Calvary Road Baptist Church
“ACCEPTED”
Ephesians 1.6
They use hair nets to hold their hair down and straight back unless they’re buzz cut. Black canvas slippers with brown rubber soles, purchased south of the border, are the preferred footwear. Gray or black slacks are covered by oversized short-sleeved shirts that are washed, starched, pressed, and buttoned only at the top button, with the shirt tail out. If it’s hot, a white sleeveless undershirt, what some call a “wife beater.” Tattoos indicate who you are, where you have been, and how bad you think you are. This is the uniform of the homeboy.
In another part of town, Air Jordans are the preferred footwear. In the summertime, basketball shorts are worn. The shorts must be small enough and worn low enough so that the brightly colored boxer shorts worn underneath show clearly at the top of the gym shorts worn on the outside. Shirts are optional, but when worn, headwear is carefully chosen. Color is critical, oftentimes determining whether you are a friend or foe. This is oftentimes the uniform of the black gang member or the person who would like to be thought of as a gang member.
And the girls all look so much alike. Black stockings. Short and very tight skirts, frequently black or gray. A leather jacket sometimes covers ill-fitting sweaters. In the summertime, it’s a pullover four sizes too small. And the hair? If it’s straight, it will be stringy. And on the ears are the scars of too many earrings or the stretched scars of earrings that are too heavy. The girls don’t usually walk like ladies. They certainly don’t talk like ladies. They like to talk the tough language of the gutter. And when a man walks by, they will look the look of boldness and wickedness. The daring look. The penetrating look. The wicked look. If jeans are worn, they will be so tight that the girl couldn’t possibly slide them on unless her legs have applied lotion after recently shaving them. Girls have told me that they have used petroleum jelly on their legs to enable them to slide jeans on. Others have confessed to buying new jeans tight enough to just get on, then sitting down in a tub of hot water, and finally drying them with a hair dryer. The reason? Get the jeans so tight that goosebumps will show if it’s cold outside.
And how about the group you see standing around the 7-11 store, the gas station, Circle K, the park, or even Frank’s Market before the police shut it down? What do they want? What are they after? What causes them to abandon the values of their parents and forsake the opportunities afforded by a good education? Do guys who wear their hair like some strange-looking guys do, and with huge holes in their ear lobes, have any hope of ever getting a good job? Why do whole groups buy the same model of a small truck, modify it to the point that it has almost no practical function, and then paint them with the same basic designs? Why do they put speakers in cars that can only destroy their ability to hear the music they claim to love so much that they want everyone in town to listen to it? When they get a little older and make a little money, why do they all dress up in the same way and go to the same places where they all look alike and spend more money than they can really afford to impress each other? They certainly don’t impress anyone else.
Oh, there are many reasons why so many people do these and other things, such as I have described. But a very large part of the motivation for looking like, walking like, talking like, and thinking like the others of some real or imagined group is so you might gain acceptance by those others. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being accepted. Being accepted is a legitimate need God gives to every human being who has ever lived. We all need and crave acceptance. However, as with anything else, when human beings seek to satisfy legitimate God-given needs illegitimately by someone other than God, sin is the predictable result. Amen?
Sexual needs, for example, are God-given needs intended to be met by God-ordained means within the bounds of God’s institution of marriage. However, when a person seeks to meet that God-given need in a way contrary to God’s plan, it is called fornication, it is selfishness, and it is sin.[1] What powerful appetites and urges drive human beings to seek acceptance? Amen? How many of you parents have children who are frighteningly driven to seek the acceptance of their friends? Do your kids have to have such and such brands of shoes, shirts, pants? Are you afraid your youngster will even compromise his or her reputation as the price for acceptance?
Parents, your children need to understand that their problem was yours at their age. Perhaps you still have the problem of seeking acceptance. After all, human beings need to be accepted. You need to realize that God has already made provision for meeting that need for acceptance in your life.
Today’s text in God’s Word is Ephesians 1.6. We will see that a correct understanding of our need of acceptance and God’s provision for that need will help us stay out of trouble and help us stay in the will of God. Stand, if you please, for the reading of God’s Word:
“To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”
So, where do we start? Where else? We start with God.
NOTICE WHAT GOD DID
There are two only places in the New Testament where the Greek word translated “accepted” is used, Ephesians 1.6 and Luke 1.28. As we take note of these two verses, let us examine the meaning of the word first, and then the use of the word:
The meaning of the word in Ephesians 1.6. The specific word of concern to us is a verb that is actually translated by four English words in this verse before us. “He hath made accepted” translates a Greek word. The word is an aorist verb, meaning that the verb tense is undefined, but the action is described as complete.[2] It is, therefore, unclear from the word itself whether the past, present, or future is in view by Paul. The context indicates very clearly that what Paul is referring to has already occurred in the lives of those Christians to whom he is referring. From the root word for grace, it means to bestow favor upon someone, to highly favor someone, to bless someone.[3] Besides being found in only two places in the New Testament, I recall once reading that whenever the word is used in the Greek writings of the apostolic fathers, those men who themselves sat at the feet of the apostles, it always and in every case refers to God giving grace or God making someone the recipient of grace. Paul, then, is informing the Ephesians that at some point in time in the past God bestowed favor upon, divinely blessed, made accepted.
Examine with me the use of the word in Luke 1.28:
“And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.”
In this verse, we see the verb as a passive participle. Translated as “thou that art highly favoured,” the word describes the Virgin Mary as one who has been the recipient of this bestowal of favor, this blessing with grace, from God. Think about that for a moment. Here we have proof that the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ, far from being a woman of unparalleled virtue and worthiness, is described as a woman who received grace from God just as the believers written about in Paul’s Ephesian letter had received grace. So, where does that leave Mary? It leaves her in the same place you and I are in if you are a Christian, a sinner who has received the salvation that comes only by the grace of God.
Consider, now with me, the implications of the meaning of this word. Every human being who has ever lived has legitimately needed to be accepted and to feel that acceptance. When God created us, He created us to be social beings, as indicated by His Own recognition in Genesis 2.18 that it was not good for Adam to be alone. That means that every one of you positively needs to have not only the favor of God but also the favor of other human beings. We typically get into trouble when two things happen: First, when we forget that God will simply give us the favor, God will simply give us the acceptance that we need and that we do not need to go anywhere to get that favor from others. Second, we get into trouble when having forgotten that God simply gives His divine favor away, we put ourselves into positions in which we will barter and trade and try to buy the favor of others. And there are various ways in which people try to buy the favor of others.
What will you do to be accepted by that person or group of people you want to run with, the boys? What must you give up? Your virtue? Your integrity? Your standards? Your virginity? And going to a person or a group in which you have to purchase the favor, trade for their acceptance, have you not rejected the acceptance given to you freely by God? Haven’t you rejected those people given to you by God to meet your needs for social acceptance? Haven’t you decided that the ones God has chosen to meet your social needs are somehow not good enough for you? Be careful.
To sum up, God recognizes that you and I need to be accepted. We need to be accepted by Him, and we also need to be accepted by other human beings. But when God saves the believer, He does a work on that soul to favor him and meet his great need by providing for a relationship with God and by providing for relationships with other human beings through the family of God and the church. Those people that I described at the beginning of my message. They are not wrong in needing to be accepted. They are wrong in seeking to meet their needs themselves instead of turning to God to supply all of what they need. They are wrong in running with a crowd that makes them pay for acceptance when they could have acceptance given to them by those of us in this church. Oh, we might not accept their behavior, but we always have and always will reflect God’s willingness to accept their persons. And why is that? Because of what God did. Folks, we who are strangers from the covenants and promises, we who had no hope, have been made acceptable to God by God.
Second, NOTICE WHERE GOD DID IT
Let me introduce you to the concept of spiritual geography. Look at the diagram below that shows the function of Greek prepositions. And you will notice that the diagram consists of a circle with a cube inside. This is because Greek prepositions are words used in the construction of sentences to show certain kinds of relationships, either in a literal or figurative sense. I want you to locate preposition #8 inside the cube and the circle we will take to be a sphere. The Greek word is usually translated by the English word “in.” Notice where it is about the sphere and the cube. It is in the very middle. While some prepositions are used to show approach to or departure from, position over or under, or around or through, this particular word is used to describe the concept of being in some object, literally or figuratively.
Now consider the concept of being “in Christ.” Almost thirty times in the first chapter of Ephesians alone, this little preposition is used to describe something being in something else. We know Paul is not writing in a literal sense, such as a dog being in a doghouse, so he must be referring to something in a figurative sense. Twenty times in the first chapter of Ephesians, Paul uses this preposition to refer to being “in Christ.” To understand what it means to be “in Christ,” it needs to be understood that the Greeks used their prepositions to describe relationships to so-called spheres of influence. Therefore, when Paul uses such phrases as “in the Beloved,” and “in Whom,” and “in Christ,” he is referring to a sphere of influence, a domain, a spiritual region in which Christ’s kingship is unopposed.
He refers to a spiritual place occupied by the child of God no matter where he happens to be geographically. In Paul’s thinking, to be outside of Christ’s sphere of influence is to be lost, to be unsaved, to be unforgiven, while to be in Christ is to be found, to be saved, to be forgiven. I have said all that to say this: The only place God meets any individual’s need of acceptance, acceptance by God, and genuine acceptance by other people is in Christ.
The fornicator can spend his or her entire lifetime (however short that lifetime may now prove to be) seeking the fulfillment of his or her sexual needs but to no avail. Only God meets the needs given to man by God. And God only meets such sexual needs within the institution of marriage. In like fashion, there is the need for acceptance. The thug, the hoodlum, the tramp, the groupie, the club joiner, the preppie, the yuppie, the biker, and even the Church guy can spend his or her entire life striving for the acceptance of others, but to no avail.
When you come to Christ, however, that acceptance is provided, and it is provided only in and only by the Lord Jesus Christ. There will always be Christians who don’t know what they have in Christ who will strive for acceptance by individuals and groups that reject Christ. But when a child of God realizes that God has provided acceptance and that such acceptance can actually be experienced on a personal level only through God and God’s people, then that Christian will refuse to compromise his testimony; she will no longer prostitute her stand for Christ, to win the dubious friendships of those who reject her Savior. To repeat, then, what did God do? He accepted me. He took me just precisely the way I am. He doesn’t want me to stay the way I was when He took me. But He did accept me as I was. That’s what He did. But where did He do that? He did that in Christ. God will take you just as you are so long as just where you are is “in Jesus Christ.” But be warned, lost friend. He will take you nowhere else.
Finally, WE ASK OURSELVES WHY GOD DID IT
Why did God make us accepted in the Beloved? Why did He first give us the need for acceptance and then why did He meet that need? Let’s answer that question:
In Ephesians 1.12 & 14, we find the phrase “the praise of his glory.” This is not a particularly surprising phrase to find in the New Testament. We know that God has His glory. And what is glory? It’s the manifestation, the showing off, if you will, of some part of God. Shining a light on some part of His greatness. And we know He wants His glory to be praised and will not share His glory with another. Several Old Testament passages teach that to us.[4] But the phrase found in Ephesians 1.6, “to the praise of the glory of his grace,” is unusual. Found nowhere else in the New Testament, this phrase shows us God’s motive for making “us accepted in the beloved.”
Remembering that when He “made us accepted in the beloved,” God literally bestowed His favor upon us or gave us His grace; he thereby provided a means whereby the glory of His grace, whereby the manifestation of His grace, whereby the showing off of His grace, would be praised. Think about this for a moment. Can the holy angels praise the glory of God’s grace? I suppose they can, but it is not like they have ever received the benefits of God’s grace. You see, angels are not recipients of the grace of God at all. Only people, and only people who have trusted Christ as their personal savior, are recipients of the grace of God that is spoken of here.
So, then, what are we supposed to do who have received God’s saving grace? We are to praise God. But more than that, since even the unredeemed holy angels praise God. We are to praise the glory of His grace. And that is something that only we who have been redeemed, only we who have trusted Christ, only we who have been made accepted in the beloved, can do.
Friend, do you praise God? If you do, that’s good. But you don’t have to be saved to praise God. Holy angels are not saved, yet they praise God. And a great many lost people in churches all over America lift up their hands and praise God, though they are still lost because they’ve not trusted the Jesus of the Bible to wash their sins away in His blood. So, we ought to do more than praise God. Amen? We who have been made accepted in the Beloved ought to be able to praise not only God but a specific attribute of God that is not experienced by any other being in all of God’s creation. Only those of us who have come to know Jesus Christ, having been predestinated unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of God’s will, only such people as we can praise the glory of God’s grace and rejoice and hoot and holler over for having been recipients of the saving grace of God.
Do you do that? Do you rejoice and praise the glory of God’s grace? You don’t if you run with those who deny Christ. You don’t if you behave as though God has not already met your acceptance needs. And you don’t if you are seen to be compromising yourself so that Christ rejecters will accept you. You don’t if you party.
Christian? Why don’t you decide that God and what God has provided for you is good enough? God accepts you. God has provided a community of believers so that you will enjoy the acceptance of other human beings, believers in Christ. So why would you want to go elsewhere and seek the acceptance of those who reject your Savior? This is an issue that needs to be settled right now. Some too many so-called believers sin against God by living as though God has not met their needs, when in fact He has. And I want to ask you. Isn’t God good enough? And am I not good enough? And are these others not good enough for you? So, I ask you, if God is good enough, and if we are good enough on a human level, why do you seek acceptance elsewhere?
And you among us, you do not know Christ. Why seek acceptance from others when acceptance is offered freely by God? Why try to pay for something that cannot satisfy when God will give freely that which does satisfy? As we stand for a time of decision, I urge you to make a personal choice. Christian? Praise the glory of His grace with your mouth and style of life. And what is the glory of His grace? What is the display, the manifestation of God’s grace? Why, your salvation, of course. So, sing the songs of His praise and live a life that testifies that you neither need nor want the acceptance of anyone but God and God’s people. And my unsaved friend? Hear me now. You need acceptance. You need it from God, and you need it from men. Allow God to meet this need. Come to Christ.
And don’t think to yourself, “I don’t need anyone’s acceptance.” That’s not true. Why, even the most rebellious men revel in the company of others whose acceptance they crave. Crips. Bloods. Hell’s Angels in days gone by. Mongols. Even high school dropouts who reject education in favor of intellectual suicide seek the acceptance of others who have done the same. So, understand that everyone wants acceptance. Everyone needs acceptance. Nothing wrong with that. But if you seek acceptance from anyone besides God, Who will accept you only if you trust Jesus Christ, not only will you not find genuine acceptance anywhere, but God will Himself ultimately and finally reject you and cast you into the lake of fire.
Come to Jesus Christ. Notice that I do not suggest that you accept Him because it is in Christ that you will find the acceptance of God. And when God accepts you, you will be given friends and family who will also accept you.
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[1] Matthew 5.32; 19.9; John 8.41; Acts 15.20, 29; 21.25; Romans 1.29; 1 Corinthians 5.1; 6.13, 18; 7.2; 10.8; 2 Corinthians 12.21; Galatians 5.19; Ephesians 5.3; Colossians 3.5; 1 Thessalonians 4.3; Jude 7
[2] Bauer, Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), page 1081.
[3] Fritz Rienecker & Cleon Rogers, Linguistic Key To The Greek New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Regency Reference Library, 1980), page 522.
[4] Isaiah 42.8; 48.11
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