When Pain Makes You Want to Close Your Heart

When life’s pressures knock you down, the answer isn’t to close your heart — it’s to root yourself deeper in Christ and community. Explore 2 Corinthians 6 with Pastor Brian Asker.

Under Pressure | Hope When Life is Too Much | May 3 – July 26

Transcript

Hey, good morning, friends. My name is Brian Asker. I’m one of the pastors here at Community Covenant Church. We are so glad that you are here today with us worshipping and on this special day that we get to celebrate becoming a self-governing church. It’s very exciting. We have been looking forward to this for a long time and uh so today is the day.

But I want to go back to last year. Last summer we had a tree that got blown down in our backyard. Super sad. But I want to be honest with you. It wasn’t the first tree that had been blown down in our backyard. The first one that I planted in the same spot. Well, I didn’t do a very good job of kind of pulling the root ball apart and so it never really established enough roots so that when the wind came poof >> [snorts] >> down it went. So sad. So I went back and planted another tree and this time I was going to make sure that that tree was going to survive. So I roughed up that root ball and made sure that it was ready to put down roots. And while it lasted a little longer it ultimately suffered the same fate. The wind came and blew it down.

Friends, sometimes our lives are like the trees in my backyard. They get blown around and they get knocked down. We get knocked down and it feels frustrating. The winds blow. Culture political winds health relational crises all sorts of things come blowing at our lives and they blow us down. And so that’s what we’re going to be talking to about today in uh today’s passage. We’re going to be in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 if you want to open up your Bible and join us. We’re going to be in the NIV version today. And this is part of our under pressure series. We’ve been talking about Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church. This is the second letter and both Paul and the Corinthians are under some pretty big pressure. And they’ve got some relational tension, some conflict that they’re dealing with. And so Paul writes this pretty personal letter to them and we found that Paul has talked about some different ways that we can approach conflict and pressure in the ways that we live in relationship with one another. So we’ve talked about how you know, because we experience conflict, we can actually grow. We can become better people. It doesn’t have to break us. It can actually actually shape us and make us and mold us into different people. It can actually help us connect with other people. And of course today, we’re going to talk about how when pain makes you want to close up your heart because you just keep getting blown down.

So let’s jump into 2 Corinthians chapter 6 starting in verse number one. It says this, “As God’s co-workers, we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. For he says, ‘In the time of my favor, I heard you and in the day of salvation, I helped you. I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor. Now is the day of God’s salvation.'”

So uh we’re talking about the previous chapter in chapter 5. Paul’s talking about reconciliation, reconciling with humans and the people that he’s been in relationship. And he calls them to be reconcilers as well, to be people who would make amends, to make things right with one another. Here in chapter 6, Paul warns them not to receive this kind of grace in vain. Not to experience God’s forgiveness while refusing to extend that same grace to other people. The quote that he has from Isaiah uh further drives this home. He says, “God’s promised rescue isn’t something that they’re waiting for anymore.” He says, “The day of salvation has arrived.” God’s grace is available right now. You don’t have to wait. The question is, will you respond to that grace? Put another way, if God reconciled us to himself when we were his enemies, what does it look like for us to receive that grace deeply? One evidence that we have experienced that and received that grace is that we become people who extend that grace to other people.

We love the idea of reconciliation, right? We love it when people forgive us, right? Love it when I get forgiven. But, here’s where it gets uncomfortable. What happens when we have to forgive somebody that has hurt us super deeply? That gets uncomfortable, right? That one stings. This was not a theoretical conversation that Paul’s having with the Corinthians. Earlier in the letter, Paul had actually urged them to forgive a man who had deeply hurt their entire community. And the question is, would they forgive this person? And the question that we have for us out of this text then is, will we forgive those who have hurt us? Forgiveness is an act of vulnerability. It means refusing to let the pain that we’ve experienced close our hearts from the other person. And the truth is that God’s grace was never meant to stop us from receiving it, and it was never meant to stop us from extending it to other people. So, that’s what a life shaped by God looks like.

And Paul goes on to tell us a little bit more about that in verse three. He says, “We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God, we commended ourselves in every way, in great endurance, in troubles, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, imprisonments, and riots, in hard work, sleeplessness, hunger, impurity, understanding, patience, and kindness, in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love, in truthful speech and in the power of God, with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left. Through the glory and dishonor, bad report and good report, genuine, yet regarded as impostors, known, yet regarded as unknown, dying, and yet we live on. Beaten, yet not killed, sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, poor, yet making many rich, having nothing, and yet possessing everything. We have spoken freely to you Corinthians and opened wide our hearts to you. We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are wholly withholding from yours from us. As a fair exchange, I speak to you as children, open wide your hearts also.”

So, I mentioned earlier, this is Paul’s most personal letter. Paul’s laying before them all of the things that he has experienced in this world because of his desire and willingness to bring the good news of God’s love to other people. So, some of these hardships that he’s experienced have been inflicted by other people, like beatings and like imprisonment. Other people did those things to him, but other people other of the things that he’s experienced were self-imposed. So, laboring and working and sleeping not sleeping all night, fasts were things that Paul did to himself because he loved this group of Corinthians so much. He He lays out all of these sufferings and hardships and this list because he wants to share God’s love and good news with them. He wants to know them and the goal isn’t just empathy. He’s not just looking for that. He’s showing them what it cost him to bring them the good news of reconciliation. And he’s saying, “This is what faithful ministry looks like. The marks of my ministry aren’t comfort and prestige, they’re endurance. They’re sacrifice. They’re truthfulness and love.”

So, after he lists all these hardships, Paul finally tells them why he’s sharing them. He’s not trying to impress them. He’s not trying to guilt them. He’s saying, “We opened our hearts to you. Will you open your hearts to us?” Paul isn’t inviting them into suffering. He’s inviting them to love others. And love requires vulnerability. You cannot reconcile with people while keeping your heart protected from them. And that means setting aside some of our own comfort, some of our own prestige for the sake of others. Vulnerability is costly. Opening your heart means risking rejection, disappointment, and pain. Paul knows that because he’s experiencing that right now. He says, “You’ve been withholding from me.”

People often ask me, “Brian, how much should I, as a Christian, sacrifice?” What do you think? How much? You can fill in the blank with somebody who’s struggling with mental health, somebody who’s addicted, somebody who isn’t following Jesus’ commands. How much should I pursue and love that person? Hm. I don’t know. But, I do know this. Our model is Jesus and Paul. And Jesus went to the cross for us. Jesus suffered death for us. Paul has all of these things that he has done for the people of Corinthian church because he loves them. That’s our model. That’s hard. Question is, will you keep your heart open when everything in you wants to close it? In other words, will you keep loving people even when it costs you something? Maybe something dear. We aren’t asking how much can I get away with sacrificing. The question is, am I keeping my heart open to loving this person. Because open hearts inevitably leads to some level of sacrifice.

Having said all this, Paul has some warnings for the Corinthians because being vulnerable with your life does not mean that you give everyone equal influence over your life. That’s the concern that Paul has for the Corinthian church. Uh while Christian love does require vulnerability, Christian wisdom also requires discernment. So, in verse 14, he says, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. What do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? That’s a word for Satan. Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?”

All right. So, while Paul wants them to keep their hearts open, he also wants them to know that their hearts can easily be led astray. There needs to be some level of relationship where there is trust established. And there are some relationships that are incompatible with that kind of trust. And we need to be aware of that. Paul uses the imagery of a yoke. A yoke isn’t some sort of casual association. It’s about a partnership. Two animals coming together to head in the same direction and accomplish more than they can on their own. Righteousness and wickedness, light and dark, Christ and Belial or Satan, are working in opposite directions. It’s hard to work together with somebody who’s going the opposite direction.

So, at this point, you might be saying, “Paul, we get it. These things don’t go together. What’s your point?” Well, in verse 16 he says, “What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said, ‘I will live with them and walk among them and will be their God and they will be my people. Therefore, come out from them and be separate,’ says the Lord. ‘Touching no unclean thing and I will receive you. And I will be a father to you and you will be my sons and daughters,’ says the Lord Almighty. Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.”

So, Paul uses the imagery of the temple and he quotes six different passages from the Old Testament. And these are not random passages that he quotes. N.T. Wright says that all of these together say that the Messiah, God, has fulfilled his many promises, particularly his promises that he would bring his people back from exile. So, this is not an issue of morality or purity, primarily. It’s an issue of covenant identity. You are God’s people. That’s why this separation matters. Put another way, Paul’s primary concern isn’t proximity as in how close they are to people who are doing evil, it’s influence. Who is shaping your life? Who’s directing your loyalties? What voices are you listening to? And who is pulling on your heart?

The kind of partnership that Paul is talking about in verse 14 could be a business partnership, but it could also be a marriage. Any relationship that is influencing your life and is causing you to head in a particular direction. Paul wants you to think about any one of those voices that is causing you to go a certain direction. Heed this warning. Paul doesn’t want them to enter into close relationships with people that will keep them from living out the goodness of God’s love and his values of caring for other people. Paul does want the Corinthians to open their hearts, but open your hearts to the wrong influences can lead you down a path of destruction. So, use discernment. Are the people you trust mostly seeking after God’s own heart? Or are they leading you away from Jesus?

Doesn’t mean that we don’t have relationships with people who are not followers of Jesus. Instead, we recognize that the value of someone who’s following Jesus and how they’re going to be different than one who isn’t following Jesus. Paul refuses the two extremes of running away from people or letting people influence them. He refuses isolation from the world. That’s impossible. Instead, he calls us to open-heartedly love and whole-heartedly love everyone, but he also calls us to whole-hearted devotion to Christ. So, to check your devotion, ask yourself, which voices am I listening to? Which story is shaping my life? And which kingdom am I following? God’s grace uh asks us to open our hearts to everyone, but it doesn’t give our allegiance away to anybody but Christ. Put another way, love everyone, but be careful who shapes you.

So, let’s get practical. How do we do this? I think it gets down to two practices that I’m going to suggest today. Number one is bless everybody. Bless, if you are new here, is an acronym that we use at Community Covenant to remind ourselves how we are to love other people. There is a missional practices that we use to love people. And it’s simply this. Begin with prayer, B. Listen with care, L. Eat together, E. Serve others, S. And share your story and God’s story. Five missional practices that we want to do indiscriminately. Everybody gets blessed. We want to bless as many people as we can. Don’t isolate from people because God’s called us to bless them. But the funny thing about blessing people is that every one of those five practices, prayer, beginning with prayer, listening with care, eating together, serving others, sharing your story and God’s story, you know what they require? Vulnerability. If I’m going to open my heart up to somebody, I open up the risk of them hurting me. If I’m going to bless them, I open up the risk of letting them hurt me. So, we don’t want to withdraw from people. We want to bless people. Keep pursuing people. Keep blessing people.

But, when we experience that vulnerability, it means we can get blown down, right? So, the second practice is that we want to be rooted somewhere. Stay connected to Jesus. Stay connected to Christian community. Coming to church, going to small group, reading your Bible, praying, these practices help us put down deep roots. These practices help us stay connected to the truth, >> [snorts] >> which is especially important to in today’s world where there are so many different voices that are competing for our attention and telling us what’s right and what’s wrong. It’s easy to be vulnerable. It’s hard to be vulnerable. It’s easy to get blown down. But being rooted in Christ helps us and helps us to stay standing up firmly.

This is a really good time to mention that we have a phenomenal prayer ministry team that will be available after the sermon during the worship that can pray with you and for you. Because it’s really hard to do this thing on your own. And they would love to pray with you, pray for you. They’ve been trained. They’d love to discern with you what God’s speaking to you, the voice of Jesus. Come alongside you and help you. They’ll even follow up with you if you let them. But they’ll respect your space if you need it.

So, the funny thing about living in Mankato is that you can’t avoid the wind. It’s part of living on the prairie. The trees in my backyard will continue to face strong winds. Right? So, when I went to the nursery to replace the two trees that had already fallen down. I told the owner about the situation and I said, “You know, we kind of live in this wetland. The back of my yard just kind of goes down and the low area right there. I think that’s why these trees aren’t surviving.” He said, “You’re totally right. Here’s what I want you to do this time. When you plant this tree, plant the root ball above the ground and put pile up dirt around it so that then the tree will be forced to put down deep roots.” I would have never thought of that myself. I do not have a green thumb. It might be purple because I’ve killed so many trees.

But I think in the same way in our lives, we get blown around. The winds of life come and they hit us. And the question is, do we have deep enough roots that when the winds come, we don’t get blown down? The answer to dealing with wind and with pain is not to close up our hearts. The answer is that we root ourselves in Jesus and in Christian community. We come to church. We go to Bible study. We pray. And we spend time with Jesus. That’s what’s going to keep us from getting blown down when the winds come. And that is exactly why Community Covenant Church exists. Because we all need a community. We need help connecting with Jesus and with each other so that we don’t get blown down.

Let’s pray. God, thank you for your word that reminds us of the truth that we can come to you and that we can root our hearts and our lives in you. And that we can withstand the winds because we have people around us that love us and care for us and because we have you with us. Help us to put down deep roots in you. Help us to trust in you. Help us to trust in our community. And help us be a community that holds on tightly when our friends are getting pulled this way and that. Amen.