Gregory Dickow - Radical Acceptance
Hi, I'm Gregory Dickow, and welcome to the Power to Change today and today we're going to get to the universal root to all of mankind's problems. Have you ever thought to yourself, I feel sad, I feel lonely, I feel depressed, I feel discouraged, and I don't know why. Well, when we discover why we can truly be free, you see anxiety and anger and sadness, loneliness, depression. They're all merely fruits of the root to all of man's problems. And what is it? It's found in one simple word, rejection.
Rejection is our greatest fear. And studies show it affects us emotionally and physically more than any other thing. We go to great lengths to be accepted and to avoid rejection. And why does rejection and the fear of it affect us so much is because of our need for love and acceptance. It's so strong that it magnifies and amplifies the power of rejection. So the solution to the spirit and feeling of rejection is what today's program is all about. I call it radical acceptance and radical means at the root. So we're going to go to the root of your heart and soul and find the amazing radical acceptance that Jesus paid so dearly for you to have and for you to feel. It's time for you to feel the freedom in the peace that comes from the radical acceptance of God's love.
A person rooted in rejection interprets a person's "no" or a jobs "no" or any "no". They interpret it differently than the person who's rooted in rejection. And so that's why what I'm interested in is helping you develop a route of acceptance. Because then you're going to stop falsely interpreting everything that happens in life as if you're the victim of everybody else's hatred and everybody else's rejection and everybody else turning on you, and then you begin to view the world in the worst way possible and you view the world and you view everybody else from your victim mentality of feeling rejected. Let's uproot that today. Can anybody say amen to that?
There are four primary fruits of rejection, there is doubt and fear. We doubt God loves us, therefore we're afraid he won't provide for us. Then there's anger. We get angry. Like Cain. We talked about how Cain offered to the Lord his offering. And the Bible says that God did not accept his offering. God rejected Cain's offering. He did not respect Cain's offering. And as soon as Cain felt rejected, the Bible says he became angry. Notice the first thing that happened when he felt rejected, he became angry. And then the next thing that happened was his countenance fell. So he became depressed. He became angry, and then he became depressed.
If we live our lives trying to overcome our anger and trying to overcome our our sad countenance, trying to overcome our depression, trying to overcome our hatred, trying to overcome our all these things, will will will constantly just be putting out fires. But we will never get to the root of the problem. And today we need to get to the root of the problem. And the root of the problem here was not his anger. It was not his depression. It was the rejection that he felt. And when you feel rejected, the fruit of it is anger. The fruit of it is depression, the fruit of it is loneliness. The fruit of it is self disapproval. And as a result, what most people are being taught in the world today is you got to overcome your anger, count to ten.
You've got to overcome your depression. You know, find it, find something funny, find something to laugh about. Take this pill, drink this drink, meet this person, find somebody to be your friend like you and love you. No, no, no. Those are there's nothing wrong with finding a friend. But when we are trying to cover up the symptoms of rejection by dealing with the loneliness, the anger, the fear, the the pride, all the things that go along with that rejection, the fruits of that rejection, when we try to deal with the symptoms, we can cover it up for a while, but we're never going to break free from it because we're not dealing with the root of the rejection. Rejection is at the root of all these other emotions. And that's why we need to deal with rejection.
And then anger will begin, the fruit of anger will begin to fall off of your tree. The fruit of depression will begin to fall off of your tree. The fruit of fear will begin to fall off of your tree. It's all rooted in rejection. Today we're going to deal with the root of rejection. And today, I want to talk to you about something very important that I like to call. And I hope that you'll understand this and you will as we go through it. But it's called radical acceptance, radical acceptance. And the word radical is actually the same word used for the word root. So in in algebra, they use the term radical, which means the root of the number.
And so when we talk about radical acceptance, we're talking about, at your root, having confidence that you are accepted at your root, having confidence that you are love, not just trying to cover up bad feelings with OK, God loves me, God loves me, God loves me. But no, the root of your life is that you are deeply moved and deeply convinced and deeply assured and deeply confident that you are accepted by God. That is what is called radical acceptance being accepted at the root, at the core, at the deepest part of your very soul and your very being. That's what I want to talk to you about. And I'm going to share four things about it in a few moments. But let me lay a little more groundwork.
Remember, we talked about four fruits of rejection, doubt and fear than anger, than self-pity and then denial, smiling on the outside while we're crying on the inside. And the definition of rejection or if you recall, is when you are hurt by words, actions or the neglect of others. Sometimes it's not overt by words and actions. Sometimes it's just something that was neglected. Your parents neglected you. Somebody neglected to say they love you or say something kind you and you interpreted it as rejection. You didn't get the job. So you interpreted it as rejection. You didn't get the date, so you interpreted it as rejection.
Instead, if you have a route of acceptance, then when somebody turns you down on a date, you're going to be like, wow, thank God that God delivered me from that opportunity for a better opportunity. That's coming because I know something better is coming. When my root is rooted in acceptance. I am expecting something good to happen. When I'm rooted in rejection, then I'm expecting something bad to happen. The root of rejection is that it expects bad things to happen and as a result it ends up in broken relationships. Failure at work, a life of doom and gloom. You're expecting punishment. You're expecting God to to do something, to harm you, to punish you. You feel naked all the time. You feel like you got to hide your true feelings. You got to hide yourself. You've got to hide from others that you're always.
A window shopper on the outside looking in, but you can never go into the store and buy the stuff because you don't feel worthy to receive it. You feel like you're going to get rejected. And so you live a safe life. Without ever going for the gold, without ever going for something great, without ever going for that great guy, going for that great girl, without going for that great job or that great career, that great education or that great position at church or whatever it is, wherever it is, instead of going for it, you you carve off a safe life for fear of being rejected.
If you step out there and go bald, if you step out there and get turned down, if you step out there and somebody says, no, you interpret that because you're rooted in rejection. You interpret their know as them rejecting you when really they're just rejecting the brush. You're trying to sell them. They're just rejecting the perfume. You're trying to sell them. They're just rejecting the car. You're trying to sell them. They're not rejecting you. But your attachment to their approval is suffocating you. And it's building a wall of prison around your life where you end up living in this small sphere. When God says, shoot for the stars, go after the best, go for the best dreams you could ever dream, the best people you could ever associate with the best life you could ever live.
But you're afraid to because what if they say no? What if they expose you? What if they say this about you? What if they say that about you? Let them say what they want to say. Let them believe what they want to believe. Let them think what they want to think. You got to get rooted in acceptance and you will never interpret people's rejection as something that you take personally that corrupts your soul and that gives you a false image of yourself. No, no, no. You're rooted in acceptance. Do you see the difference? If you can be treated, you can. Two people, one with a route of acceptance, one with a route of rejection, can be treated the same way. Two guys go up to the same girl at different time. She says no to both of them. She says, you know, I don't like your education. You you're ugly. Both of them.
The guy with the route of rejection interprets her no as his fault, the guy with acceptance interprets her no as a mistake. Why, when something happens to you, is your is your reflex panic, which is fear based, its peak, and this is not because you're not bad. You're not bad if you've had panic attacks, you're not bad if you've been stubborn, you're not bad. What you have to understand is instead of taking instead of taking classes on how to stop being stubborn, instead of taking classes on how to stop being angry, let's get the route of rejection out. And you're no longer finding the need to be right all the time. Let's get the route of rejection out. And you're no longer finding the need to be afraid all the time when you're not you don't know how you're going to get your bills paid. You don't know how you're going to make it through the bad doctor's report.
You know, because people who are rejection based are often people that no one has ever provided for them. So when they when something hits them, they don't know how to how to deal with they they think they default to. No one has ever provided for me. So no one's ever no one's going to provide for me in this situation. And I don't know what I'm going to do, but that's why God gives us the elixir. The the the medicine for rejection is Hebrews Chapter 13, verse five and six, where it says, I will never leave you nor forsake you. And if you look at this verse in the I got to show the sea in the amplified Bible, this is my favorite verse in the amplified Bible. Probably, he says, let your character be free from the love of money, including greed, avarice, lust and craving for earthly possessions, and be satisfied with your present circumstances, with what you have for God himself has said verse six.
I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. I will not. I will not. I will not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake you nor let you down. Relax my hold on you. And just in case you're not sure about that. Assuredly not, no. Now see, it wasn't enough that he said it's not enough that he said I will not. So he says it again. I will not. I will not. And it's not enough that he says I will not. I will not. So he says I will not. I will not. I will not three times. And that is not enough that he says, I will not. I will not. I will not. In case there's any question in your mind. Assuredly not. That's. Radical. Acceptance that's feeling accepted at the root and the core of your being, embrace God's radical acceptance.
What does that mean? Well, here's what it means to me. And you can think about how this applies to you as well, but. And you can fight this, you know, in your mind, but trust me when I say what I'm about to say, God doesn't need you to change for him to accept you. God doesn't need you to change for him to accept you. Now, there are people in our lives that need us to change before they accept us, but God does not need us to change before he accepts us, because if we have to change in order for God to accept us now, don't misinterpret this. That doesn't mean that you should stay the same the rest of your life. But you do not need to change in order to earn God's acceptance, because if you have to change to receive God's acceptance, it's really not acceptance at all.
And what you've done is you've learned a religious system of manipulation to manipulate or to make a trade with God that I will change. If you accept me and God says, no, I don't want you to change for me to accept you. I don't need you to change for me to accept you. And in fact, I don't even want to change you in order for me to accept you. Why is that so important to make that distinction? It's important because God knows that you have God knows that we have weaknesses. God knows that we have brokenness. God knows that we have mistakes and sins that we stumble over. He he doesn't want to strengthen you, heal you and change you.
In order to accept you, he wants to strengthen your weaknesses, heal your brokenness. And deliver you from whatever you're in bondage to, but not because he can't tolerate your weaknesses, not because he only loves half of you, not because he only loves a part of you, not because he he can't stand being around you unless you deal with that area of your life, not because he has disdain towards you, because of your weakness or because of your sin. No, Jesus paid for your sin. So God accepts you completely and unconditionally. And that's why it needs to be this radical acceptance of God or this or this this radical acceptance, this this sense of I receive and God's radical acceptance towards me. I embrace God's radical acceptance towards me because God never wants me to feel like I have to earn it. And if I ever feel that way.
I have distorted my relationship with God into a buying and selling relationship into a trading relationship, and God doesn't trade. He loves freely. He accepts you completely. The way you are, he doesn't leave us the way we are, but he accepts us the way we are, and until you come to grips with that, you'll have a wrong motive for changing. Well, I got to change so God will accept me. I got to stop doing this. So God will accept me. I got to stop doing that. So God will accept me. No, we need to embrace God's radical acceptance at the root. You are accepted. Remember Revelation one, verse five. And you know, I've said this verse for years.
Lady came up to me in between services and said, Pastor, I know that you you told us that you you you share things with us for years and years and years. Because, folks, I'm not here to be a fancy, fancy preacher. I'm not here to impress you with my words. I'm here to impress God's word upon you so that it leaves so that it leaves a mark on your life. It leaves an impression and engraving upon your life in such a way that everywhere you go, it it affects what is engraved in you, affects everything you touch. And what I want engraved in you is this is that God does not wash. You first so he can love you. He loves you first and then he washes you and this verse, Jesus Christ, the faithful witness first born from the dead, the ruler of the kings of the Earth to him who loved us. That's the first thing God did, was he loved us. God so loved the world that he gave us his only begotten son, that whoever should believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. It's not just that we want parish, but we'll have everlasting life.
We have this life, this relationship with God forever and ever without end. But he says to him, who loved us, so he loved us first, and then he washed us. If it said he washed us and then he loved us, then we would always feel like we got to be clean in order to get God to love us. But God, even though we grew up with parents, some of us had parents that only approved of us if we won the sport, if we were athletic, like they wanted us to be, if we were won the spelling bee like they wanted us to be, if they if we did this or we did that or we had this character, we were pretty. Is that what they want us to be? You're handsome as that or as fast as they want us to be. But the place where we're supposed to find this radical acceptance first is with our parents. But most of us as parents are selfish at times.
We're we're misguided. At times we're competitive. We want our kids to be better than other kids. We want to be prettier. We want to be faster and want to be smart. We want to get in the better college. We want to have better grades. We want to pass better test. We'll do better in sports. And this is not God's way. God wants us to experience and feel his radical acceptance first, and it says so. Then it says he loved us. And then what did he do? He washed us. God does not love what is washed. God washes what he loves. I want you to think about I want you I want you to to choose acceptance today, and I want you to think about some things that God says to you. He says, I chose you. You did not choose me. I chose you. He says that in John Chapter 15, he says, Come to me. Jesus says this one of his most memorable words to people was, come to me, Matthew, chapter 11, right. Verse twenty six, twenty seven twenty come to me. All that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.
Notice what he says. Come to me. It's an invitation. It's an acceptance. It's not. Stay away from me, you filthy sinner. It's come to me all that are weary. Come to me all that feel heavy come to me. If anybody wants to find rest. Come to me. Come to me. Come to me. He says in John 6:44. Anyone that comes to me I will in no way reject them. I will in no way cast them out. I will in no way turn you away. Come to me. Think. Think about the language of acceptance here in the Bible. It's the language of acceptance. When you have this as the root, then you interpret life God's way and you interpret life from a healthy point of view. I chose you. Come to me. I give you the right to become children of God. John 1:12 says you're a joint air with me. Romans 8:16 and 17 says I am yours and you are mine. Song of Solomon chapter 2 says You are my beloved Song of Solomon. Chapter 8 and chapter 2 says. You are accepted in the beloved.
Ephesians chapter 1 tells us you're accepted in the beloved look at Psalm twenty seven, verse 10. Now though, my father and mother forsake me. Notice what he says, though. My father and mother forsake me. Although my father and mother reject me, the Lord will take care of me. The Lord will take care of me. In other words, the the people, the primary source of our acceptance when we're born is from our father and mother. And if the very people that are the primary source of our acceptance reject us, God says, look, yes, you might be rejected by a teacher, a friend, an uncle and aunt, a niece and nephew, a brother or sister. But there's nothing worse than being accept being rejected by a father and a mother. And he says, when my father and mother reject me, the Lord will take care of me. And I want to read this to you from a few other translations. He says in the NIV, when when my father and mother reject me or forsake me, he will receive me the new living translation. When my father and mother forsake me, he will hold me close.
The English standard version. When my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me and. The English standard version, the Holeman translation. When my father and mother forsake me, he will care for me. And the ESV translation, I think they put that up flash that just a second ago, but look at this. Though my father and mother abandoned me, the Lord gathers me up. And you think of those words together. You are like if you had a one hundred one dollar bills and you pulled them out of your pocket, and the wind blew them, and they scattered all over the place, what would you do? You would gather them up. Why? Because they're scattered all over the place. And what God is saying is: when you are rejected and abandoned as a child or when you're rejected and abandoned by the people that you trusted the most, you're shattered. And the pieces of your soul are scattered and shattered, and God says, but I will gather you up. Gather up all the broken pieces, gather up all the shattered and scattered pieces. When you've been rejected, I'll gather you up.