I. Introduction
A. We talked about Jonah’s audacious God. We talked about Jonah’s gracious God. And we talked about Jonah’s missionary God. Today we are talking about Jonah’s impartial God.
B. What is partiality or impartiality?
1. Partiality is viewing more favorably or showing favoritism to people who are in your group.
2. Impartiality is viewing and treating all different kinds of people equally, not being prejudiced toward anyone because of the group they belong to.
3. It’s a term which we think of as applying especially in the judicial field, where a judge must judge evenly and justly, not favoring the rich over the poor, or the celebrity over the ordinary citizen, the American over the foreigner, the northerner over the southerner, the old person over the young person, the white person over the black person, or vice versa. Everyone is to be treated equally.
C. You see, there is a human tendency to view other groups as inferior or less valuable or as discardable or as less human.
1. It has many subcategories: sexism, classism, racism, nationalism, parochialism, tribalism, etc.
2. But the Bible term for the general concept is partiality.
D. Well, we don’t necessarily know all that went into Jonah’s unwillingness to preach in Nineveh. But certainly a major part of it was partiality, for Jonah was an Israelite and the Ninevites were unclean Gentiles.
E. Jonah 3:10–4:4 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. 1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3 Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 And the LORD said, “Do you do well to be angry?”
F. Last week I mentioned that Jonah foreshadows Christ in a number of ways. Well, one way in which the story of Jonah points forward to the time of Christ is that Jonah was led by God to proclaim His message to the Gentiles.
1. God shows us in the story of Jonah that He is impartial by sending His prophet to the capital of Assyria, by granting repentance (2Tim.2:25) to Gentiles. And not just one Gentile here and another one there: but a great mass of them! And not meek and lowly Gentiles but the rich and powerful as well as the meek and lowly: forgiving them and relenting of His judgment against them.
2. But another thing we’re shown in this story is the human sin of partiality, for we see the hard heart of man toward his enemies, toward people groups different than his own, for one of the great contrasts of this story is between God’s open heart toward the Gentile Ninevites and Jonah’s closed heart toward the Ninevites.
II. Jonah fits into the Bible’s story of partiality and impartiality. And we’ll understand the story of Jonah better if we understand the larger story, which seems to me to have four chapters.
A. Chapter One: Where this began
1. The first conflict was between a farmer and a shepherd (Gen.4:3-8).
2. The tower of Babel (Gen.11:1-8) further solidified divisions among mankind by forcing them to divide into language groups.
B. Chapter Two: Israel and the Gentiles
1. Promises to Abraham
a. Sand, stars (Gen.15:5; 22:17)
b. All nations shall be blessed through you. (Gen.18:18; 22:18)
2. The law of Moses
a. Exclusive things said to Israel:“I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.” Exodus 23:22
b. Many laws distinguish between Jews and Gentiles.
c. In the OT law God allows us to get the impression that God favored the Jews and disfavored the Gentiles.
d. As it says in Galatians 4:1-11, God was teaching His children the elementary things of the universe, like we teach our children. As we teach our children when they’re little to not trust strangers, so God taught His children a similar thing in their infancy.
e. And so, in many parts of the OT, it sort of looks like God is partial to the Jews, though there are plenty of indicators as well which point to the fact that God is impartial (2 Chron.19:7; Job 34:19) and that He chose Israel not out of partiality but out of love (e.g. Deuteronomy 7:6–8).
3. Near the end of the OT, God, through the prophets, begin to point to a day when the Gentiles would be included in the messiah’s kingdom.
4. And where does it begin? Where is the first turning point? Jonah. The transition begins with Jonah. I’ll say more about that later.
C. Chapter Three: Christ removes the barriers
1. So much could be said about this in the life of Jesus.
a. Something is clearly different from the start.
(1) There are four Gentiles in His genealogy. I spoke about that in December.
(2) The word of God spoken through Simeon the old prophet who saw the baby Jesus in the temple: "My eyes have seen your salvation...a light for revelation to the Gentiles." (Luke 2:32)
(3) 3 Gentile magi come from afar to bear witness
(4) And Matthew quotes Isaiah in 4:14ff., telling us that the very reason He grew up in "Galilee of the Gentiles," as Isaiah refers to it, was to fulfill this purpose of being a light to the Gentiles.
b. Though Jesus focused His ministry primarily on His fellow Jews, there were a number of times when He ministered to Gentiles.
(1) The Gerasene demoniac (Mark 5:2ff.)
(2) The Syro-Phoenician woman (Mark 7:25)
(3) Healing the sick slave of the Roman centurion (Matt.8:5; Luke 7:2ff.)
(a) After which Matt.8:10 says Jesus marveled and said, “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone – even in Israel.” (See also Mark 6:6.)
c. But perhaps most importantly, He also made numerous statements which made it clear that full-scale ministry to Gentiles was just around the corner.
(1) “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.” (John 10:16)
(2) Matt.8:11-12 I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
(3) “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.” (Matt.24:14, Cf. Mark 13:10)
(4) “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.” (Matt.28:19)
2. Acts is the place where the biggest part of the transition occurs. It begins in the story of Cornelius.
a. Acts 10:34-35 “I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.”
3. Then Paul clearly confirms this as well, in so many places.
a. No partiality verses
(1) After talking about how God judges the Jew and the Gentile equally, Romans 2:11 tells us, “For God shows no partiality.” (See also Galatians 2:6.)
(2) Ephesians 6:9 Masters, stop your threatening, knowing that He who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with Him.
(3) Col.3:25 The wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.
b. Ephesians 2:11–16 Remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh...12 were separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 ...that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
c. Eph.3:3-6 “...the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”
4. So, it’s clear that now “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Gal.3:28 (cf. Rom.10:12)
D. Chapter Four: Where this ends
1. Revelation 7:9–10 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
III. But the transition out of partiality into impartiality wasn’t an easy one.
A. It was hard for Peter when he had the dream of the descending sheet with the unclean animals (Acts 10:1-48).
B. It was hard for the Jewish church to include Gentiles. It was one of the great struggles of the NT church. A whole group arose who opposed it (the Judaizers), and opposed Paul, precisely because he preached the inclusion of the Gentiles.
C. And it shouldn’t surprise us that it was hard for Jonah, who was at the very beginning of the transition. It isn’t easy to get people’s thinking to change.
D. I spoke about the remarkable parallels between Jonah’s story and Peter’s.
1. And one important thing to realize is that they were both the first to face this issue. Peter was the first apostle to be faced with the inclusion of the Gentiles; Jonah was the first prophet to do so.
2. Before we are too hard on Jonah and Peter, we need to realize that these two men were the two guinea pigs. We should not be surprised that they struggled.
3. Even though Jonah comes somewhere in the middle of the books of the prophets, chronologically Jonah was probably the third writing prophet. And the two before Him, Obadiah and Joel, said nothing about the inclusion of the Gentiles.
4. So, this call to go to the capital of a Gentile nation to proclaim God’s message came out of the blue for Jonah. This was unheard of. He had no background, no reason to expect it.
5. Of course, Peter did have many reasons to expect it: things Jesus said and did, and verses from the OT, especially in Isaiah, like Is.9:1-2, 11:10-11, 29:17-19, 42:1-4, 42:6, 43:5-8, 45:22, 49:1, 49:6, 49:20, 55:5, 56:3, 56:6-8, and 65:1. But Isaiah didn’t come along until after Jonah was dead. And even though Peter had all these, it was still hard for him to accept. So Jonah’s struggle should not surprise us.
IV. God is impartial. And one of the things He has revealed clearly in the NT is that He wants His people to be impartial.
A. Peter said to the Gentiles at Cornelius’ house, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.” Acts 10:28
B. This is an important issue to the Lord. It’s part of loving our neighbor as ourselves.
1. And John says, “He who does not love does not know God.” – 1John 4:8
V. Let’s peel the onion a little farther to get to the heart of the problem with partiality.
A. The story of Jonah is all about the scandal of God’s bigger heart.
1. Jonah was angry about God’s grace because he thought he was better than the Ninevites.
2. The older brother of the prodigal son was angry about his Father’s grace toward his brother because he thought he was better than his brother.
3. The Judaizers were scandalized by the inclusion of the Gentiles because they thought they were better than the Gentiles.
B. Last week we spoke of how Israel had a tendency to think that they were better than the Gentiles, and how God had to remind them through the prophet Ezekiel of their humble beginnings (Ezek.16:1-7a).
1. It may seem amazing that this nation could still be arrogant in light of their continual, pervasive faithlessness and idolatry.
2. But they fell into the trap of basing their feelings of superiority on the generosity of God toward them. The rich based their sense of superiority on their riches. The powerful based their sense of superiority on their power. Those knowledgeable of the word of God based their sense of superiority on the level of their knowledge of the word of God. They were the chosen people of God, and they let their chosenness go to their head.
3. And tragically, most of them didn’t see that the only way Israel was at all superior to the other nations was in being the recipients of God’s unmerited grace. And when grace is the basis of one’s sense of superiority, it doesn’t produce arrogance or partiality, but humility/compassion/love
VI. And what about us?
A. Sadly, this trait is not a Jewish trait but a human one. Israel riding high in pride as the chosen people of God is but mankind put in a privileged position. We begin to think it’s us, when in fact it’s grace.
1. In Romans 11:17–21 Paul warns the Gentile Christians about falling into the same danger as the Jews. Don’t think it’s because of you that God has shown you favor. It’s because of His grace. And if you forget this, He will withdraw His grace.
2. That’s why Jesus said that it is so difficult for the rich to inherit His kingdom. Matt.19:23
3. It is our natural human tendency to let our blessings go to our heads. Satan loves to take God’s good gifts and twist them into idols we worship.
4. That’s why the NT warns rich believers to avoid the arrogance which so easily results from riches: 1Tim.6:17-19, James 1:10-11.
5. Now let’s look at the longest passage in the epistles about partiality: James 2:1–9. And this passage is not only important because it condemns partiality, but it shows that partiality goes way beyond the Jews welcoming the Gentiles into the church.
a. 1 My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. 2 For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, 3 and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” 4 have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor man...8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
b. This is exactly what Jonah was doing. He was happy to welcome his fellow Jews, rich in the blessings of God (Rom.3:1-2, 9:4-5). But he was unwilling to welcome the poor Gentiles, who were alienated from Israel and strangers to the covenant, without hope and without God.
6. We can so easily fall into the same trap of arrogance as Jonah and many other Jews fell into.
a. In fact, rare it is to meet someone extremely talented or extremely rich or extremely intelligent or extremely successful who is humble and remembers that they’re really just like everybody else.
b. And this is exactly what happened with Jonah. Like many of his fellow Israelites, Jonah allowed the undeserved privileges God had given him to go to his head.
c. And so he was offended. ‘If the Ninevites are my equals, then how can I feel justified, how can I feel worthy, I can I think of myself as a good person?’
d. We are so desperate to feel worthy, so hungry to be judged better than others that we are so open to being persuaded that we are. And so it doesn’t take much to convince us.
e. The spirit of “I’m better than them” is very strong in us.
f. I have spent my life dealing with this. I seems that every time my life is prospering, I start to feel good about myself, I begin to think it’s me, and I forget it’s all God’s grace.
g. And all of a sudden, my life is all about me.
7. This can also be done out of insecurity. Even people who struggle with feelings of inferiority deal with this, because they so feel desperate to think highly of themselves that they easily fall into the trap of enjoying things which make them feel good about themselves or feel rich in themselves.
8. What ways is it easy for us to perceive of ourselves as rich?
a. Education
b. Language
c. Modern (as opposed to ancient)
d. Smart
e. Male/female
f. But we can turn anything into a reason to exalt ourselves: school, state, region of the country, accent, height, beauty, eloquence, coolness.
g. We can feel superior because we don’t have nose rings, blue hair, tattoos, or aren’t gang members.
h. It’s been a wonderful experience visiting Ben in prison for the last two years or so. You begin to realize that the prisoners are basically just people like you.
i. Country: So many of our fellow Americans think as if America is the only important place in the world. Chinese lives are cheap. European lives are cheap. For some, even New Yorker’s lives are cheap.
j. For some older people, the next generation’s lives are cheap. For some young people, old people’s lives are cheap.
k. And it’s easy to be affected by the environment we live in, instead of having the mind of Christ.
9. So God calls us to love, and wants to help us get past our partiality. And it’s important that we are aware of our natural sinful tendency to show partiality, and God’s desire to transform us.
VII. (Impartiality and God’s grace)
A. Why is it so important that God is impartial, and so important that we manifest that impartiality?
B. The reason impartiality is so important is because of the proclamation and protection of His grace.
C. You see, if we give the impression that God favors one group of people over another, then it looks like His favor is not by grace but by human qualification: He likes our kind of people, but He doesn’t like other kinds of people.
D. To demonstrate His grace, God had to save all kinds of people.
1. Otherwise, it looks like it’s not by grace.
2. The who of the gospel helps explain the what of the gospel.
3. If God only saved the good guys, if He only saved the clean, no one would be saved.
E. If one kind of person is better than another kind of person and God favors that better kind of person, then salvation is not entirely by unmerited grace.
1. How natural it is to look down on others and think that I and my kind are better. And yet how contrary it is to the grace of Christ.
2. When we look at lost, sinful people with a judgmental or unloving attitude, we act like we’re more worthy of God’s favor than them, which means we’ve lost sight of grace.
3. When we look at others with disdain, we expose our hearts, we show what’s in our hearts. We reveal the fact that we think we’re better than them. When we object to love being shown to others, we make it clear that we think we are more loveable than they are, which means that we don’t think we’re loved purely by grace.
4. If I am not able to love people as Christ loved me, doesn't that mean I think I am more worthy than they are?
F. This pertains not only to how we view and treat others, but it really all comes down to how we view ourselves.
1. There are only two ways to feel secure in God’s love and favor.
a. One is to be such an egotist that we think God just can’t resist loving us.
b. And the other is to know that God loves us in spite of our unloveliness, purely on account of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the gospel.
2. We live in a society which teaches us to get our identity from the fact that we are educated or because we are men or because we are women or because we are young or because we are Democrat or Republican or because we are creative or because we smart, etc.
3. These are very bad anchors for our identity.
4. But if you’re a believer in Christ, then you’ve come to a kingdom which is not defined by ethnicity or gender or intelligence or language or region or school or family or age or talent or personality or eloquence or coolness or any other human distinction. It’s defined by grace.
5. The most important thing about you is that you are a recipient of the magnificent grace of Jesus.