Acceptance

Bobby and Me
I remember pretty vividly what happened one night while I was in high school over 16 years ago. Come back with me to the Fall Classic at Narbonne High School in Harbor City CA. I don’t remember the date but I do know it was a Friday night. This Friday was one of the hardest nights I had ever faced in high school. It wasn’t an outward battle but an inward battle. Allow me to set the scene:

Robert Lee Bethea Jr was his name, people called him “Slugger.” He stands 5'8" on a good day. He was in his fifth year with the Marine Corps. He had one year left in reserve duty. He is black. He joined the Marines two-weeks before his high school graduation, so he wasn’t a high school graduate. He was shiftless and sought to get out of any real work. Not a great guy to know. He started to do drugs in the Corps and continued when he arrived back at “The Rock.” “The Rock” was the nickname we gave the place we lived in: Harbor Hills. Or better known as the governmental projects, home of the poor boys. Not a great place, not a bad place if you had no money like my family.

Slugger was a strange person. He wanted to train to be a sniper so he would never be in battle. So, the Corps trained him to kill from a distance. He was good. I cannot rate him in relation to the movie Sniper but he was good. He was never sent on assignment. One thing that happens when you are a sniper, you get the heavy gun. He got real tired real soon of carrying that gun. He did whatever he could to get out of the ten mile hikes or any training exercise for that matter. His work ethic was more involved in how to avoid work than really doing it. One day a captain asked if anybody in Slugger’s platoon would be willing to play volleyball for the Corps. Slugger never played volleyball but saw it as a way out of the training exercises and took it. For the duration of his military career he was in volleyball.

When he went into the reserves, drugs got the better of him and he soon was a space cadet. He would hang out with druggies. He was an enigma though. He loved sports. He played basketball in high school, football whenever and wherever he could, and baseball (hence “Slugger”). He grew to love volleyball and any sport there was. Yet he was still tied down to drugs, sex, and alcohol. Not the type of person I wanted to know.

He had some other habits which I wasn’t too thrilled with. He had the tendency to take stray cats to the ocean and whirl them around his head and snap their tails and them off the pier. He stayed in his upstairs room and shot out peoples windows in other apartments. He lived for attention and did what he could do to get it.

Everybody at the Rock liked Slugger because he had a source for drugs or whatever else they wanted him for. I remember something that happened a week before that Friday night I previously mentioned. Slugger heard there was to be an alumni basketball game at Narbonne High and was to play starting point guard for the alumni. He had invited close to fifty people to come and see him play. He wanted as many people as possible in the stands to cheer him on-true to his character. He was close friends with my sister, who had also done drugs and the whole bit. He wanted people there, so he asked me. He had never met me. He made fun of me. He joked about me being a good guy and laughed at my values. I still don’t know why he asked me. I didn’t want to go. I wasn’t going to go. Why should I support someone whose lifestyle I had grown to hate from distance. I saw the things he and my sister were doing and I didn’t like it at all. So, I refused to go. Of course, I didn’t tell him that, being the nice guy that I am I told him I would try but not to count me in. All the others said they would be there, no problem.

The Friday of the game had arrived. I wasn’t going to go. I flatly refused. I even had my pajamas on to make sure I wouldn’t go. I couldn’t drive and I wasn’t going to walk to the school which was about 2 miles away. So, I sat down getting ready to watch my Friday night line up on TV. The game started at 8:00. I sat down to watch TV but all my shows were preempted from 6:00 to 8:00. No problem, I figured I would play guitar and watch Miami Vice when it came on later that night. I was set. Then I felt a prompting to go to the game. I said no. My guitar strings were broken. I felt a prompting to go to the game, I said no. Miami Vice commercials came on and it was a re-run of one of the shows I didn’t like. I felt a prompting to go to the game, I said no. From 6:00 to 8:30 I struggled. God was telling me to go to the game. I couldn’t because I didn’t like the guy who had invited me. After 2 and a half hours of inner struggling, I said I would go to the game.

I got dressed and started to walk to the school. I got there at 9:00. The game was only half over. There was no one else in the gym from the Rock. None of Slugger’s friends showed. No one but me. Slugger was happy to see someone and walked over to talk to me. He asked me why I showed up and I didn’t really have an answer for him (at least not one that he would understand). Slugger didn’t have a car so we both walked back to the Rock. It took over 2 hours to get back home that night. Slugger had a lot of questions for this “good” guy to answer. He asked about Jesus and Hell and Heaven and why I believe in such things. He left me that night not as a Christian but not as a guy that I could hate anymore. Here was a man seeking acceptance from anyone but needed to see that God accepts him through Jesus.

About two weeks later the Hollywood Fire happened. If you never heard of this, it was big and could be seen for miles and miles and miles. The Rock is next to San Pedro. It is about 30 miles from Hollywood and 2.5 miles from where Slugger had moved to. Slugger was at the Rock and started to have an LSD flashback. He went crazy for a time. He saw the fire and thought God had come to destroy him. He ran away from the fire toward his home. I can’t explain what happened next. Here is the legend that has been built around this incident. Slugger started to run and in ten minutes was next to the park by his house. He was passing bicycles and some cars. He passed out at the corner, two or three blocks from his house. People gathered around him. When he woke up the next day, he was in his bed.

Robert Lee Bethea Jr a.k.a. Slugger became a Christian that bizarre night. I asked him what happened to him to cause him to become a Christian. Was it the fire? No. Was it the fear of judgment? No. What was it? It was a guy telling him about Jesus on a night when no one else would come to see him at a basketball game in Harbor City two weeks before. I didn’t think anything happened. It did. He began to realize the God of all creation loved him and accepted him just where he was. It was because a scared little guy who didn’t like a guy named Slugger was so compelled by God to go to a game and a God who caused no one else to be there that a soul was saved.

This is dramatic stuff. God intervened in his life and my life. He wanted me to see that He accepts everybody and I should too. He showed me that I needed to be ready to testify of Him but I also need to be willing to go where He leads.

Today, Bobbie is very committed to God and has done a mighty work for the kingdom of God. He was miraculously healed from the drugs (no flashbacks) and his other addictions have seem to have vanished. God has used him mightily in my ministries over the years as-well.

Acts 10.1 At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. 2 He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly. 3 One day at about three in the afternoon he had a vision. He distinctly saw an angel of God, who came to him and said, "Cornelius!" 4 Cornelius stared at him in fear. "What is it, Lord?" he asked. The angel answered, "Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. 5 Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. 6 He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea." 7 When the angel who spoke to him had gone, Cornelius called two of his servants and a devout soldier who was one of his attendants. 8 He told them everything that had happened and sent them to Joppa.

With Bobby, as I now call him, I didn’t know what had happened in his life before I arrived on the scene. His mother had been praying for him for decades and he was searching for acceptance. Like Cornelius he was seeking but I wouldn’t have thought so because of the way he lived and who he was (his rep).

As we read the remainder of this account, we see that Peter makes the same mistakes.

Acts 10.9 About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. 10 He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11 He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. 12 It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air. 13 Then a voice told him, "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat." 14 "Surely not, Lord!" Peter replied. "I have never eaten anything impure or unclean." 15 The voice spoke to him a second time, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." 16 This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven. 17 While Peter was wondering about the meaning of the vision, the men sent by Cornelius found out where Simon's house was and stopped at the gate. 18 They called out, asking if Simon who was known as Peter was staying there. 19 While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, "Simon, three men are looking for you. 20 So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them." 21 Peter went down and said to the men, "I'm the one you're looking for. Why have you come?" 22 The men replied, "We have come from Cornelius the centurion. He is a righteous and God-fearing man, who is respected by all the Jewish people. A holy angel told him to have you come to his house so that he could hear what you have to say." 23 Then Peter invited the men into the house to be his guests. The next day Peter started out with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa went along.

Peter had a hard time accepting anything that wasn’t what he was used to. He felt, if you weren’t Jewish you weren’t nothing. That was the way Jewish people were raised. They dislike anyone who was not of their race. They felt because God had chosen them they were special. But Deuteronomy tells them that God chose them for no reason in particular. Peter was having a struggle not unlike the one I had that Friday night. It took him some time to realize that God was going to reach the Gentiles and wanted Peter to be part of it. I believe if Peter didn’t do it someone else would have been called as is the case with my friends Darrell and Teresa. . . .

There are sometime though that God will not send another person, it has to be you or no one. Much like it was Peter and me and, even Mary. It took some doing but Peter went, much as I did.

Acts 10.24 The following day he arrived in Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25 As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. 26 But Peter made him get up. "Stand up," he said, "I am only a man myself." 27 Talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. 28 He said to them: "You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean. 29 So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection. May I ask why you sent for me?" 30 Cornelius answered: "Four days ago I was in my house praying at this hour, at three in the afternoon. Suddenly a man in shining clothes stood before me 31 and said, 'Cornelius, God has heard your prayer and remembered your gifts to the poor. 32 Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He is a guest in the home of Simon the tanner, who lives by the sea.' 33 So I sent for you immediately, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us." 34 Then Peter began to speak: "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism 35 but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right. 36 You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. 37 You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached-- 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him. 39 "We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, 40 but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. 41 He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen--by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. 43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name." 44 While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. 45 The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. 46 For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God. Then Peter said, 47 "Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water? They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have." 48 So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days.

When Peter got their he was prepared to tell them the Gospel as Paul tells us we should be in 2 Timothy 4.2. If I wasn’t ready to tell Bobby about Jesus, Heaven, and Hell, I question, would he have become a Christian? People come to know Jesus as we accept them as God accepts them.

Do you accept people?

Conclusion

The greatest commandment, which are going to look at this weekend, tells us to love our neighbour and that means to accept them. Jesus was the great acceptor. He spoke to the harlot, the adulterer, the tax-collector, and the out-cast of society. The Old Testament tells us that He came to reach these types of people. Jesus states He came to reach the lost, and heal the sick. Anybody who is without Jesus is eternally sick and we must be prepared to tell them the cure for their sickness.

Who do you accept and reach out to? Who is the Cornelius or Bobby of your life?

Action for the Retreat

Go to people this retreat and talk with them about what God has done for you so you can get used to telling others about Jesus.

Go to God this retreat and ask Him to help you tell others about Him when we return home, to put people in your hearts and minds to speak with.

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