A Heart Wide Open Series

On February 24, 1948, one of the most unusual operations in medical history took place at the Ohio State University Department of Surgery Research. A 30-year-old named Harry Besharra was arrested for armed robbery and during his intake it was observed that something was wrong with him physically. After a series of tests, it was discovered that a stony sheath had developed inside his chest and around his heart. As it turned out, when Harry was a boy, he had accidentally been shot in the chest by a friend with a .22 caliber rifle and the doctors had determined at the time that it was too dangerous to remove the bullet…and so it had remained lodged in the outer lining of his heart for over twenty years.

The good news? That bullet didn’t kill him when he was a young boy. The bad news? A lime deposit started to slowly form over his heart and was now strangling the life out this vital organ. It was finally determined that drastic medical intervention was Harry’s only chance of getting well. In surgery, the doctor began the procedure by separating Harry’s ribs and moving his left lung to the side. Next he peeled off the stony coating around the heart just like you would peel an orange.

What happened next was truly amazing! Immediately the pressure on the heart was reduced and it started to expand and pump as normal. When Harry woke up from surgery, he was asked how he felt and his response was this: “I feel one thousand percent better already!”

There’s a parable of the Christian life here. We’ve been called to be ambassadors for Christ, and yet often our hearts develop a hard protective coating because of the accidents and incidents in life. They are coated by the deposits of a thousand deceits and rebuffs. They are hardened by the pressure of circumstance. And sometimes, as we attempt to share the hope of the gospel with those who are perishing, we struggle because our calloused hearts blind us to people’s need for Jesus.

As we continue in our series this morning through Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth, take your Bibles and turn with me to 2 Corinthians 6. And today we’re going to see that if there was ever a messenger for Christ who could have been excused for having a calloused heart, it would have been the Apostle Paul. But today, he’s going to model for us what it looks like to NOT let our hearts become hardened by the pressure of circumstance as we meet resistance to the message we carry on behalf of King Jesus.

2 Corinthians 6:2b-13

Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. 3 We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, 4 but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5 beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; 6 by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; 7 by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8 through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything. 11 We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open. 12 You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. 13 In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also.

Last week we closed out our message by focusing on the five attributes of an EFFECTIVE messenger (or someone who has been entrusted to take the message of reconciliation to a lost and dying world). This week, we’re going to frame things a little differently as we look at two ways to be an INEFFECTIVE messenger.

How to be an Ineffective Messenger:

1. MESS WITH THE MESSAGE – vs 2b-3

2b Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. 3 We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry…

In a previous career, I was part of an industry where I was VERY involved in contract law. And for a guy like me whose mind works very well in the details of life, I enjoyed the process of contractually dotting every “I” and crossing every “T.” But there was this phrase that used to drive me crazy that we inserted in all of our contracts. “Time is of the essence.” In a contract where everything is so specific and where every single scenario is often spelled out explicitly, “time is of the essence” is a big blanket statement that through time and precedent has come to mean that timely performance is an essential obligation under a contract, and thus failure to perform in a timely manner amounts to a material breach of contract.