmuring going on, and it's between two cultures. The Grecian people are murmuring against the Hebrew people, and the Grecians have a complaint, and that complaint is that their widows in mass are being neglected in the daily ministration.

So there is two cultures here, and you go through the book of Acts, you see these cultures, and we face it here. Remember when I was in the Baptist church, you never remember anyone, we never had the culture clashes that we seem to have in these settings. We were all from the American culture.

But in these settings, it seems like there is the same challenge that the early church faced with regards to multiple cultures trying to get together. And I believe every church in some way has cultural issues. And so the ordination that's coming up, we'll talk about that next week, was an ordination of 12, or excuse me, seven men to deal primarily here with a cultural issue.

The Grecians against the Hebrews. Now it says here the Grecians were getting slighted. They were not getting the same as the Hebrews were.

Does anybody know why do you think that would happen? Why would the Grecians get slighted in the daily ministration? It wasn't here a couple of Grecians and a few Hebrews, it was the Grecians and the Hebrews. So there is a cultural issue here that I would like to address with us this morning. Well, let's think about it this way.

The Jews were the people of God for nearly 2000 years, ever since Moses led them out of Egypt. They grew up in homes where they were told, and rightly so, were the people of God. Not based so much on faith, but on lineage.

You were born into this family, son, daughter. You're a Jew, you're a Hebrew, you're the people of God. And for 2000 years, that thought process was given to them.

And to no fault of their own, in a physical sense, they were the people of God. The Messiah came out of the Hebrew people. And so we have the Messiah.

We are a great people, a great race. We're above other races because God sent his son through the Hebrew people. Jesus was a Hebrew.

He wasn't a Greek. So the Messiah that we're talking about, the Savior, he is a Hebrew. All these apostles that are leading the church are Jews.

They're Hebrew. There's not a Greek amongst them. And so isn't this a signal to you that God is favoring a certain group of people? The gospel was to go first to the Hebrews, starting in Jerusalem.

The early church, a large part of them were Hebrews. And so there is this feeling that probably if you're in the church there, that Hebrews are just a step above everybody else. And you know, you never really can reach it until you can be a Hebrew.

And a lot of people teach that nowadays, you know, this messianic movement. You have to go back and kind of be a Hebrew. If you're a Greek and it'll help you out just to get a little of that Hebrew salt on you and let you be more spiritual.

Well, no doubt these Grecians are in a minority and we know what it's like to be in minorities, but the Grecians are in a minority. And my wife and I, not only have we experienced 30 years of trying to blend two cultures in church life, but my wife and I, in our marriage, we had to blend two cultures. And so in a sense, I feel like I have a little bit of experience in the subject of blending cultures together.

But the early church certainly had some issues there. I remember in the charity churches way back in the nineties, some of you might've been there, all the English that were coming into the charity churches. And my, from what I remember is like a family a week is moving in out there in Pennsylvania.

And you go out there for these meetings and half the people were English and half were plain people. And it was a real exciting time. It seems like the cultures were blending together and working through their issues and forming a brotherhood.

But I've noticed it seems like in the last 10 or 15 years that people are going back to their culture. It seems like they're retreating. And I go to different churches and I look around and I don't see any of the English anymore.

They're limited very much in these groups. And I just don't think that's a good thing. I think we've maybe failed in this experiment of trying to blend cultures.

And I realized it is challenging to blend cultures together. And even in America, it's challenging to put two different cultures in together. But I'd like to talk about that.

This idea of respect of persons, how the Grecians were not respected and lifted up equal to the Hebrews. And one of the things that we need to do with, and we're going to see this a little bit later on, but our failures are found in a lack of having a renewed mind. We need a renewed mind.

We learn thought patterns. We learn habits. And you know how it is.

We're human and we think our thought patterns and our habits are right. That's just the way we've always done it. It's just the way we were brought up.

And I don't see why it's not right. Well, everybody else is brought up different. And we've all got different thought patterns.

And we all think our way is right. And so we come to the Bible oftentimes with that filter and that we see things with a cultural perspective. And so the wrong thought pattern here, and I'm sure if you'd have talked to these people in the early church, even though they were filled with the Holy Spirit and God was doing great things amongst them, you know, they weren't perfect.

They had to be sanctified. They had to grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord and Savior. But if you stopped and talked to them, maybe they're in Jerusalem and said, hey, what do you think about these Grecians that are joining the church? Do you think that maybe the Hebrews are like 100% and those Grecians are like 95%? You'd probably get some people say, well, you know, I mean, we're brothers and they're good people, but they're just not quite up to where we're at, you know, because you've been taught all your life.

Those Grecians are dogs. They're heathens. And we're the people of God.

So there's a real challenge here. By the way, I just want to throw this out. You know, the Lord, he had to use shadows and types and many things in the Old Testament.

We don't do that anymore. We would never stone someone for committing adultery. And we would never encourage people if they divorced their wife, like Deuteronomy 23, you can go out and marry another.

You know, some of the things in the Old Testament, I would never offer up a lamb as a sacrifice and try to find a temple to bring the blood and be blasphemous. Many things in the Old Testament were preparing us for the New Testament. They were types and shadows, things in the physical realm that the Lord was going to move things to the spiritual.

I think it's a beautiful thing when you see Jesus, he's got this Syrophoenician woman and Jesus knows that throughout the Old Testament, those Syrophoenicians, those Grecians were dogs. And he even says to that Syrophoenician, shall I take that which is the bread of the children and give it to the dog? Now in his heart, I know he struggled with that one because he knows that he's transitioning, that he's going to bring this thing to the place where there are no dogs anymore, that we're going to bring out the truth in the sense of God is no respecter of persons. And we'll see that here in just a little bit.

But praise God, he went ahead and healed the dog. And you could see his compassion toward all men, but he's still living under the law and he has to address some of the issues that are under the law. Well, I'm going to read to you, let's turn over a few pages here, Acts chapter 10.

I'm going to ask you to look through a couple of verses here this morning. Acts chapter 10, here is the New Testament standard for how to treat everyone. In Acts chapter 10, verse 34, it says, and this is the story of Cornelius.

I won't go down through the whole story. Peter is visiting Cornelius. Cornelius is a dog.

He is a heathen. In verse 34, it says this, then Peter opened his mouth and said of a truth I perceive. This is a new thought to Peter.

I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation, he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him. Now, Peter had a process of having to learn this. This is Acts chapter what? Chapter 10.

This is probably months, maybe a year or two, three after the Pentecost, he's filled with the Holy Spirit, and yet he still has to learn. Wow. I'm learning some things here.

I am learning that God in heaven, the God that I serve, is no respecter of persons, and he is willing to save a dog, a heathen. Just like he saved me. And not only that, he's willing to give him the Holy Spirit.

Look down to chapter 10 in verse 44. While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word, and they of the circumcision, that's the Hebrew, which believed were astonished. It's an amazing word.

Astonished. As many as came with Peter because on the Gentiles was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. That's amazing, they thought.

It's astonishing. And in their hearts, God would never pour out his Holy Spirit upon these dogs, these heathens. The Holy Spirit is just for us, the people of God, the Hebrew.

And so it astonished them. It wasn't like, oh, we understand this. Yeah, God is giving his spirit to all men.

No, they were astonished. So this is a process that they are learning and working through. And Brother John, he took a little bit of my thunder here this morning.

He read out of the book of James. I'd like to read a few verses out of James here too. James 2.9 says, but if you have respect of persons, you commit sin.

And this is an issue of sin. This is not just a character flaw or a struggle. It's sin.

And are convinced of the law as transgressors. So we need to be mindful of some of the things that are in our hearts. And I trust that as we go through the message here this morning, that God will reveal anything in your heart that you need to address.

I want to read a couple of verses, you don't have to turn there, just to talk about respect of persons. Romans chapter two and verse number 11, it says this, for there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without the law shall also perish without the law.

And as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law. For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. So God is no respecter of persons.

God does not have any favorite. Yes, he has his children, but he has no respect for persons. If you're a Gentile heathen, you're lost.

He has no difference between you and one of his children. You can come to him on the very same basis and be a part of every blessing that any one of his children are a part of. Ephesians chapter six, verse number nine says this, and you masters do the same things unto them, talking about not serving with eye service, the servants.

Masters do the same things unto them for bearing threatening, knowing that your master also is in heaven, neither is their respective persons with him. In other words, master, you're a boss, you got authority, that's right. But don't think that because you're a boss, you got favoritism.

God will treat you a little different than that lowly servant. No, there is no respective person with the Lord. A couple more verses.

First Peter, chapter one, verse 17. And if you call on the father who without respective persons judges according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear. And so we call on the Lord and that Lord is not a respecter of persons.

And then there's an Old Testament passage. I just saw that this morning in Proverbs chapter 24, verse 23. These things also belong to the wise.

It is not good to have respective persons in judgment, belongs to the wise. So if you're a wise person here today, you will not have respect of persons. Now, as I shared in our children's lesson, a lot of people have respected persons because of skin color.

And I know that our answer is, and it's the same thing in my own heart, our answer is, oh, no, no, I don't. I don't have respective persons for those who are black or those who are Mexican. I don't have any.

I know it's wrong to do that. But in our action, that's where we really find what we believe. It's how we treat people.

How do we evangelize people that are outside of our culture? Are we reaching out? And this is going to be a challenge for us. And I think one of the good reasons to go down to Columbus is to teach us that that black man, that black woman is just as valuable as that woman up in Holmes County. And that drug addict is just as important to God as the Amish man driving in the buggy over here and the Swartzentubers.

Don't have respective persons. You know, you've got to get by the skin color. Doesn't matter the skin color, doesn't matter the social status, as was mentioned here this morning, that rich man that comes in with a gold ring.

Ah, he's a rich man. Let's put him up here in the front. And that poor man who comes in and he's got old clothes and holy clothes and has to wash them for a week or two, set him back there in that chair in the back.

The idea of respective persons because of social status. It also doesn't matter if you grew up in a Christian home. Sometimes those who grew up in religious settings, Christians home thinks that I'm somehow maybe in a better position because I'm in a certain home or a certain culture.

No, God has no respect for a person. You sin in a Christian home, you're going to be judged just the same way. It's only sin down there in Columbus in a drug house.

There's no respect for it. And it doesn't matter what culture you're of. No culture is above other cultures.

Well, our culture is kind of a religious one, so we're kind of better than other people. It doesn't matter. Cultures are not, God doesn't give favorites or he doesn't rate, you know, some cultures are second class, some are third class, but some cultures are top of the line.

It's not true. God has no respect of persons. And so here in Acts chapter six, we're looking at a cultural issue.

And that issue is that the Hebrews are not respecting equally the Grecians. And the Grecian widows kind of like, well, are you a Grecian? Yeah, I'm a Grecian. Well, okay, well, you're just not going to get quite as much as the Hebrews.

We're going to kind of give you a little less and maybe we'll skip every other day for you. But we're here with the Hebrews every day. And just somehow they're being neglected in the daily ministration.

So we're not to be looking at cultures in any way as inferior. And I know most of us grew up or taught certain things. I grew up in the American culture, we were taught certain things, certain like Americans are better than Chinese.

Americans are better than Russians. Americans are better and worthy, excellent nation. And so we get this attitude.

And we have respect of persons. Look with me to another passage in Galatians chapter number three. Galatians chapter three, verse 26.

Here's the New Testament standard. Paul writes to the church at Galatia, by the way, there are Jews and Gentiles here. And we'll see an example of it here in just a minute.

But in Galatians three, verse 26, Paul writes, for you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. And that is verse 28.

There is neither Jew nor Greek. That means culture is irrelevant. Jew, a religious culture.

Greek, a heathen culture. It doesn't matter anymore. Amen? There is neither Jew nor Greek.

There is neither bond nor free at your social status. You might be a slowly slave in bondage, or you might be a free man wealthy. It doesn't matter.

Neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you be Christ, then you're Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promises. So Paul is referencing the need to be careful not to have respect of persons regarding culture, social status, male, female.

Listen, in Christ Jesus, we're all on the same plane. We're all one. Now, how do we get these prejudices and these respect of persons? Here's how it happens.

This is a danger. This is my lesson here. We'll get to it a little bit later.

But the danger for us as Christians is to focus on the externals. When you look at externals, and that's where your focus is, there are challenges there because there are different colors in people. There are different cultural practices that people do.

There's different ways of dressing in different cultures. There's poor, there's rich, there's fine rings, there's ragged clothes. And all of these things are external.

And when your focus is on external things, you tend to evaluate people based upon those things and you tend to have respect of persons. So people who focus on externals oftentimes have problems with this idea of respecting persons. What we need to focus on is that we're all human.

And that's where the bottom line is. Anybody I meet is a human being. He is made in the image of God.

God put a different skin on the apple. God put a different skin color on him. God placed him in a different culture.

These are things he cannot change. God placed him in a certain social status. But the most important thing that God is concerned about is he's white on the inside.

He's a human being and he needs salvation. And when we look at people, if we're going to get past this respective person, you have to look past all those external things and look at the heart. Because as I said, the hearts are all the same in all of us.

We're humans. And the gospel is for humans. The gospel is not for cultures.

It's not for skin colors. It's not for ethnicity. It's not for the rich and poor.

The gospel is about the salvation of the soul of human beings. I like Romans 10, 12. It's the verse right before the one that God used for my conversion.

But I know in the gospel tract that I read that night, verse 12 was in there too. Here's what it says. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek.

Amen. The same Lord is rich unto all upon all that call upon him. There is no difference between Jew and Greek.

Can we believe that? There is no difference between the Jew, the Hebrew, the religious, all their life, trained a certain way, and the heathen dog. I'm not going to respect her. Well, Peter had a hard time learning this.

And some of us have a hard time learning this. I think we're always learning. But look, if you're there in Galatians, that Peter's mistake here in Galatians chapter 2, Peter does a little respect of persons here.

In Galatians 2, verse 11, it says, but when Peter was come to Antioch, Antioch was a place where there was a mixture of Jew and Gentile. And by the way, most of these early churches, Ephesus, Antioch, Colossae, they had synagogues. There were Jews that were living in those heathen countries, and they would meet in these synagogues.

And Paul, when he'd come to these cities, he'd go and preach at the synagogue. And then he would preach to the heathen, and he'd bring them together in the church. Well, here they are at Galatians verse 11, but when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed.

For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles. But when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews disassembled likewise with him that Barnabas also was carried away with their disassimilation.

But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, Peter gets a rebuke. So here Peter is, he's over there in the fellowship hall, and he's eating and talking and having a great time. These are my brothers and sisters, and they're Greeks, and they're heathens, they used to be, and now they're converted, and they're a part of the church of Jesus Christ.

And all of a sudden, someone comes to the door, he sees some of his Jewish brothers. Oh my, get up quick. I'm going to go sit down.

You know, I love my brothers over here, but you know, when push comes to shove, I really, really fit in better here because these are my people. You know, and so he does this dissimilation, this separating himself from groups, you're Grecians, I'm going to move over here with the Hebrews. And you might say, well, Paul, it's no big deal.

You know, what's the big deal? Paul is a Jew. He actually got a place in the Bible for this mistake he made. Everyone's been reading it for thousands of 2,000 years.

And it was a big mistake on Peter's part because what Peter was saying was, listen, I'm a respectable person. God thinks you Jewish people that come in the door now are more important than you Greeks over here. And so I'm going to go over here and spend time with you.

So, you know, that's not too far from us. Let's say we're sitting down in Columbus. We've got some Columbus drug addicts, black African-Americans, and we're sitting there having good fellowship.

They're brothers and sisters. And all of a sudden, some of our brothers and sisters from churches that we know come and sit down and, oh, it's time to kind of move, shift over here. You know, we have a preference and it's a challenge for each one of us.

And that's exactly what Peter did. And Peter was rebuked. And I know Peter would have said, you guys are Christians.

You guys are my brothers. But you know what? You're just not quite up to these other ones over here. And so we need to make sure that every Christian is on the same plane as everybody else.

No matter what the skin color is, you know, I think Valerie, she's faced issues here. She's a real trooper. I've appreciated Valerie's part.

And she's learning to blend not only with people who are different skin color, but also with people who are from a totally different culture. And she's labored through that. And she's going to be better for it.

And I think we've all had to deal in some way with that. But I think it's going to be a blessing. And I think it'll be good for us to go to Columbus and to be able to, in our minds, sit down with brothers and sisters who are from a totally different culture, who have different skin colors, many of them who are poor, who have hardly anything, and to be able to actually in our hearts say, I want to treat you the same way I treat my brother Chris over here.

Or the same way I treat some of the ladies here. I just want to treat you as a brother equally. And not be a respected person.

That's going to be a challenge. Some of us don't want to even deal with that challenge. And, you know, I think in the end, we're going to find out that many people were not evangelized because, you know, they're heathens.

They're I just want to stick with my people. I just want to stay here with my group, my culture, and we'll evangelize in this little culture. You know, in the early church, we've been watching the early church and their evangelistic effort.

And Jesus said, now, once you go into all the world and preach the gospel, start in Jerusalem. But we get to Acts chapter 8, Acts chapter 9, and they're still not out of Jerusalem. And I have no doubt about it.

God stirs up in Saul's heart, as in the Lord's king's heart's in the Lord's hand, and certainly Saul's was. Saul, go down there, and I want you to persecute that church in Jerusalem. And I want you to scatter them out of there.

They need to get moving out to the heathen. And it's interesting, the Bible says, the Lord told them to start in Jerusalem, go to Judea, then Samaria. In Acts chapter 9, it says, when the Lord scattered them, they went to Samaria, then to Judah, and the same thing God told them to do.

Saul is an instrument in God's hands to get them out of their little comfort zone and say, listen, God wants to save more than your culture. Amen? And we have that challenge too. God wants to save more than our culture.

And we need to get out of our culture. He wants to save more than the Odors in the Bible. Would you agree with that? He wants to save them.

I don't know what some of the folks down there, their last names are. You know, I know it's in my heart, it's in your hearts, but we can think this way. Doesn't God, I mean, when push comes to shove, doesn't God really prefer, as someone said this morning, white skin? No, he doesn't, by the way.

Any more than he prefers any of those apples over another. So the challenge for us, I think, and one of the things I'd like to bring out here is, when you evangelize, do you think about, let's just evangelize in Jerusalem, let's just evangelize my people, or do you think about the people outside your comfort zone, outside your culture? They're as important as those inside the culture. So we should be open to evangelize the African-American, the Mexican, with the same zeal as we do our own culture.

Some people say, I know I'm challenging this one, can't we just drop Columbus and go up to Holmes County? Why don't we drop Holmes County and go to Columbus? Amen? Why don't we just do both? It's a different culture. And I think sometimes we're only comfortable in our own culture. Let's look at another passage here in Ephesians.

Turn over to Ephesians chapter two. There's a lot in the Bible about this subject. Ephesians chapter two, starting in verse number 11.

Wherefore, remember that you being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcisioned by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands, that at that time you were without Christ, this is a reality, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. That was the Old Testament, the heathen. But now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

And those of you who say you're made nigh, I mean, Hebrew is real nigh, you're kind of a mile off, but you're not. Verse 14, for he is our peace who has made both one, and I like this, and has broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in himself one of twain one new man, so making peace, and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. You see, the law brought enmity between Jew and Gentile.

A lot of the law said you cannot fellowship or you cannot participate with those heathen. Cornelius, you can't go to his house. Peter struggled.

There was a wall there. Verse 18, for through him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father. Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God.

Now I'm going to draw up here on the board the Hebrew. In the Old Testament over here, there was a wall, the Lord says, and you have over here the Greek or the heathen or the uncircumcised, however you want to call it. And commandments and ordinances were the things here that are said to have separated these two.

And when Jesus came, it says that he broke down that middle wall of partition so that there is no longer any barrier in his mind between Jew and Gentile, between Hebrew and Greek. And I think sometimes, at least in our hearts, what oftentimes happens is that that wall gets broken down, but we tend to have maybe just a foot or two step over there. You know, yes, the Lord broke that wall down and we can see each other, we can talk to each other, but still, if you're going to be over there, you got to hop up this one little block, kind of a row of blocks there.

But you know, the Lord knocked them all down, amen? And our challenge is to have nothing between Hebrew and Greek. Or may I say, our challenge is between a plain person and an English person. That's our challenge.

There's no difference. How many of you agree with that? There is no difference. We could put those two words in there, between a plain person and an English, an American culture and an Anabaptist culture.

There's no difference. So it's not good to put a one foot wall or two foot wall. Well, the Lord knocked the wall down, praise the God, between these cultures, and it's only two blocks.

Now we can see each other just fine, talk across there at two blocks. So Ephesus, this was written to Ephesus, Ephesus was one of those cities where there was a Jewish synagogue and there were Greeks getting converted. And so they had the same challenges we do, just different cultures, learning to get along with each other.

Now, with all that said, I'd like to just throw out again, how do we get to this place where we can overcome? And we cannot be like the early church here and say one group is being neglected because they're not the right culture. Oh, they're Christian. And they're part of the church.

It's just that we just treat them a little slightly different. How do you overcome it? Well, Brother John read the verse I'd like to look at. So turn to James here, chapter two.

And there's a verse here that explains, I believe, how we can overcome. I'm just going to start in verse number one of James two, my brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory with respected persons. Don't get in this faith of Christ and then have respected persons in it.

For if there come unto your assembly, if there's a church person, you're in the church assembly and a man comes with a gold ring and goodly apparel. And there come in also a poor man and bow raiment. And you have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing and say unto him, sit thou here in a good place and say to the poor, stand thou there or sit here under my footstool.

Are you not then partial in yourselves and are become judges of evil thought? Now here's the issue. Judges of evil thought. What did you just do? You saw that rich man come in and you saw the poor man come in.

You made a judgment and that judgment is in your thought and your discernment. You're judges of evil thought. Now, what does that mean? What does it mean to be a judge of evil thought? Here's what happens.

And I showed this with you before. When a person comes into our church assembly, many people look at them and they make an evaluation of them based upon the gold ring, the fine clothing, the poor clothing, the skin color, and all these external things. And in their hearts, they have thought immediately, oh brother, look at how she's dressed.

Oh my, look at that guy, look at the way he's dressed. Looks like he's taking a bath. And we make these judgments based upon how a person looks outwardly.

If someone comes in here and they're African American, they got a foot on their head. Oh boy, watch out for him. Just looking at him, you make a judgment.

And it's an evil judgment. And here's why it's an evil judgment. Because Jesus said in John 7, judge not according to what? Appearance.

Don't judge. It's sin to do so. But don't judge according to appearance, but judge what? Righteous judgment.

In other words, looking at someone, if someone comes in here with fine clothes or wrong clothes, and me making an evaluation on who that person is based upon their gold ring, their sloppy clothes, their color, their skin. I am making an evaluation based upon their outward appearance. And since the Bible says do not judge according to appearance, judge righteous.

What is righteous judgment? Well, I know this. God is the righteous judge, isn't he? Righteous judgment is to judge as he judges. And when David and his brothers stood before Samuel, Samuel said, God does not look upon the outward appearance.

God looks upon what? The heart. That's how God judges. That's righteous.

Judge. So oftentimes we have perspective persons because we evaluate people based upon their externals. Oh, here comes an African-American.

Oh, here comes a Mexican. Oh, here comes somebody with a certain kind of clothing. And we just make an evaluation.

And in doing so, thoughts arise in our hearts. And those thoughts lead us to a you. A you with the colored black skin.

And you sit back there. Oh, here comes someone that's dressed right. You come up here and sit in the front.

And we evaluate and make our judgment upon that which is external. And so when you think about it, culture is something that is outward. Culture is not inward.

Culture is outward. Race, skin color is outward. Social status, these are things that are outward.

And when we evaluate people based upon these outward things, then we form opinions that are. So we tend to judge people based on skin color, based upon their clothing, based upon their social status, because we are men and men tend to do that. Man judges according to appearance, but God looks on the heart.

And if we want to be godly, we need to move away from that external and look at people's hearts. And I'm specifically talking in large part about, you know, race and clothing. I mean, some of those people in Columbus, you think about them, their kids, they grew up without a mother talking to dress.

This is how they dress because this is the way we do it in our culture. Everywhere they go, they go to school. That's all they see.

And they grow up, they may have a heart that's after God, wanting to know the truth, but they're just fitting into their culture. And we make an evaluation and we look at them and say, well, that's not good dress. Yes, but this person is simply in a culture and they're in a group of people and they're searching.

And when you evaluate these people on their looks and their culture, you miss any good heart. So to be wise, you need to look at people and go past their skin color, go past their goodly apparel or their rings, go past their dress, go past these things and evaluate them So people who evaluate others based upon externals, they're right for the sin of the second person. So I think we ought to focus on, when it comes to a person, the things that they need to do, looking past their skin color, looking past the way they're dressed, and looking past whether they're poor or rich, and I just want to draw a line through it.

That's what we ought to look at everybody. Look past their external appearance and stop judging according to appearance. And first of all, I believe people will appreciate that.

You and I do not worship God with our skin color, did you know that? We do not worship God with our clothing, our riches, our gold rings, neither do we worship God with our cultural habits, but we worship God with the heart. That's how true worship comes. John 4.23 says, The Father seeketh such to worship him.

Those who have a good heart. And I know most of us have been trained, we've been trained to evaluate based on externals. When I was a kid, we evaluated people based on externals.

You know, how does he look? How does she look? How does she dress? What kind of car does he drive? How does he do his hair? Is he rich? Is he poor? I mean, I went through high school, college. I don't know if anybody in my life, maybe my mother, but anybody in my life that was asking about what am I thinking, what am I, how am I doing with my heart? What's going on in your heart? How do you feel? Do you feel peace? Or dealing with my conscience, my guilt, and the fears I had in my heart. Nobody wanted to deal with that.

I don't remember anybody being concerned about anything inside. They were just wanting to know how I was doing on the outside. So in the American culture, you know, externals that people evaluate as looks, you know, pretty.

Are you pretty? Are you handsome? Strong? Are you rich? What kind of car do you drive? How about your jewelry? You know, we have all these things and people make judgments on fashion and jewelry. Some of you from an Anabaptist culture, it's oftentimes clothing and colors of things and modern conveniences, you know, those things in the past. We make these valuations.

We judge according to appearance. And then we have respective person. And so here in Acts chapter six, let me just close.

There is still a residue of cultural disrespect and aggression or neglect by the Hebrews. And it's causing, it's going to cause some problems in the early church. We're going to see a little later on in the book of Acts, but it caused Peter to get a rebuke.

Learning that in truth, there is neither June or Greek. There is neither religious background or non-religious background. There is neither circumcision or uncircumcision.

There is neither rich or poor. You're all one. And if you're a child of God at this point, you are as important to the Lord as anybody else is.

You know, people may disrespect you. And, but the truth of the matter is God is no respective person. You want to rise up in his kingdom, doesn't matter what your name is, doesn't matter what your social status is, doesn't matter your skin color, you can rise as high as you want.

And there'll be no, no hindrances for you to do so. So in those days, when the number of the disciples is multiplied, there's a lot of people coming into the church. All of a sudden there's a murmuring going on because there are cultural issues.

These Grecians are coming into the church and the Hebrews are neglecting them. The daily ministration, the twelve are going to call on the church here and they're going to have an ordination. We'll talk about that next Sunday, Lord willing.

Well, praise God. We're all apples, amen? And we're all pretty thin skin. This, what they say that, that saying about skin only goes so deep.

But let's not look at people's skin, judging them. Let's not look at their riches, their poverty, their, their culture. Let's, let's get past that and, and evaluate people based on the heart.

If you don't want to pursue and understand their heart, then just don't judge them at all. You don't want to take the time to get to know someone and really understand where they're at. And just, you know, you have no right to judge.

So man judges according to appearance, but God judges according to the heart. So let's be like the Lord. Let's judge according to the heart.

I have a story I want to close with. You young ladies will appreciate this story. Get the right side here.

A touching love story was circulated through the internet around Valentine's day. A soldier intrigued by the handwritten notes penciled into the margins of a library book, wrote a letter to the woman whose name and address were on the front page. The next day he was shipped overseas for service in World War II.

I'm assuming that's the true story. For more than a year, they corresponded, but when he asked her for a photograph, she refused, feeling that if he really cared, it wouldn't matter what she looked like. When he returned from Europe, the two of them were to meet at Grand Central Station in New York.

She said she would be the one wearing a red rose on her lapel. As he searched for the girl whose heart he loved, but whose face he had never seen, suddenly a beautiful young lady approached him. He was totally captivated by her.

Then he realized she was not wearing a red rose. However, a rather plump older woman directly behind her was. That's not the end of the story though.

He managed to hide his disappointment long enough to salute and to hold out the book and said, may I take you to dinner? She smiled at him and explained that there was a beautiful young woman waiting for him in the restaurant across the street. A woman who had asked her to wear the red rose in order to test the true nature of his life. And he had passed the test of flying colors.

That's one of the dangers of judging people by their appearance. All right, let's close that fourth prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you again for your word and Lord, may we have our minds renewed.

Lord, may we look past some of these external things and look as you look upon the heart. Lord, grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Lord, may we embrace all of humanity.

Because God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Lord, give us this grace and help us to grow this grace and help. Pray your blessing on these words in Jesus' name.

Amen.