Rev. David Holwick ZN
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
December 7, 2003
Romans 15:5-13
RADICAL ACCEPTANCE
I. Everyone wants to be accepted.
A. Rejection is very commonplace.
1) Sad photo in newspaper of DYFS baby being kept in office.
a) Many were moved by it - several offers of homes.
2) Marilyn Monroe's glimpse of love.
We know how much the world fawned over Marilyn Monroe but
few realize how rejected she felt throughout her life.
A reporter from the New York Times was interviewing her and
he was aware of her troubled background.
So he posed a question to her: "Did you ever feel loved by
any of the foster families with whom you lived?"
"Once," Marilyn replied, "when I was about seven or eight.
The woman I was living with was putting on makeup, and I
was watching her.
She was in a happy mood, so she reached over and patted my
cheeks with her rouge puff....
For that moment, I felt loved by her."
#9192
B. Acceptance can change the world.
II. Being accepted by God.
A. He offers salvation to everyone.
1) A wide net - from Mother Teresa to Adolf Hitler.
2) No matter who you are, or what you have done.
a) No one is beyond God's grace.
b) Ultimate example: Apostle Paul, violent anti-Christian.
B. We must accept his salvation.
1) Many reject it. John 1:10-13
a) Essence of Christmas - God became one of us.
b) His own people rejected their Messiah.
c) Those who do accept, become part of God's family.
2) Believe what God has done for us.
a) Example of Abraham - he was accepted before he did
anything good or spiritual. Romans 4:1-3
3) Acceptance involves a change of heart: repentance.
a) After he was accepted, he did good.
b) New Testament principle in Ephesians 2:8-10.
1> Saved by grace, as a gift, not a wage.
2> Created to do good works, as sign of our gratitude.
III. Being accepted by the church.
A. We can love others because he first loved us.
1) Example of Jesus - loving lepers, prostitutes, the blind
and poor. (and the rich and powerful, too)
2) His teaching - invite outcasts to your parties. Lk 14:12-14
a) They are the ones who will appreciate it the most.
b) It is the same today - outcasts appreciate the gospel
most of all.
1> They know what they have been saved from.
3) When we accept others, we bring praise to God. Rom 15:7
B. God's goal is unity.
1) Ancient world was deeply divided.
a) Religion, nationality, class, race...
b) Sound familiar?
2) Goal of gospel is to unify humanity under Jesus.
a) Jesus breaks down the dividing wall. Eph 2:14
b) Great division between Jews and Gentiles. Rom 15:10
1> Jesus makes them one.
2> Early church had a reputation for being a
hodge-podge of peoples. It still is...
C. The church should be a unifying place.
1) Our message may divide, but those who accept it should be
welcome.
2) Even if it makes us uncomfortable:
If state officials decided to build a prison near your town,
how would you feel? Worried? Anxious?
That's exactly how the residents of Limestone County, Alabama,
felt when they heard about plans to build a prison there.
Several citizens raised their voices in protest.
There was one man, though, who raised his voice not in protest
but in prayer.
Bert Owen was a retired engineer, a thin, white-haired man.
When the bulldozers and jackhammers arrived, Bert rode his
bicycle down to the construction site.
As he watched the prison walls go up, he prayed for the
prisoners who would be coming to live there.
And when the cells were finally filled, Bert immediately
signed up as a volunteer.
It was a brave step: He'd never done anything like it before.
And the first day he stood hesitantly wondering where to begin.
Then he noticed a group of men standing in a circle.
He walked over and discovered they were Christians.
God had led him straight to a group of believers!
Things couldn't have worked out better, Bert thought.
The group welcomed him and eagerly agreed to attend a Bible
study.
The next step, however, was not so easy.
When he returned, Bert discovered that twenty men -- about half
white and half black -- had signed up for the Bible study.
"Good, let's open with prayer," he said, and routinely asked
the men to hold hands.
Instantly, the room was charged with tension.
The inmates scowled and stepped back.
What was wrong?
Then Bert saw: The whites and blacks were refusing to join
hands with one another.
Quickly, Bert switched gears.
Today's lesson, he decided, would be about Christian unity.
"Men," he said, "if you're going to form a church behind bars,
you've got to start by loving each other."
Before Bert had finished, half the class had walked out.
That day, Bert left the prison discouraged.
But he had prayed over these inmates for months, and he wasn't
going to give up now.
When he returned the next week, there was a pleasant surprise:
All the men who had walked out were back again.
Yet he knew the big test was still to come.
Taking a deep breath, he said, "OK, men, let's join hands and
pray."
Then he waited.
Slowly, awkwardly, the men held out their hands -- blacks and
whites together.
#11184
3) Our spirit of unity depends on how well we follow Jesus.15:5
4) The church doesn't exist for Christians - it is designed
for non-members. #26128
a) (James Draper's controversial statement)
b) We spend a fair amount of time making ourselves
comfortable.
c) In reality, church should be an equipping station for us
to reach the unsaved.
IV. Our acceptance must be deep and wide.
A. What you don't have to do to get accepted here.
1) You don't have to agree with the pastor, or the Bible.
a) Idea of "soul freedom."
2) You don't have to be "just like us."
a) Homogenous principle - people like to be around their
own kind.
b) Church should be able to overcome this.
3) You don't have to be rid of all your sins and addictions.
a) We are here for healing:
Samuel Colgate, the founder of the Colgate toothpaste empire, was a
devout Christian.
He told of an incident that took place in the church he attended.
During an evangelistic service, an invitation was given at the close
of the sermon for all those who wished to turn their lives over to
Christ to come forward and be forgiven.
One of the first persons to walk down the aisle and kneel at the
altar was a well-known prostitute.
She knelt in very real repentance, she wept, she asked God to forgive
her.
Meanwhile the rest of the congregation looked on approvingly at what
she was doing.
Then she stood and testified that she believed God had forgiven her
for her past life, and she now wanted to become a member of the
church.
For a long moment, the silence was deafening.
Finally, Samuel Colgate arose and said, "I guess we blundered when we
prayed that the Lord would save sinners.
We forgot to specify what kind of sinners.
We'd better ask him to forgive us for this oversight.
The Holy Spirit has touched this woman and made her truly repentant,
but the Lord apparently doesn't understand that she's not the type
we want him to rescue.
We'd better spell it out for him just which sinners we had in mind."
Immediately, a motion was made and unanimously approved that the
woman be accepted into membership in the congregation.
God accepts us as we are.
There's not a sin too black, not a deed too awful, not a thought too
horrible for him to forgive.
#20736
B. What you do have to do to get accepted.
1) Have an open heart and mind.
a) The gospel has many hard aspects.
b) You won't understand or believe it all at once.
c) But be willing to learn.
2) A willingness to be committed.
a) Stick it out through slights and shortcomings.
b) If you put in, you will get out.
V. Acceptance makes an impact.
A. Lack of it can be devastating.
By an unknown author:
I saw him in the church building for the first time on
Wednesday.
He was in his mid-70's, with thinning silver hair and a neat
brown suit.
Many times in the past I had invited him to come to church.
Several other Christian friends had talked to him about the
Lord and had tried to share the good news with him.
He was a well-respected, honest man with so many
characteristics a Christian should have.
But he had never accepted Christ, nor entered the doors of
the church.
"Have you ever been to a church service in your life?" I had
asked him a few years ago.
We had just finished a pleasant day of visiting and talking.
He hesitated.
Then with a bitter smile he told me of his childhood
experience some fifty years ago.
He was one of many children in a large impoverished family.
His parents had struggled to provide food, with little left
for housing and clothing.
When he was about ten, some neighbors invited him to worship
with them.
The Sunday School class had been very exciting!
He had never heard such songs and stories before!
He had never heard anyone read from the Bible!
After class was over, the teacher took him aside and said,
"Son, please don't come again dressed as you are now.
We want to look our best when we come into God's house."
He stood in his ragged, unpatched overalls.
Then looking at his dirty bare feet, he answered softly,
"No, ma'am, I won't - ever."
"And I never did," he said, abruptly ending our conversation.
There must have been other factors to have hardened him so,
but this experience formed a significant part of the
bitterness in his heart.
I'm sure that Sunday School teacher meant well.
But did she really understand the love of Christ?
What if she had put her arms around the dirty, ragged little
boy and said, "Son, I am so glad you are here!
And I hope you will come back every chance you get to hear
more about Jesus."
I reflected on the awesome responsibility a teacher or pastor
or a parent has to welcome little ones in His name.
How far reaching her influence was!
I prayed that I might be ever open to the tenderness of a
child's heart.
And that I might never fail to see beyond the appearance and
behavior of a child to the eternal possibilities within.
One word, one act of kindness may change a life ... eternally.
#19257
B. It results in joy and spiritual peace. Rom 15:13
C. (Letter from girl)
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
# 9192 “Feeling Loved And Accepted,” Helen Colton, Rev. Brett Blair's
Illustrations by Email, www.sermonillustrations.com,
October 5, 2003.
#11184 “Holding Hands In Prison,” Chuck Colson, in Dynamic Preaching
sermon, www.sermons.com, January 13, 2003.
#19257 “Should We Look Our Best For Church?” author unknown; submitted as
email by Hubert Hall, June 12, 2001.
#20736 “Which Sinners Do We Want As Members?” Larry R. Kalajainen,
Extraordinary Faith For Ordinary Time, CSS Publishing Company, Inc.,
1994, quoted in Rev. Brett Blair's Illustrations by Email,
www.sermonillustrations.com, October 28, 2001.
#26128 “God's Cultural Strategy,” James T. Draper Jr., Baptist Press,
http://www.baptistpress.org, November 18, 2003.
These and 25,000 others are part of a database that can be downloaded,
absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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