Accept One Another Series

Introduction:

A. The story is told of a disheveled, homeless woman who visited a church one day.

1. When the invitation was given at the end of the service, she went forward and expressed a desire to become a member of the church.

2. The preacher listened as she told him how she believed in Jesus and wanted to be baptized.

a. The preacher thought to himself, “Oh my, she is so unkempt, she even smells a little, and her fingernails are not clean. What would the members think of her?”

b. He told her that she needed to pray about it for a while before she was baptized.

3. The following week, she came to church and again came forward during the invitation.

a. She told the preacher that she had prayed about it and still wanted to be baptized.

b. Again the preacher told her to go and pray some more.

4. A few weeks later while out eating at the restaurant, the preacher saw the little old lady.

a. He did not want her to think that he was ignoring her, so he approached her and said, “You have not been back to church for a while. Is everything all right?”

b. “Oh, yes,” she said, “I talked with Jesus, and He told me not to worry about becoming a member of your church.”

c. “He did?” said the preacher a little shocked.

d. “Oh, yes,” she replied, “Jesus said that even He hasn’t been able to get into your church, and He’s been trying for years.”

B. Let’s start with a probing question: Do you think that Jesus is welcome here at Wetzel Road?

1. How welcoming and accepting of others are we as a church?

2. Now, I want to think that we are pretty welcoming and accepting, and I hope that we are.

3. But I know this: we cannot be the church God wants us to be and we cannot experience real Christian community without the ability to accept one another.

4. So, let’s spend some time with this command to accept each other, and come to understand what it means to do so, and then let’s examine ourselves to see if there is some room in our hearts and lives for some growth in this matter.

I. The Instruction – Accept One Another

A. Romans 15:7 says, “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” (NIV)

1. The Christian Standard Bible renders the verse: Therefore welcome one another, just as Christ also welcomed you, to the glory of God.

2. The Greek word that is translated “accept” in the NIV and “welcome” in the CSB is a word that means “to receive kindly or hospitably” and “to treat with kindness.

3. And so, it means “to receive wholeheartedly, to warmly welcome to yourself, to grant admission into your heart, to look beyond anything superficial and to be willing and open to build relationships.”

4. Acceptance also can mean welcoming someone who may be very different from you.

5. I don’t think God’s command to accept or welcome others means to just tolerate them, but means extending the holiest sense of grace to them.

6. It can be a real challenge for us to express a resilient and abiding meekness toward others especially when their very presence includes something that is distasteful or offensive, but this is what God is commanding us to do.

B. The key phrase for understanding and practicing this command is the phrase, “just as Christ accepted you.”

1. Jesus is our standard – we are supposed to accept others just as He accepted us.

2. And how did Christ accept us?

3. According to Romans 5:8 the Bible says, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

4. And don’t you love the way Jesus loved and served those who were untouchable or unlovable?

a. Think about the way He welcomed the lepers and tax collectors and sinners.

5. By His loving acceptance, He was able to make a distinction between who people are and what they have done or what they have allowed themselves to become.

6. Even in our offensive and sinful state, we are still the objects of His love.

C. The purpose for this command to accept each other is so that we can “bring praise to God.”

1. As we, more and more, become the church we ought to be, the world will notice and give glory to God.

2. My hope is that when unbelievers walk into our fellowship, they will sense that something is different here, and they will go home thinking, “I want what they have; I want to be a part of what is going on there.”

3. I hope that they will go home praising God, saying that God is in that place; God is among those folks.