This morning we’re looking at the theme of “acceptance.” We’re continuing our theme of “Something’s missing”, based on the Wirral Gospel Partnership survey’s responses. When Wirral people were asked what’s missing from their lives right now, “Acceptance” was one of the top answers.
So we’re going to dig in to what people might mean by that. Then we’ll look at the situation with the Ethiopian eunuch, the official in Acts 8. And using that insight we’ll think again about how God’s love to you in Christ will affect your thinking about acceptance.
These notes accompany a sermon on YouTube delivered at Bromborough Evangelical Church in April 2026. You can find more in the series in our sermon index.
What does non-acceptance feel like?
There are a handful of things that people might mean when they say that they miss a feeling of acceptance. We’ll focus on the main two, not least as I think there are people in this church for whom these words will resonate quite deeply.
The first need for acceptance is external. It’s the profound longing for other people to accept you for who you are, not for the person you present to others.
It’s emotionally exhausting feeling that you have to be someone or something that you’re not – just to fit in. You long to be accepted and welcomed for you you are. You want to be seen and valued as the person you feel yourself to be.
These feelings are keenly felt by people with neurodiversity. But others can feel this way too. You might just be a bit different, a bit awkward. Maybe you love being on your own, or maybe you need to be with others. These are personality traits – and we’re all different.
Masks
We all wear masks to one degree or another. As you go through childhood you’re taught to filter your thoughts, words, and behaviours. You might be naturally immaculately tidy, brought up in an untidy home. Or the other way round! Maybe you’re shy, forced to speak up – or naturally talkative, told to keep quiet. It can be home, school, work, or cultural pressures that mean you feel you need to behave in a certain way – despite the fact that you’re a different kind of person.
That then means that you can be in a room full of people who really love you, but you feel alone. You feel like you’re there under false pretenses. You feel that they don’t really know or love you, they just love the version of yourself you give them that they expect.
If you were yourself, you’d feel judged, misunderstood, excluded.
That’s what the need for external acceptance feels like.
Internal acceptance
But there’s another kind: The need for internal acceptance.
Some people need to be at peace with who you are. You live with a constant feeling of not being good enough because you’re always comparing yourself with others. They’re a better weight or height, cleverer, more loving, funnier, more talented than you.
When you feel that you’re the worst person in the room you can find it hard to believe that you’re loved by someone. Why? Because you find it hard to love yourself when everyone else seems better than you.
All this is emotionally exhausting.
Now, you might be hearing this and some or much of it is resonating in your bones. You feel seen. We’ll come to some helpful biblical teaching for you in a moment.
But if this isn’t you, you need to know a few things:
- Firstly, what I’ve described is definitely felt by some people in this church. This painful longing, this loneliness. If you didn’t know that, then you have inadvertently contributed to their pain, their felt lack of acceptance.
- At the very least, these things are often felt by teenagers trying to work out who they are and who they want to be.
- And remember that this came from a survey here in Wirral: It’s more common than you might want to know.
So you will also have some biblical lessons to learn.
You’re loved by God
Let’s go back to Acts 8 and see what we can learn.
In Acts 8:27, “There was an Ethiopian man, a eunuch and high official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of her entire treasury.” – a kind of Chancellor of the Exchequer. And here’s the thing: “He had come to worship in Jerusalem.” The man feared God and wanted to worship in Jerusalem.
How well would he have fitted in in Jerusalem? It wasn’t time for the Passover, which is just as well as foreigners were excluded from that (Exodus 12:43). As a foreigner, he could at least enter the outer courts of the temple to worship, but there was still a problem. Deuteronomy 23:1 prohibited eunuchs from the LORD’s assembly – he couldn’t worship at the temple.
And that’s quite apart from the fact that his skin colour would mark him out as obviously foreign and different.
So was he accepted by the locals in Jerusalem? Despite his obvious wealth and importance, he didn’t fit in. And no matter how much he wanted to be part of things, he couldn’t change who he is. He would never be accepted.
Loved and chosen
But get this: He was loved and chosen by God.
In Acts 8:26, an angel of the Lord sent Philip to the road where the eunuch would be.
As the man rode by in his chariot the Spirit of God told Philip, “Go and join that chariot” (Acts 8:29).
And it just so happened that at that moment the eunuch was reading from Isaiah 53:7-8. So Philip joined him and explained what that text means – and who it’s about. We read it last week at Easter. Read Isaiah 53:4-8.
It’s the very heart of the gospel of Christ, the good news.
- Jesus is the eternal Son of God.
- He became human and lived a perfect life.
- And he came to serve: That bit of Isaiah is called one of the Servant Songs of Isaiah.
- You, me, and everyone are sheep gone astray.
- We’ve turned away from God, and turned to death.
- But Jesus was pierced because of your rebellion.
- The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
That means that you can be saved from sin’s punishment. Even more, you’re credited with righteousness from God. More still, he adopts you. You become a child of God.
Turn from your sin; ask God to forgive you. Do it now. Jesus will be counted as punished for you, and you will live.
That is saving faith, and that’s what came to that Ethiopian official that day. And it’s what you can experience today too.
This foreign eunuch was saved by the gospel, the good news of Jesus.
Accepted
Which means he might well have read on a bit in Isaiah with deep joy: Read Isaiah 56:3-7.
He was loved by God and very specifically chosen and called by God. Saved by faith in Christ, he is then accepted into the people of God by God himself.
What happened then? Read Acts 8:36-39. He was baptised. That’s important. He was declaring to Christ himself that he is united to Jesus by faith in both death and resurrection. Dead to sin, alive to Christ.
He couldn’t change that he was a foreign eunuch, but his new identity was grounded in Christ alone.
So what about his lack of acceptance in Jerusalem? What about the fact that he didn’t fit in in Jerusalem? It was now irrelevant.
United to Jesus, he could see himself in a new way. Loved and chosen by God, united to Jesus, living for Christ. Rejoicing.
Find acceptance in Christ
Think about what it means to find your identity in Christ, as that Ethiopian eunuch did:
First, it’s not a personality change. Like so many people you read about in the Bible, their personalities weren’t erased by their faith (think Job, David, or Jeremiah – or Peter, John, or Paul).
The things that do change include your desires and priorities: You choose to reject sin. You choose love, service, sacrifice, or church – even over invitations to parties and events. That’s because you’re no longer of this world. You belong to Jesus.
Which means that some of the friends and places you used to know and be accepted in will no longer attract you. You may even find yourself in conflict with friends and family. Being accepted by God can mean you’re not accepted by friends and family, just as Jesus said in Matthew 10:35, “For I came to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”
What do you want? Acceptance by God or by unbelievers?
Internal acceptance in Christ
But let’s go back to that need for internal acceptance. When you feel that you’re the worst person in the room you can find it hard to believe that you’re loved by someone.
Know this: God chose you. He loves you. Not some version of you that you have to put on like a mask. He loves you, the real you. You’re more loved than you can possibly imagine. In his sight, you’re absolutely dazzling, stellar. He sees the real you, clothed in Christ, and he loves you. He doesn’t love some version of you that isn’t you. God loves you.
You’re obviously not perfect; and you will obviously still sin. God doesn’t love your sin, but because you’re joined to Jesus then sin doesn’t define you anyway. God’s greatest joy for you is to make you more and more like Jesus. That’s the only comparison that matters, and it’s a work that he will do in you and through you as you spend more time with him, living for him.
Comparison is the thief of joy because it robs you of acceptance with yourself. And as a child of God, you’re already in the highest state a human being can be.
External acceptance
So what about that external acceptance with others? That profound longing for other people to accept you for who you are, not for the person you present to others.
Well, who you are is a child of God in union with Christ, indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
So be that person. What you think of as weirdness or weakness in yourself, God can use to bless others in ways you hadn’t guessed – if only you’ll trust him, and let your true self in Christ shine. Put sin to death, but don’t put your personality to death. It is for freedom that Christ has set you free.
You’re not a slave to the prejudices and false expectations of others. You belong to Jesus.
That may mean that you can’t find a place of acceptance with unbelievers: Love them enough not to fit in, and explain why. And if none of these things affects you directly, remember that there are people here who are very much feeling this every day.
In the church
In the corporate world, leaders are trained to understand their own personality types with things like Myers-Briggs tests. The aim isn’t just to understand yourself. You need to know that some people are hugely different from you. Even more, you need to know how to understand them, to work with them, to achieve things together.
If you’re a stable, well-balanced Christian with no trouble with acceptance for yourself, then learn to know those who aren’t. Be genuinely ready to welcome and love them. Frankly, be ready for misfits and oddballs, and love them. Be ready to learn, not to judge. And when someone behaves in a way you don’t understand, be ready to forgive, and to learn again. Be open-hearted and generous to neuro-diversity – it’s must more common than you realise.
Love is patient. Love is kind. Learn to be those things as you come face to face with those who are daring to take off their masks to reveal their true selves in Christ.
The more we’re all able to do that, the more Christlike we all become.
You’re loved by God.
Find acceptance – within and without – in Christ.