Breaking Down Our Prejudices Series

ENGAGE

If I were to ask you if you’re prejudiced, most of you would probably say “no”. You probably consider yourself to be a very unbiased, accepting and loving person. But the fact is that even committed disciples of Jesus have prejudices. And one of the reasons those prejudices are such a big problem is that we’re blind to them most of the time.

TENSION

And to help you see that, I’m going to do something that might be quite painful for many of us. In just a moment, I’m going to put a series of pictures up on the screen and as each picture comes up I want you to honestly answer this question for each picture: If God were to bring this person into my life, would I be willing to share the gospel with him or her?

[Show pictures]

Did that make you uncomfortable at all? I sure hope so. Because sometimes I think God has to shock us in order to help us see what we’re really like, especially when it comes to our prejudices.

TRUTH

This morning we’re going to see that even a godly man like Peter had some prejudices that kept Him from being an effective witness for Jesus. And Jesus had to do something very dramatic in his life in order to shock him into seeing those prejudices. So we’re going to take a look at his story and see what we can learn from that with the hope that God won’t have to do something quite so dramatic to help us recognize and deal with our own prejudices.

We’re now in the 7th week of a 9-week series from the book of Acts that we’ve titled “Gathered to Go”. Together we’ve been learning about how Jesus gathered His disciples together to form the church, not just for their own personal benefit, but primarily for the purpose of taking the kingdom of Jesus and bringing it near to others – first in their own community of Jerusalem, and then outward to Judea, Samaria and finally to the “ends of the earth”.

By now, you probably already have a pretty good idea of what our main theme is going to be today, so I’m going to give it to you right up front and then we’ll build on that.

The kingdom of God is brought near to others

when we allow Jesus to break down our prejudices

Before we look at our passage this morning, let’s take a moment to define “prejudice”:

“prejudice” -

“to prejudge” =

“preconceived judgment or opinion”

(Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

To be prejudiced simply means that we prejudge another person based on what we see before we get to know him or her as a person. And if we’re honest, I think we would all have to admit that we do that to varying degrees at least some of the time. And unfortunately, we do that even when it comes to bringing the kingdom of God near to others. Have you ever looked at another person and thought, “There is just no way that person will ever become a Christian?” I know I have. And when I have that mindset, it’s going to be really hard for Jesus to use me in bringing His kingdom near to that other person, isn’t it?

But the good news is that Jesus is not only capable of breaking down those barriers, He actually delights in doing that if we’ll just let Him.

Go ahead and turn with me to Acts chapter 10. Once again let me remind you that you can find the book of Acts right after the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John near the beginning of the New Testament.

I’m going to summarize for you what happens in this chapter and then we’ll read some of the key verses as we go along.

This chapter is the story of two men who are separated by about 30 miles geographically, but whose prejudices separate them far more.

Cornelius is a Gentile Roman soldier stationed in Caesarea, the provincial capital that was home to the governor. [Show map] Under the governor’s command were 3,000 soldiers, including the Italian cohort. Cornelius served as a centurion, which meant he was in charge of 100 soldiers. Although, as we’re going to see, Cornelius was not yet a disciple of Jesus, he was a God-fearing man who gave generously to the poor there in Caesarea and who prayed frequently.

Peter, a Jewish apostle of Jesus, was staying at Joppa, about 30 miles to the south, the same city where hundreds of years earlier the prophet Jonah had embarked in his attempt to flee from God.

These two men both had prejudices that were hindering Cornelius from putting his faith in Jesus and becoming His disciple so God is about to work behind the scenes in order to bring them both face to face with their prejudices so that He could help them both overcome them.