Take your Bibles, please, and turn with me this morning to 2 Corinthians chapter 6. 2 Corinthians chapter 6. We are continuing a study that we are doing on this book. That to me is, you know, it's not, you know, when you think of Corinthians, normally people think of 1st Corinthians. But there's so many powerful and precious nuggets of truth that are in 2nd Corinthians. And you also begin to notice some things as you study through this book that are just a blessing to your soul and heart to understand the working of God in people and the working of God through circumstances that are difficult and troubling even. And so this morning we come in our study to chapter six, verses three to 13. And we're going to be looking at this theme of holding out your heart. See if you can't grab onto this as we stand together and read the word of God. Second Corinthians, chapter six, beginning with verse three. Keep in mind, this is Paul writing to the church. there in Corinth. We put no obstacle in anyone's way so that no fault may be found with our ministry. But as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way by great endurance and afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger, By purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love. By truthful speech and the power of God. With the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left. Through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise, we are treated as imposters, yet are true. As unknown and yet well known. As dying and behold we live. As punished and yet not killed. As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. We are treated as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing, yet possessing everything. We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians. Our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. In return, I speak as to children, widen your hearts also. Let's pray. Our Fathers, we come to this passage of Scripture, we come to You with thankful hearts because we have this, Your Word, and we have it in such a unique way. Looking in at the letter that Paul composed to the Corinthians, and yet a letter that is ordained of You, a letter by which every single word is inspired of the Holy Spirit. And because of that we are confident it has something more to say than just the words Paul said to the Corinthians, but it has something to say to us as we look at it and seek to understand what Paul was saying, why he was saying it, to whom he was saying these things, and what their response was to be. And so help us, we pray, as we give our attention to the Word this morning. Would you be honored and glorified, Father, by opening our hearts and minds, taking off the veil, removing the understandings and the restrictions that are ours by nature, so that we can feed upon the Word, we can feast, and that we can leave this place today with fresh energy, with fresh understanding, perhaps even some this morning leaving this place today having come to a knowledge of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. But for those who have already come to that knowledge, who are gathered, would we, Lord, just be able to leave here today energized, strengthened, Lord, and understanding you better and more deeply related to you than ever before? And we ask it in the precious name of Jesus. Amen. You may be seated. What we see in this passage this morning is a cry from the heart of Paul. It's a heart cry in which he's got his heart wide open and he's explaining to the Corinthians, this is how I am relating to you. And Paul is begging these Corinthians to relate back to him in the same way. Hearts open. No pretense, no deception, honesty, sincerity, no hypocrisy. And so as Paul is urging upon them to respond to his overtures of love in the same kind of way, he is putting on display what it is to have an open heart. how an open heart and how a heart that is opened wide is displayed to others. And so this morning we're going to take a look at the nature of the open heart as Paul unfolds it for us. And then we're going to come back and consider Paul's plea that the Corinthians open their hearts to him in return. So we start off this morning by noticing the Prince of the open heart. The Prince of the open heart. Who is the prince of an open heart? Well, that comes out very clearly in this passage this morning. The prince of a truly open heart is the Lord. Paul says in verse 4, But as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way. So Paul is setting forth the evidence of a blameless ministry. It is blameless in that there are no questionable motives, no pretense, only the sincere love-fueled offer of truth. It is the ministry of an open heart. When you look inside the heart, the claims that are being made on the outside are the same as those claims that are being made on the inside. The ministry is sincere and genuine and transparent. It hides nothing and it is unrestrained in its love for those it ministers to. Paul's is a blameless ministry, first and foremost, because it is a ministry that is rendered from the heart of a servant. As servants of God, we commend ourselves. As one who has no rights or claims of his own, we commend ourselves. We are servants. Paul exists to serve his master and to do the bidding of his master. Paul has a master and that master is God. It is as a servant of God then that he commends himself in every way. He did not come to the Corinthians and he did not speak to the Corinthians because of his own designs or something he wanted to get from them or do to them. This is because he's a servant of God that he came there. And so from the very outset, the whole idea of him having an open heart is there because first and foremost he's serving God. I came to Corinth because it was God's will that I be there. I served you and preached the gospel because God sent me. So it is because of God that I was there. There's an important fact here. As long as you are not serving God, you're serving yourself. And as long as you're serving yourself, you will never be able to love as God loves. You will never be able truly to truly love. Until you are serving God, you're only serving yourself. And so it's only when self gets out of the way that you can truly be open-hearted to others. And we can't get self out of the way until the Lord is the one who's on the throne of our hearts and we are serving him. And so the first thing that Paul reveals about his open heart towards the Corinthians is that there is a king here. There is a master here and I have submitted to him and I can actually love you because I'm not living for me. I'm living for him. Does that make sense? And that's what Paul is saying. You know, so many times in our lives, we say we love things, but what we mean is, I like what they do for me. You know, that's the way I love pizza. Sometimes. Because sometimes I don't like what it does for me. But when I say I love pizza, or when I say I love some food, I like it because I enjoy it. If I love a car, you know, it's not that I'm devoted to the car, it's that it is cool. It makes me look good when I'm in the driver's seat. You know, who's at the heart of that? It's me. So you can't love, genuinely love, unless it's a selfless love that's committed to the well-being of others. And so Paul begins this whole display of what it means for him to love these Corinthians with an open heart by saying, it is as a servant of God that I do this. That should make it more powerful and more meaning to them. And what it brings to our attention is the fact that we, you know, as long as we're living for ourselves, We're going to have a great deal of conflict in every relationship in our life. Because the most important person in all those relationships is us. It's only when we're serving Him that all those relationships become driven by God Himself. And He's the most important person in all those relationships. That's then when we can truly love. So I want you to look for just a minute this morning at what is driving your love for others. Why do you love them? Or is it that you love them or is it that you love them for what they can do for you? If they weren't able to do that any longer, you wouldn't love them any longer. Are you being driven by you or are you being driven by God? I think this is critical in what Paul says as he begins to unfold these characteristics of a truly open heart. No pretense because I'm here because God sent me. I'm here for His glory and I'm here to manifest His love to you. Okay, not only then do we see the prince of the open heart, but there's also a price. We secondly want you to see this morning the price of an open heart. As Paul further unfolds the nature of his love, he says this, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way by great endurance. And then he lists these things that he has endured. Afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger. An open, authentic and sincere heart carries with it a price. If you really love this way, you are going to pay a price. It is sacrificial love. I mean, Jesus put it this way. Greater love has no one than this, than he'd lay down his life for his friends. He sacrifices himself for the well-being of others. The greatest love, the truest love is self-sacrificial. That's the love that Jesus embodies. That's the love with which we have been loved by Him. And so when we serve, truly serve as servants of God, then we will love like He loves. That means we will love sacrificially. That means, that's what Paul is saying, look, I'm open hearted. This is how much I love. This is to display the truth of my love. I have weathered the storm of all of these things for the purpose of opening my heart to you, preaching the gospel to you, ministering to you. And there's some really, there's some things here that you and I just would not, would avoid if at all possible. You know, who in here likes a sleepless night? Where you toss and turn and you wonder, you look at the clock and it says 3.15. And then you close your eyes for what seems like an eternity and you open again and it says 3.16. Well, no digital clocks in that day, but Paul knew what it was to be awake and go, you know, my heart is heavy. My heart is heavy for the lost. My heart is heavy and burdened for the churches, for the disturbances that are coming into the churches where these false teachers are preaching false things and trying to drag away the believers after themselves. For those who are arguing and fussing with each other and aren't getting squarely with their attention set on Jesus and they're all concerned about their own things and so that's a concern there in Philippi. And all of these things that are on his mind, not to mention the fact that here he is between two soldiers trying to sleep, and they're snoring so loud perhaps that he can't get any ounce of relief. But there's sleepless nights, there's hunger. Think of the beatings that Paul details in other places that he went through. We know he was imprisoned. Paul is just going through this. Why did he go through these things? Why would he be in prison and in the middle of the night sing songs of worship and praise? Because his life is about a whole lot more than where he is. It's about a whole lot more than whether he's asleep or not when he wants to be asleep. Or hungry. See, why would a person subject himself to things like this if he could help it? Why did Paul live a life and pursue a path that meant that he would be experiencing hunger? That he would be experiencing sleepless nights? That he would be in prison? Well, Paul tells us the answer to the question, why would he do it? 2 Timothy 2, listen. He was explaining to Timothy why he did all the things he did for preaching the gospel. And he says this, I endure everything for the sake of the elect. that they may obtain the salvation that is in Christ with eternal glory. And so you see, this is what's running through the heart of Paul when he says to the Corinthians, my heart is open wide. And when he begins to say, and the proof of it is, beatings, riots, calamities, hunger, sleepless nights, all spent in an effort to proclaim and further the gospel of the truth, and be as sure as I can that you have not left the path of the truth. People who are in it for themselves don't want sacrifice and they will flee from sacrifice. But people whose lives belong to the Lord Jesus Christ are willing to serve regardless of the cost, regardless of the sacrifice. They take up the cross of Christ and follow. And so they endure trouble and they do so for the gospel. They do so for the glory of Christ. They do so for those whom God has chosen from the foundation of the world. And it completely changes how they begin to look at Hardships, not only hardships, but hardships that come as a result of the fact that they are serving. You see, let's jump for a minute into the context of our own personal relationships with the people at home. We never fuss and fight with anybody at home, do we? We never feel like anybody at home neglects us or takes advantage of us, right? Silence. Why do we? The question here that I want to explore is not so much why do we, but the reality of it. How do we respond when we feel that way? What do we do? You didn't do this. You did that. You're taking advantage. We want to get everything back that we got coming to us. That is not the spirit of love. That's not the spirit that Paul is calling. Look, he wants to serve so he's willing to endure all these things. Because his greatest concern is the spiritual condition of these people that he loves. So we want to know sometimes why is it we're having such conflict in our homes that we just want to give up, throw it all away and walk away. Because it's hard. What we're showing is that we don't want to sacrifice. What we don't understand is that if we really love, then we will willingly sacrifice. We'll give up rights. We'll give up our selfish pursuits. It's not about me, it's about Christ. And so even in my home, what about my workplace? And what about the church? This kind of self-giving, sacrificial love that Paul is saying he has for the Corinthians is something we need in all of these areas. Christians, followers of Christ, need to display it. And it's not just a need to display it. If you really love him, he's shown you what love is. Lay down your life with the goal and the pursuit of the well-being of others. And so when we do that, then sacrifices and afflictions and trials that we make to love are ways of endurance that actually prove the reality of our love. And so thank God for your trials and thank God for the little arguments that give you an opportunity to forgive. They give you an opportunity to have a little taste of the whopping big taste that fills the heart of God with reference to you. Because you have belittled Him. You have gone against Him. You have turned away from Him. And you still do now that you're a believer. You still have those times where you just are so full of you and so empty of Him. And those little squabbles and those little disagreements, those little conflicts that allow you the opportunity of forgiving someone else. are an opportunity for you to not only display the mercy of God in your forgiveness, but also to think in your heart, this times a thousand is God's love to me. So there is the price of an open heart. It pays a sacrificial price. And thirdly, this morning, I want you to see the proof of an open heart. Paul shows us not only the prince of an open heart and the price of an open heart, but proof, the evidence of a real open heart and its character. If you look in verses six and seven, you see a list of things that are character-oriented things. He says in verse 6, purity and knowledge, that's less of character and more of a quality, but it does affect his character. Patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love. These things are proofs that his heart is open because there's purity. There is a singleness about his purpose. It's a genuine purpose. It's not full of uncleanness. It's not full of impurities. It's a pure thing. So that's one of the things Paul would have us see here is that he wants the Corinthians to know that he doesn't have thoughts and motives that are out of sync with genuineness. He doesn't have ulterior motives. He doesn't have a hidden agenda. And this is all based on knowledge and truth. He's driven by who and what he knows. And his grasp of truth, Paul's grasp of truth is mind-boggling. That's because as he reveals in the Scripture more than once, he's got the knowledge he has because Jesus revealed it to him. And so based on what he knows, then he is behaving with reference to other people and purity. He is patient and He is kind. I mean, He is not trying to manipulate. He wants to lovingly lead. He wants to put the truth out there and draw and help the people to come to it and walk faithfully in it. All these things are produced by the Holy Spirit, whom Paul also mentions that the Holy Spirit produces love. and joy, and peace, and patience, and kindness, and faithfulness, all these things, gentleness, self-control. This is what the Spirit produces. This is evidence that the Spirit's there, then there's a heart change. God is at work, and God is producing the openness, and God is producing a ministry out of love and genuine care and concern. Paul truly loved the genuine love he mentions. So how we live is a reflection It's a reflection of the gospel that we proclaim. Paul was able to say that the way he conducted himself from the very character of his heart was not a stumbling block for the Corinthians. What about you? Is your life putting a stumbling block in front of other people so that they can't hear what you're saying about the gospel because your life is speaking so loud in a contradictory way? Sometimes silence is louder than words. Actions, you say, What people see, they can't hear you because of what they see. But on the other hand, if your life emulates the gospel, what they see is going to emphasize what you say. When you urge them to be reconciled with God, when you tell them there's forgiveness and a new heart and a new life. And so that's what was going on. Paul is saying, look, you've seen my life. you know my heart is open before you. And next, Paul reveals the power of an open heart. We could really camp out on this next section, but I'm trying so hard to keep the flow of the verses so that we see the message of the entire text we're reading. But I do want to stop for just a minute and look at this. The power of an open heart. You see, Paul was determined not to resort, as we've seen, he was not going to resort to human ingenuity or human strength to try to produce what he knew only God can do. He is relying on God's power because only God can remove the veil. You can win an argument, but won arguments don't produce a change of heart. Right? So Paul is not just arguing with people, he's not trying to pound it in people, he's preaching the truth and leaving God to do the work in the heart. Let God remove the veil. Only God can replace the natural heart that is hard against him with a heart that beats for him. Only God can bring a spiritually dead person to life. Only God can change the natural person who does not accept the things of the Spirit and make him into a spiritual person who does. So Paul wasn't trying to do that. Paul preached the gospel and relied upon the power of God. His sincere desire was to see people genuinely turn to God in repentance from sin and having faith in Christ. So his approach to evangelism was to speak the truth with an open and sincere heart to proclaim Christ and rely on God's power to do the heavy lifting of changing the hearts of human beings, as he said. In chapter one, Paul said his reliance was not on himself, but on God who raises the dead. And so Paul fights. Paul fights, and yet his weapons are not the weapons that the rest of the world uses. Look at his emphasis here on weapons. He says, we use truthful speech and the power of God with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left. So he's pictured himself as having weapons and he is fighting with these things. So this is proof of his love to their weapons of righteousness, though. Their weapons of doing good and doing right. Elsewhere. In 2 Corinthians 10 verse 4 Paul says that the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. And then he goes on to talk about the things that he is pulling down. And what he's pulling down are opinions and thoughts, ideas. And so this is what happens when you put your confidence in God's work and you preach the truth. Your weapons are the weapons of truth. You speak truth. You urge people to respond to truth. And you can have great confidence because God is going to honor truth. And so Paul fights battles with the weapons of truth, relying on God. Now, if you think about how the world fights in general, I mean, obviously wars are fought with increasingly improved technology, which enables weapons to be more finely detailed and more finely tuned to accomplish even objectives that would pinpoint accuracy. And so we've got all these weapons that can bring destruction and that tear buildings apart and bodies apart. Paul's more concerned about the inner man. And truth is the weapon that God uses to reach inside the heart. The weapons, therefore, that we use, truth, truth, an open heart, don't impress the world. They don't excite the world in general because the world looks at bombs and guns and they see power there. But Paul's weapons are mightier. than those destructive weapons of the world, because it's truth and it's aimed at the heart. And I'm thinking of how illustrated this is by. David, before he became king, we all know the story, I think, of David and Goliath, right? If there's anything, you know, out of the Bible, maybe if you were in Sunday school, you you read the story or were taught the story of how this big, huge Philistine was out taunting the armies of God and Then David, who was sent to the front to bring food to his older brothers who were fighting there, came and heard the taunts of Goliath and decided, why is nobody going out to fight this guy? And so, I'll go, he says, this little shepherd boy. And so they said, well, you know, OK, they're going to let him go. And so Saul comes and gets this armor and puts it on David. And David says, you know, I've never tried this out before. He can't function with the armor. So he takes it off and he goes out and he goes out to fight Goliath. And he has nothing. He's just a vulnerable young man. And so what does Goliath do? He starts laughing, scoffing. You send him out to fight me, this is great. He's won this battle, he knows. And so he says to David, am I a dog that you come to me with sticks? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine said to David, come to me and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field. And David said to the Philistines, you come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head, and I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines of this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves, not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into my hand. That powerful statement of confidence from the mouth of David the shepherd. That confidence level should be the confidence level of every believer in Christ. Because Same God and the same purpose to proclaim his greatness and glory. Paul had that same confidence and he was assured of the strength and the effectiveness of his weapons of righteousness. That they were wielding the power of God and therefore would accomplish whatever God wanted them to do. So Paul fought his battle with a heart open wide. His trust was in the name of the Lord. He was scoffed at, but he knew the truth and he was grounded in it. He experienced honor and dishonor. We see in the text slander and praise. But what matters is not what others are saying about him, but what he knows to be true. And so notice how Paul reflects in this way. He reflects this in the way that he knew he was treated on the one hand by the world, and what he knew to be true on the other. You see, that's the way David comes to Goliath. You come to me with all of this stuff that looks powerful, but I come to you in the name of the Lord, right? So Paul says, you know, people look at me in one way, but I know the truth. And so Paul speaks back to the accusations and the scoffing of the world. at Paul. And this really gets to the heart of some of the, obviously, the accusations and concerns that were being expressed by these imposter apostles in Corinth who were trying to undermine their confidence in Paul. And Paul is using this opportunity to remind the Corinthians that what they say and what they accuse, these false imposters, is false and Paul knows it and he's just exemplifying and it's not going to slow him down one bit in his effort to have an open heart and continue the ministry that he has there with Corinth. So one of the things that he says is that he was treated as an imposter. He's got this, again, a string of things that he's treated in one way but he knows something else. And so he was treated as an imposter. This obviously is a reference to those guys in Corinth who were trying to undermine what was going on in the church and trying to turn them away from following Paul. And he says he was treated as an imposter and yet he knows himself to be true. How does he know himself to be true? The Lord Jesus himself appeared to him. He's preaching the gospel. He was given from Christ. He's an apostle of Christ. He's a minister. He's a servant of God. He's not a servant of Paul. He's not there to beat the drum for the name of Paul or the glory of Paul. He's there to proclaim the gospel message on behalf of God as his ambassador and he knows he's true. Furthermore, he was treated as unknown. It's as though the public was scoffingly saying about Paul, who are you? Who are you to come on the scene and tell us these things? But what is important to Paul is not that the world wonders who he is, but that God knows him. So we are treated as unknown and yet we are known. What does he mean by that? What's important to Paul is that God knows him. Over in 1 Corinthians 8, Paul says that if anyone loves God, he is known by God. And then when Paul writes the Galatians, he says to them in verse 9 of chapter 4, now that you have come to know God or rather be known by God. So the world treats Paul as if he's a stranger. It does not know. But Paul knows that God knows him. And that's what really matters. It really doesn't matter if the world knows who you are. You may not make a dent on the world so that the world says, oh man, here is a person worth remembering, a part of the who's who. But what matters is if your name is written in the book of the who's who of the Lamb's Book of Life. That is when God knows you. And this is really important. Really important because it's really important whether God knows you, because as we know, as we've read in Matthew 7, The question does come down, does God know you? Not so much. Do you think you know God? Because in the last day, many will claim to know Jesus and they will say, Lord, Lord, and he will say, depart from me. I never knew you. And Paul says, I know who knows me. Do you know who knows you? Do you claim to know God this morning? Let me ask you a more important question. Does he know you? That is not he not asking, is he aware of you? God is aware of every single human being in the whole wide world. Everybody is going to become come before him in judgment to say this. He know you means does he know you intimately as his follower? Does he know you love you have this special love that he sets upon those who are his? If it's not today that you can say he knows me. You can know it if you'll come to Him in faith and repentance and draw near to Him. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you, truly from your heart. So furthermore, Paul says he's treated as dying and yet he says, and yet I live. There was a time when Paul was taken outside the city of Lystra and he was stoned left for dead. And then Paul had this sacrificial ministry in which he was constantly being sought. It always seemed as though he was on the verge of dying. Perhaps the world treated him as though he was a walking dead man. He was just only a matter of time. He was always being sought to be killed. But the knowledge that fueled Paul's open-hearted sacrificial ministry is the knowledge that in point of fact, he was alive in Christ. And even if he died, he'd still be alive. Treated as though dead and dying but alive. Paul was threatened and Paul was treated as punished. He mentions that here too. Punished. His enemies were constantly after him. I just started counting the times that Paul's life was in danger or threatened. Or there was some conspiracy to take his life besides the time there in Lystra. There was a time where he was plotted to be killed in Damascus and Jerusalem early on. And then they almost succeeded in Lystra. Then they plotted in Greece and back in Jerusalem. Certain Jews bound themselves by an oath not to eat or drink until they killed the apostle Paul. And yet, they were not successful. Later, when Paul was in Roman custody in Caesarea, there were certain Jews that came to Festus and begged for Paul to have to be sent back to Jerusalem to be tried there because they had planned an ambush on the way. But what was evident to Paul in all of these circumstances was that it didn't really matter if human beings wanted to kill him. It didn't matter if they wanted to punish him. His life was in the hand of God. And so it's what he knew. God had preserved his life. They had yet failed to succeed in taking his life. Furthermore, Paul mentions how the world looked upon him as sorrowful. I mean, perhaps again he's thinking specifically of these people in Corinth who were trying to undermine the Corinthians following of him, saying perhaps, look at Paul, it's such a miserable failure. All of these enemies he makes, all this trouble he's encountering. He can't be a happy guy. Do you want to live like that? It's a miserable kind of sorrowful existence. How can he be happy? And yet Paul says, The world looks upon me as sorrowful, yet I'm rejoicing all the time. Why is that? Because even if he was in prison, he's rejoicing. Why is that? Because his one desire in his life was to know Christ, not to be out of jail. His main concern in life is to know Him and His righteousness, to be clothed in the righteousness of Christ, to stand before God and reconcile. And so, what is it to be in prison? What is it to have somebody seeking your life? He's rejoicing because of these very things. The world and the imposters pointed out further that Paul was poor and that he had no possessions. You see, he makes reference to that. They say about me, I've got nothing and I'm just a poor. Why would you want to be like me? Why would you want to follow me? Because I'm poor. Ah, but this is the thing he knows. This is what the world says. You're poor. You're destitute. You've got nothing. Paul says, but I know, I know something much better than what the world says. Truth is, I have everything. The truth is, I not only have everything, I live to make other people rich. You know, what is he thinking about there? But the gospel that he preaches, which when people embrace the gospel, they are enriched, they have riches untold. As he said in chapter 4 verse 17 of 2 Corinthians, this might and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. That's what he knows. So see, Paul is constantly living in light of what he knows, not in light of the lies that the world gives. The power to love and serve with an open heart comes not from what you see, but what you know. It comes because you refuse to hear the lies that fill the world. This world is full of scoffers who look at the surface, ignoring the things that are not seen and the things that are eternal. It judges on the basis of what it sees, not considering that what is seen is temporary and passing away like a vapor. These judgments are hurled at believers in Jesus. The only way that we can continue to hold out our hearts to this world with the gospel is to understand the truth. And we must refresh ourselves every day in the word. To know the truth. To know the truth and the distinction from imposters. To know that God knows us. To know that what it really means to live. To know real rejoicing and to know real riches. And so there is the power of an open heart. That is the power that fuels an open heart. It knows the truth and it is set free to love. Even when it brings a person in danger. Because what's important is what's true. And what is powerful is the truth. God working to bring down the strongholds of imaginations and opinions and doctrines of men. And so Paul is saying, look, you see these things? These display that my heart is open to you. And so it's that at that point that we come back to this thing we started with. That's that that's where we see in verse 11 that Paul is pleading the plea of the open heart here. He says in verse 11, we've spoken freely to you, Corinthians. Our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us. That whole statement corresponds to what he said earlier. We've put no stumbling block before you. So he's drawing attention to the things that he just said. They are the proof of an open heart. They are the proof that he is sincere. They are the proof that He genuinely loves and cares for them. They are proof that He is hiding nothing, and He is not taking advantage of them, or that His goal is not to get a bunch of people who will lift up the Apostle Paul, but rather Christ Jesus. And on that basis, He appeals to the Corinthians to open wide their hearts as well. That is the appeal of real love. Real love holds itself out, but it does beg and plead to those to whom it holds itself out to love in return. Let's have a relationship that is a relationship of love, a relationship of open heart to open heart. Paul wants more than just a stoic affirmation from the Corinthians. OK, yes, you are a legitimate apostle of Jesus. We will follow you. That's not what he wants. And that's not what Jesus wants from His followers either. Okay, we submit to you. Where do you want me to go? He wants the heart. He wants the passions. He wants the drive. He wants the earnest desires to be filled and compelled by who He is and how He loves. And if we understand His love, then that's the only right response that we can even fathom having back to Him. Paul yearns for these Corinthians to open wide their hearts to him as he has to them, as children do to a father. He wants them to respond to the purity and openness of his heart with a heart of the same disposition. So in this text this morning, what we see are some of the things that need to characterize us. If we are going to really love people, we need to be prepared with the truth. We need to be ready for sacrifice and we need to be driven by the Holy Spirit producing holy fruit in our hearts and lives. These marks Paul uses to persuade the Corinthians that he has this kind of love for them. It's a personal living example. I would submit to you. Of the love that God has for the world. Think about that for just a second. Because the love of God. Reaches forth from the heart. And the love of God is willing to sacrifice for the well-being of others. Right? The greatest sacrifice ever. And the love of God is fueled by the holiness of character. And it endures the lies of the world and continues to hold itself forth. The open-hearted, vulnerable love of God is manifest supremely in the person of Christ. God So loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him might have everlasting life. And you see how Jesus reveals this same open-hearted reaching out to the world Himself, when He comes up on the top of the hill one day and He looks down and there's Jerusalem, and He thinks of all of the things that they've done to express their hatred towards the prophets of God, and He says, Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings? You would not. You see, his love is unrestrained. But like Paul said to the Corinthians, your love is not restrained by us, but it's restrained in your own heart. And that's the way every human being is towards the love, the overtures of the love of God and the love of Christ. It's not the love of God that's a problem or the lack of the love of God. It's because human beings see and experience God's love. Even those who are the most hostile to the Lord experience His mercy every single day. And yet they hate Him. And yet they turn from Him. And yet they are restrained. Or they follow Him, sort of. God holds nothing back. Jesus holds nothing back. But so many are unwilling to open wide their hearts to him. So what about you this morning? A question for you. Have you opened wide your heart to God who has opened wide his heart to you? And that's what Paul is saying to the Corinthians. And I just think this is such a great emblematic expression of the greatness of God's love. He's poured it out. He's endured all this. And here it is. But will you? Will you respond in kind? Will you open your heart wide to Him? That's the essence of responding to the gospel in faith and repentance. That's the essence of saying no to myself and everything I live for and saying yes to God and trust in the provision of His Son on the cross and giving of my life to Him to be a servant of God. And I urge you Lord, I would urge you to Think of the Lord on that day. And when he has to say to many people, I never knew you, will he say that to you? To every believer among us this morning, I want to urge you this morning to look at this passage and look at this plea of Paul and this characterization of his open heartedness, and I urge you to see the love of Christ portrayed through Paul and see that this is the way that we should love as well. In other words, and what are these characteristics for servants of God? And then sacrificing. And then pursuing holiness of character. And then knowing the truth and being built up in the power of God and ourselves, so it doesn't really matter what people say, what matters is what we know, driven by what we know, even about love and what we know about the lies of the world, what we know about what it is to really know God. We love. That's the way we should love the world. So we should love sinners in the world just like God loves the sinners in the world. Continuing to reach out, they can hurl a million spears and javelins, can we still reach out love and compassion, urging them to open wide their hearts to the Lord too. And what about in our own homes and in our workplace and every other place we are? That love needs to be expressed there too. And I just think it just runs against the grain to sacrifice. It runs against the grain for me to want to give up something that is my right But am I willing to do it to express love to you, mercy, kindness, goodness? When everybody does that, can you imagine what a great place it would be? But as we see Paul in these verses, we see something that is a love that depends upon and acts through the power of God. So what should believers do when we hear this message and hear this appeal? Oh, look at yourselves, look at myself, look at ourselves. How are we loving? How are our hearts open wide? Are they open wide, full of but really closed because there's so much selfishness there? Or do we genuinely out of our submission to God and our determination to serve him in the world, love every everybody else, open wide our heart with a concern for the glory of God, the gospel, forgiveness and reconciliation. See, that's what Paul was saying to the Corinthians and the joy of sharing in this together, because he said. We've opened wide our hearts to you, you open wide your hearts to us in return. Because your heart opened wide in return to God, is it open right in return? To others, let's pray. Lord God, we thank you for this passage this morning. We thank you for the lessons. We thank you for the reminders. We thank you for the ways in which we need to look at our own hearts. We need to assess where we stand. Lord, we pray for the power of the Spirit to submit Our lives, our hearts, our loves to you. Would you minister to the world through your people who are not slowed down in their love for sinners by the hatred of sinners or by the hesitancy of sinners to love us? Help us love like you love. And Father, we praise you for the love that you loved us with and that you love us with and you forever will love us with. Would you be honored in our lives as we respond to your open hearted love of us? We ask it in Jesus name. Amen.