Ephesians 1:6 “To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”

Hello readers, I hope you had a good week. We’ve been finally getting some warmer and sunnier weather recently, but at the moment there is rain falling. Today I want to continue in the book of Ephesians, and briefly bring our attention to the topic of “acceptance”.

As I’ve begun to do blogs on this book of Ephesians, I’ve realized that the theme of this book is “in Christ”. I’ve begun somewhat to understand the supreme importance of grasping this concept of “in Christ”. Because everything God has for man is “in Christ”. Every aspect of your existence is provided for by God in Christ to you. And today we are looking at being accepted by God in Christ Jesus.

Do you seek God’s acceptance? Many people want God to accept them. And when God doesn’t accept them, they get mad at God. Just like Cain did. Man earnestly seeks acceptance from God, and in fact all of religion is about gaining acceptance with the divine… and yet the Bible teaches that no amount of religion, no matter how dedicated or sincere, can ever make us acceptable to God. Because the Bible teaches that we are accepted upon one basis, in the beloved, that is in Christ “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”.

Man is a creature that seeks acceptance. And even if you don’t want acceptance from God, we all crave acceptance somewhere in something. If you look at any endeavour of man, acceptance is somewhere at its core. We live in a world that is pretty crazy about “acceptance” in fact. Growing up, it is a pretty important thing to us to be “accepted” by our peer group. And we will often go to great lengths to gain that acceptance from others whose acceptance we crave. Think of how many young people get into alcohol, smoking and drugs all because of seeking “acceptance”.

It is indisputable that many, if not all, people’s behaviour is to a large degree determined by who’s acceptance they seek. Even in Christian circles, many people behave how they do out of the desire for acceptance, rather than because the Bible says so. And how many professing Christians walk away from the faith over the issue of acceptance, but they want acceptance in this world. So it’s safe to say that acceptance is something we all seek, and it’s just a matter of who or what is the object of the acceptance we desire, and how we go about gaining it.

In case you don’t think so yet, just think about acceptance in our society. There’s never been a time in my life which more requires of you to think, speak and do a certain way, otherwise you’re on the outs. “Cancel culture” is an issue of acceptance, or lack thereof. Nowdays there is significant pressure and expectation that is exerted using the fulcrum of “acceptance”. And people are too scared to say what they think, less their acceptance gets revoked if they take a step out of line.

And not only all of this, but the people of this world are quite hot on “self-acceptance”. Love yourself! Accept yourself just the way you are! And even modern churches are in to teaching self-acceptance these days. Because it’s a nice message to “accept yourself”. It’s all part of the self-help gospel which looks internally rather than Godward for redemption. And to some degree it is important to accept yourself. But not like this world teaches. And does the Bible teach self-acceptance? Quite the opposite, the Bible teaches that self is unacceptable to God.

You would have noticed that in today’s world, people demand to be accepted for who and what they are, regardless of who and what they are. Nowadays, sinners demand that you accept their sin. Take homosexuals for instance, their whole cause has been a crusade of acceptance, and if you don’t accept their homosexuality, they can and do make life hell for you. They’re not the only ones, practically in our own lives, we want people to accept our disobedience to God’s word, we do it all the time. We want people and God to accept our unacceptable behaviour.

So I think it’s pretty clear from opening up this topic of acceptance that humanistic acceptance doctrine differs vastly from Biblical acceptance doctrine. The Bible does teach the acceptance of the sinner on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ. We are accepted by God in his Son Jesus Christ. Because Jesus Christ is the only person to have ever lived who is acceptable to God. So why would we spend our life grovelling for acceptance from those who’s acceptance is ultimately worthless?

Because as I thought about acceptance, I realized that if you seek acceptance from anything other than Christ, that will always come at a cost to your walk with Jesus Christ. I mean, so many people won’t get saved to begin with because they want acceptance from others rather than God. And because they need acceptance from this world or from friends or whatever… they’ll never get saved. This world will always demand you sell out on Jesus… because that is the price of acceptance. Peter had to sell his connection and association with Jesus Christ out to belong at their fireplace in their group.

So let’s get all of this in line. I recently thought about the phrase from Psalm 18:33 “He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet…” which means getting things “in line”. Lets get our thinking, speaking and doing “in line” with God’s word. And so getting “acceptance” in line with God’s word is this. Firstly, we must recognize that we are unacceptable to God in our unsaved state. The Bible clearly teaches that. And secondly we must recognize that acceptance from God is only gained by man through trusting in Jesus Christ, in whom our acceptance was procured, and is found and kept forever. You can accept yourself all you want, if you are not saved, you are going to hell. And you can have all the acceptance in the world and feel the love… but that doesn’t mean God accepts you, and it doesn’t mean you’re not going to hell. So acceptance is vital, it’s just we need acceptance from God, do you seek it from him?

God said to Cain, and the first mention of “accepted” in the Bible in Genesis 4:7 “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?” Is it that hard? Is God that unreasonable and unacceptable to you? Cain found God unacceptable to him. And many people find God unacceptable to them… and they refuse a very gracious and reasonable extension of God’s acceptance to them. Is it that hard to do well? Doing well is trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, upon the basis of who’s sacrifice is our acceptance. If you’ve believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, you’ve done well, because he did well, amen.

So God has made a way that you can be accepted, because you are unacceptable to him because of your sins, but God has made a way for you to be accepted… a gracious, merciful, loving but also holy, just, and perfect way… in his Son Jesus Christ. But this acceptance is only possible at the accepted time. As 2 Corinthians 6:2 says “(For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)” This is a time accepted, but it won’t always be an accepted time. For instance, if you die and go to hell, it will not longer be an accepted time to get right with God, because if you die in your sins, you will be unacceptable to God forever. That’s just the blunt truth. So you have acceptance at the acceptable time… why would you not choose the path of acceptance? Or you too proud and love your sin too much for that? I pray to God that you will believe in Jesus Christ and receive and live forever in the acceptance from God that Christ freely has given you.

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