God Makes no Exceptions

Introduction

Many times in our lives we have stumbled upon people that we’ve wrongfully judged and prejudiced, and we ask ourselves: “How can God accept or forgive someone like that?” Well, in the Bible, there’s a story that tackles this very thing. In this story, there are two main characters: Peter and Cornelius. We will be taking a look at this story, and then, we’ll apply it to our Christian lives today.

Body

This story takes place in a time that the Romans occupied Judea. Now, Cornelius, a Roman centurion, fears God and wants to be baptized. As one might guess, be it by hate, fear of their oppressors or Mosaic Law, primitive Christians (since they know nothing of the crucial truth presented in this story) reject anyone who’s not Jewish. This is all about to change…

I. Now, this story can be divided into three parts:

Two Important Visions (Acts 10:1-16)

Two Important Journeys (Acts 10:17-29)

Salvation of the Gentiles (Acts 10:30-48)

II. How can we apply this to our everyday lives?

God doesn’t reject the gentile (Ephesians 2:19)

In many parts of the Bible, from start to finish, we can see that God rejects no gentile, as long as they come to Him with a sincere heart. Every gentile that God has accepted has done exactly this. God sees far beyond nationalities and culture. We must do the same. We must set aside any and all differences with people and simply see them as souls that need Christ just as we do.

God doesn’t reject the sinner (Romans 3:23-24)

The undeniable truth is this: we are all sinners! Since we‘re all sinners, it is absolutely out of place to reject a sinner—especially when they sin differently. In God’s eyes, sin is sin. Although our humanity may not allow it, we must hold on to God so that He can teach us to see sin as He sees it. That way, we acknowledge our mistakes and our love for our neighbor will increase greatly.

God doesn’t reject the rich or the poor (Jesus with the rich and poor)

In the Bible, there are many occasions in which no one is rejected when they come to God. The biggest example of someone who turns no one away is Jesus. In fact, for the last two points, He too is the best example. Jesus never turned the rich or the poor away. He accepted them without picking favorites. We are called to do the same. We are called to accept everyone regardless of their social status. Be it rich or poor, the blood was spilt for us all.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we saw that this story teaches us a crucial truth to our lives as Christians and shows us a very important part of our mission as Christians. This truth, at times, we set it aside. We also saw the different parts of this story. We also applied it to our everyday lives. This story teaches us that God doesn’t reject the gentile, the sinner, or the rich or poor. God accepts everyone who comes to Him with a sincere, repented heart. I implore you to set aside all prejudice and to be the light everyone needs to come to Christ, regardless of their backgrounds.