Accept one another … just as Christ accepted you.
ROMANS 15:7
When my sons were in high school, an astounding thing happened every Wednesday night. A diverse mosaic of fifty or more teenagers piled into our house around 7 p.m. and stayed till about 9. They represented a broad cross section of the local suburban high school. There was the captain of the football team, an officer in the student council, the lead in the school play, and a cheerleader. There was a girl dressed all in black, with her hair dyed black and her fingernails and lips painted black. There was a drug dealer and a boy with incredibly long hair who obviously did not shower.
There were white kids, black kids, Latinos, Asians, Mormons, Muslims, and even a Wiccan. There were students from very wealthy families and ones from struggling single-parent homes. There were kids who were in the National Honor Society and kids who were on court-mandated probation. Most of the kids were from non-churched families.
Every Wednesday night during the school year, they gathered in our living room and kitchen to snack, sing, study the Bible, and pray. Cathy and I were amazed that they came consistently, behaved beautifully, listened, learned, shared, opened up—and came back again.
One night I stood at the door as they were leaving and asked each one why they kept coming. Beyond the expected lines—”to see my friends,” “to meet girls,” and “to learn about God”—was one I did not expect. Over and over they told me that they came because they “felt accepted.” Then they’d add something like, “I can be myself,” “I don’t have to pretend here,” and “I feel comfortable here.”
As a father who has raised three sons through adolescence, who has pastored dozens of teens, and who now teaches college students, I have learned never to underestimate the power of acceptance. Helping others feel welcome, received, understood, and accepted is a powerful bond for better relationships. Whether it is parents helping their teenager feel accepted at home or employers making their employees feel valued or a wife accepting her husband without trying to change him, never underestimate the power of acceptance.
Dr. Paul Tournier was a gifted Christian writer and therapist. Doctors from all over the world traveled to his home in Geneva, Switzerland, to learn from him. “It is a little embarrassing for students to come over and study my counseling techniques,” he confided, “because all I do is accept people.”1
Dorothy Bass directs the Valparaiso Project on the Education and Formation of People in Faith. She writes about a family that found a novel way to celebrate the principle of the Sabbath. On Sundays they had an agreement that there would be no criticism in their house. The result was that their children’s friends ended up spending Sundays in their home.
Secret #2
Accept others as Jesus has accepted you.
Jesus made it His practice to seek out hurting, broken, cast-off, disregarded nobodies and make them feel like somebodies. He let them know He accepted them even if He did not approve of their behavior. Though He was a popular rabbi (not to mention the holy Son of God), even notorious sinners felt welcomed by Him and comfortable in His presence. It changed many of their lives. But it drove the Pharisees crazy.
Passing along, Jesus saw a man at his work collecting taxes. His name was Matthew. Jesus said, “Come along with me.”
Matthew stood up and followed him.
MATTHEW 9:9 MSG
Think about what you just read—Jesus, the Jewish rabbi, invited Matthew, the hated tax collector, to join Him as one of His disciples. Matthew (also known as Levi) was looked down on and loathed because tax collectors not only worked for the hated Romans, they usually cheated their Jewish brothers out of money.
When Jesus called, Matthew followed. Following Jesus meant that Matthew would leave his well-paying job and comfortable lifestyle. But he went. Jesus was obviously the first rabbi to give Matthew something other than self-righteous judgment and rejection. Instead Jesus offered genuine acceptance of Matthew as a man. Never underestimate the power of acceptance.
Matthew wanted his friends to meet Jesus and experience the power of acceptance. As an outcast from his people, Matthew associated with people who also were outcasts, probably because they made him feel accepted. One thing I have learned as a parent, pastor, and professor: young people go where they find acceptance. Really good kids will hang out with kids who are doing really bad things if they find acceptance there. But, on the other hand, seemingly rotten kids can find transformation being around really good kids if the good kids will show them godly acceptance.
Back to the story. We note that Matthew must have made a good living and probably had a large house. So he invited Jesus and His disciples to join him and his friends for a dinner party. And Jesus went.
And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and [especially wicked] sinners came and sat (reclined) with Him and His disciples.
MATTHEW 9:10 AMP
Going to a party hosted by a tax collector was not something most rabbis would do, but it was not out of character for Jesus. Later we see Him inviting Himself to eat with Zacchaeus, another tax collector (Luke 19:1–6). The crowd judged Jesus for it (Luke 19:7). But Jesus’ display of acceptance transformed Zacchaeus’s life (Luke 19:8–9).
The Pharisees had no heart for such a radical departure from normal cultural practices; but rather than face Jesus head on, they went after His disciples with accusation and criticism.
When the Pharisees saw [Jesus] keeping this kind of company, they had a fit, and lit into Jesus’ followers. “What kind of example is this from your Teacher, acting cozy with crooks and riffraff?”
MATTHEW 9:11 MSG
Acting cozy with crooks and riffraff? What an indictment! But they obviously were missing the point. Jesus didn’t miss the opportunity to call them on it.
Jesus, overhearing, shot back, “Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? Go figure out what this Scripture means: ‘I’m after mercy, not religion.’ I’m here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders.” MATTHEW 9:12–13 MSG
The Pharisees were legalists, people who believed salvation came by obeying rules. As a group, the Pharisees had probably started out with good motives. They wanted to be really holy guys. They thought the 613 commands of the Old Testament were not enough, so they added hundreds more of their own. They set the bar so high that no one could reach it. They believed that they alone had the inside track to heaven. And they looked down on everyone else.
They set themselves up as everyone else’s judge. Their rule-keeping religion became their idol and slowly killed off their love for everyone else.
Anne Lamott writes, “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”2
Dorothy Day observed, “You only love God as much as you love the person you love the least.”
The Pharisees loved external religion based on behavior. The Pharisees did not have welcoming hearts. As a result, they not only rejected “sinners,” they rejected Jesus for associating with “sinners.” Jesus had a welcoming heart. He accepted sinners because that was what ministry was all about.
The incident with Matthew the tax collector was not the only time the Pharisees were upset with Jesus for associating with sinners. One Sabbath Jesus had been invited to dinner with a prominent Pharisee (Luke 14:1). In those days wealthy people’s homes had a courtyard in the back, and the meal would have been served there. The invited guests would sit around the table with others from the community spread around the outside edges of the courtyard.
As Jesus healed a man with a chronic illness, the crowds got closer. When He told parables that revealed God’s heart for the humble and hurting, they pressed in even closer to hear His teachings. This infuriated the Pharisees.
By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently. The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, “He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends.”
LUKE 15:1–2 MSG
Notice their accusation, “He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends.” They hated that Jesus did not distinguish between people in the way they did. Jesus ate with Pharisees and He also dined with notorious and especially wicked sinners.
The verb “takes in” used in Luke 15 is from a root word meaning “hand.” In today’s language we would say Jesus greeted and treated people with an “outstretched hand and open arms.” He welcomed, received, and accepted them. He gave them access to Himself. He invited them into companionship.
One day Jesus went to the temple to teach and a crowd gathered. Suddenly, bursting through the crowd, a mob of men came carrying a frightened woman. It was the Pharisees again, trying to trick and trap Jesus.
The religion scholars and Pharisees led in a woman who had been caught in an act of adultery. They stood her in plain sight of everyone and said,
“Teacher, this woman was caught red-handed in the act of adultery. Moses, in the Law, gives orders to stone such persons. What do you say?” They were trying to trap him into saying something incriminating
so they could bring charges against him.
JOHN 8:3–6 MSG
What could Jesus say? No Jewish rabbi would contradict Moses and the law. According to the law, an adulterer deserved death. But if Jesus said, “Stone her!” the crowds would never forgive Him. Wasn’t He their champion because He preached mercy over religion?
At this point, the contrast becomes crystal clear. The Pharisees were about judgment, discriminating between people based on how the people did in keeping rules. They were about accusation and rejection. They were about following their agenda, even if it meant humiliating a broken woman and a young rabbi to do it.
But Jesus was about something more.
Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.
JOHN 8:6
Jesus did not condemn the woman. And He didn’t say anything to the Pharisees. He just wrote with His finger in the dirt.
No one knows for certain what He wrote, but I believe—since He is God and knows all things—He was writing the sins of the Pharisees.
“What sins?” you ask.
Maybe it was not big, outer, fleshly sins like drunkenness, adultery, robbery, or murder. But it could have been inner sins of the spirit, such as pride, self-righteousness, and judgmentalism. We could add deception to their list, because they obviously were deceived into thinking it is possible to love God and despise people.
And make no mistake, inner spiritual sins are serious, very serious. That is why C. S. Lewis said, “A cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute.”3
Yet these blind Pharisees failed to see themselves accurately, were unwilling to see the poor broken woman, and refused to see Jesus for who He was. All they saw was their own position and that this backwoods rabbi was making them look bad—so they kept badgering Him to respond.
And He did.
When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
JOHN 8:7–8
His response stunned them.
“Go ahead and stone her. That’s what the law says. But let the guy with no sin go first.”
Ouch! They had not expected to have the tables turned on them. Jesus’ words cut them to the quick.
At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.
JOHN 8:9
One by one the self-righteous prigs dropped their heads, let go of their stones, and slowly walked away. They realized they were not qualified to pass judgment. They needed to put down their stones.
I wonder, do you have a few stones you need to drop? John Ortberg wisely advises,
Put down the stone.
This may mean that you need to take action:
If you have spread gossip—go straight to the person you talked to, and apologize. Set things right.
If your heart is hard toward someone—do an act of service for them. Don’t tell anyone else. Ask God to change your heart.
If you have behaved badly toward someone—go to them. Today. Ask forgiveness. 4
Life is much lighter if we don’t carry stones.
Back to the story: Once the Pharisees were gone, all that was left was Jesus, the woman, and a pile of stones. Jesus could have used this as a teaching moment to show that He was the Holy One and ultimate judge of the universe. He could have picked up a few stones and hurled them at the woman. He alone had that right. But He didn’t.
Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they?
Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared.
“Go now and leave your life of sin.”
JOHN 8:10–11
“Neither do I condemn you.” To that woman, these words must have sounded like fresh raindrops after weeks of drought. The men were not able to condemn her. Jesus chose to withhold condemnation. He had no desire for her to die as a sinful woman. He wanted her to live as a godly one.
“Go now and leave your life of sin.” Jesus extended to her the invitation to a new life—a life without condemnation, a life without lust and adultery, a life of transformation. Acceptance is a welcome reception for broken people to come, and an opportunity for them to be changed.
John Ortberg writes, “This is very important: acceptance is not the same thing as tolerating any behavior.”5 We must learn to accept sinners without accepting sin. We must welcome sinners without condemnation, but also without condoning their sin.
Jesus’ acceptance of sinners was without superiority, judgmentalism, or condemnation. It was extended freely and undeservedly. It was powerful because it called the recipients to a changed life. And it still does.
But it was also costly.
In eating dinner with the tax collector Zacchaeus, in welcoming Matthew as a disciple, in rescuing an immoral woman, Jesus made powerful enemies. They kept coming back until they found a way to kill Him.
Later Jesus was betrayed, abandoned, lied about, beaten, whipped, mocked, and pierced. He suffered the greatest agony as He took the sins of humankind upon Himself, as His Father judged Him and pronounced Him condemned. Then He endured the greatest act of rejection ever experienced as His Father turned His back on Him and crushed Him for our sins.
He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all….
By oppression and judgment he was taken away…. Yet it was the LORD’S will to crush him and cause him to suffer.
ISAIAH 53:3–6, 8, 10
There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
ROMANS 8:1
Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.
ROMANS 15:7
Jesus was condemned so you and I could be free from condemnation. Once we have experienced this astounding acceptance from God, we’re enabled and obligated to pass it on to others. Since we, as broken sinners, have been invited and welcomed into the arms of our heavenly Father, we can invite and welcome others.
Notes