Make Room in Your Hearts for Us

Father, our times are in Your hands. We're thinking about James 4. We'd like to say we'll go to this city and trade and make a profit for a year or two. But Lord, we do not know what tomorrow may bring.

Rather, we should say if the Lord wills, we will live and we will do this and we will do that. As it is, all such boasting about what we will do is arrogance and evil. Lord, we thank You for verses like that that challenge us to keep on having a renewed mind and an eternal perspective.

Lord, I just pray that You would bless this time we have right now. Lord, be with those teaching the kids in the back. Lord, awaken our children's hearts to the truth and the power of the Gospel.

And Lord, I pray You'd help us here right now as a body and even those visiting. Lord, would You just give all of us some food that we need spiritually. Lord, even if it's just a few crumbs or maybe a larger portion.

Lord, something that's applicable in our lives. And so Lord, I just commit this time right now to You. I ask for Your help.

Lord, apart from Your strength, Lord, I can do absolutely nothing. And no one will benefit from this time. So Lord, I just pray for Your help.

In Christ's name, amen. Amen. Turn in your Bible, your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 6. I want to think about what makes Christian relationships deep.

Recently, I've had a few brethren brought up this topic to me about how many deep relationships do you have with those in the church, with fellow Christians. And that'd be something you could ask yourself. Do you have deep relationships? If you had to list out on a piece of paper those you have a deep, again, the word deep is kind of subjective, right? You might define it in this way and the other person defines it in this way.

I mean, ultimately, how does the Bible define a deep relationship? Do I even have the right expectations on what deep means? Or do I wrongly define what deep even means in a relationship? But this is a worthy topic to consider. What actually makes, you tell me, what makes a relationship deep? What's the first thing that comes to your mind? Honesty. And we're gonna find Paul mentions that.

He says, I've spoken to you freely. That speaks about honesty. What else makes a relationship deep? Yeah, time.

You can get together and be really honest for 20 minutes and then don't spend any time for the next year together. That doesn't exactly make you have a deep relationship. Yeah, integrity.

Are you taking what is shared during that time with that individual and not going and spreading it in the gossip mill and thus breaking that trust? So think, if I don't take as long, if I go for 40 minutes, I wanna open it up again like I did last time for discussion. So if anything stands out to you as I'm sharing, save that for the end. If we have that time.

But yeah, it's not all about how much time, how many years. Some of you have known me for 19 years, but do you have a deep relationship with me? Obviously, it's not how many interests you have in common. That can be a factor.

A lot of people have a lot of interest in common and that's just superficial. They don't have a deep relationship. Men can get around and talk about duck hunting for hours, but it doesn't mean they have a deep relationship.

So none of these things by themselves make a relationship deep. You can know 50 intimate facts about someone and still have very little room for that person in your heart and in your life. So 2 Corinthians 6 is a place that I believe speaks to this reality.

2 Corinthians 6, and you've got to remember this letter, Paul, you could say is dealing with those whom he has had a damaged relationship with. The Corinthians, this isn't just one individual, but this church that different false teachers have come and spew lies about Paul that have affected their perspective of Paul. But notice verse 11, verse 11.

And Paul, by the way, just earlier in verse six talks about how he commends himself to them. In Lotus verse six, he commended himself to them by genuine love. Verse seven, truthful speech.

Then you go down to verse 11. We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians. And then Paul, he says this, I love this phrase.

Our heart is wide open. You're not restricted by us. So some restriction is happening in their relationship and he's saying it's not by us.

It's not by us. Our, who's the our? Titus, Paul, his missionary team, those laboring among the Corinthians. Our heart is wide open.

You're not restricted by us. You're restricted in your own affections. Then he calls them to action.

In return, I speak as to children, widen your hearts. Open up your hearts, guys. Then he goes on and he deals with the text about not being unequally yoked, which to them, I take that as they're unequally being yoked was with these false teachers in the context.

That's what he's talking about. And then he goes on and gives a greater call in chapter seven. Look at verse two.

Make room in your hearts for us. And then he kind of, you get an insight in some of the charges against him. We have wronged no one.

So apparently they were being told that Paul has wronged them. We have corrupted no one. And then look at the third thing.

We have taken advantage of no one. So Paul's laboring among the Corinthians. Everything's going good.

Other guys come in, Paul's gone. And they get the perspective that Paul, hey, Paul's been taking advantage of you guys. And that causes a little restriction in their hearts towards Paul.

And Paul's saying, we didn't take advantage of you. Verse three, I do not say this to condemn you, for I said before that you are in our hearts to die together. And look at this, to live together.

I'm acting with great boldness towards you. I have great pride in you. I'm filled with comfort in all our affliction.

I am overwhelming with joy. And then verse five, for even when we came. He refers to something in the past where they had godly grief in a situation and really responded well.

So he's appealing to that in the hopes of what's going on in the present. And so that's part of God's Word that I think speaks to this whole question of what does it even mean to have a deep relationship? Do you have a deep relationship? Do you have deep relationships in the church? In your life? Who would be on that list of I've got a deep relationship with this brother? Or sisters, I have a deep relationship with this sister. Notice the language.

We've spoken freely. Our heart is wide open. Then he says, you guys are restricted.

And then he tells them, widen your hearts. Then he says, make room in your hearts for us in verse two. In the context, who's taking room in their hearts? Verse 14 and 15.

These guys are teaching something that is contrary to the doctrine with which they had received. That seems to be what's going on in the context. And that's close their hearts to Paul.

And so he's addressing damaged relationships, but I think here this is a very useful category for relational depth that we get right here. Deep relationships require room in the heart, but what's the problem? Paul says some people have hearts that are restricted. I was trying to think how to illustrate that.

You know, one way, you know, you got a hose, garden hose, and you kink the hose. That restricts the flow of the water, right? But maybe a better way to imagine this, let me pull out one of these. What is this that I have? Anyone seen one of these guys? Yeah, you screw it onto the one part of your door, and then you can hook it on the door.

So what's the purpose of this? When someone comes and knocks on your door and you go to open the door, how far does it open? That's it. That's all the room you get to look at the person, and what are you doing? You're trying to make sure the person is safe, right? So there's some restriction going on here, totally different than wide opening the whole door and they come and sit on the couch. And Paul used to be sitting on these people's couch, so to speak.

And now look what he comes and knocks on the Corinthians' door and guess what he finds? What is this even called? I only know what the technical term is. A lock. A chain lock, I guess.

The security chain is attached on the inside, right? You can see part of the person, you can talk through the opening, you can't completely shut the door, you can't completely receive them, you can't really welcome them into your home. And again, the chain is attached on the inside. This is the person with the restricted heart.

They've chosen to put this chain on the door to restrict those who are trying to come in, into their life. So the person on the outside, they can't remove it. Paul, is his heart open? Yep.

The problem is those on the inside, is their heart open? Nope, it's not open. That's what Paul says, you're not restricted by us. He's saying the chain isn't on my side, my heart is open, there's room in me for you.

But, their distorted judgments about Paul, the idea that he took advantage of them, suspicions, slanders, lies, accusations, they've shrunk their affections for Paul to the point where they got this chain lock on the door. Right, that's what's happening. He's no longer going in the living room here.

And Paul says, we didn't take advantage of you. But the false teachers are saying the opposite. So, why do I bring all that up? If you say you don't have any deep relationships, one of the questions scripture would have me ask you, and you and I should ask ourselves, is not merely why isn't anybody getting closer to me, but the question is, what is restricting the door on my side? Right, do you have one of these up? Do you got one of these installed on your door, and the fault really is with you, being unwilling to open your heart, and be completely honest in certain relationships? Or, you might be like Paul, and your heart is really open, and you're struggling, but it's on the other end.

People are restricted towards you. So, a couple considerations. Number one, a wide open heart speaks freely.

We see Paul right there describing this in verse 11, chapter six. We have spoken freely to you. I love that type of language.

That is one mark of a deep relationship. There's freedom of speech. You don't merely talk a lot, right? The question is, can we actually talk about what matters? Are you able to tell someone, I was hurt by what you just did to me.

I need help. I'm struggling with assurance that I'm even saved. I think I was wrong.

I'm struggling with thoughts that I've committed the unpardonable sin. The other day, I had this thought in my car about suicide that entered my mind. Or, I'm concerned what you're even going to see and think in my life.

I mean, can you say stuff like that to someone? Or, is there constantly this inner calculation? Oh, man, I can't say that. You know, they can't handle that statement over there. I'll maybe wait a couple more years.

You know, I'd say that to them. I don't trust them. I think I'm kind of telling them what I'm really thinking, but I'm not.

Do you have those inner calculations? Do they happen in some of your relationships? Do they happen in all of your relationships? You got to ask. I don't know. If you feel like you don't have deep relationships, maybe it's the people around you.

They're not trusting you. And obviously, the question I have to ask myself is, is there something I've done that makes them not trust me? There's a whole lot of other reasons. We're going to look at some of those.

But you can have plenty of conversations while whole rooms of your heart remain locked, right? And we've experienced that. There are people in our lives that we thought we knew. And we thought we knew them for a decade, and then what happens? We come to find out they're not who we thought they were.

You experienced that before? And it hurts. And it's shocking to have that happen. But that happens.

The disciples had that happen. With who? With Judas. You're just shocked by it.

He wasn't going to them and mentioning, guys, I'm really struggling with greed here, and I had this crazy thought to go and sell Christ for money. Speak truth to me that I wouldn't go do that. Judas wasn't telling Peter that, right? These things are being concealed.

So is there free speech between us? Why might I hold back? Sometimes there's legitimate reasons. Maybe someone really did betray your confidence. Maybe they used something you shared against you.

Maybe you've watched how others treat other people's weaknesses, and that's made your feet pretty cold to open up. Paul himself says, verse two, chapter seven, we've wronged no one. It's a pretty bold statement Paul can make.

He can look at the way they ministered among him and say we've not wronged you guys. That tells us something, trustworthiness matters. It really, really matters.

Paul doesn't say you're required to give me unlimited access to your heart regardless of how I behave. Right, that's not right. You cannot put that demand on someone.

If my trustworthiness and behavior is not winning your trust, I shouldn't expect you to open up your heart. So he does, Paul appeals to the integrity of his conduct. So there's this two-sided responsibility when it comes to having deep relationships.

If I want to be deeply known, I have to become more truthful, right? And if I want other people to open their hearts to me, I have to become more trustworthy. So am I becoming more truthful in my life and am I becoming more trustworthy in my life? Because you can have someone really open but they're not trustworthy, they're not going to end up having deep relationships. Do I keep confidences? Do I gossip? Have I weaponized something someone has told me? Do I listen before I judge? Obviously, if I stood up here and I said, guys, you got to open up more.

Just imagine getting up. Open up more. Just make a statement like that.

Is that helpful? No. I mean, how many people are really going to be helped by that? Being told to go open up. We have to become the sort of people who it is wise to open up to, right? Back to what Paul just commended himself for in verse seven, by truthful speech.

He handled honor, dishonor, slander, verse eight. Incredible conduct that he had that went hand in hand with him calling them to open up to him. Sometimes our fear is not what the other person has done.

We simply could be afraid of what they might do. We're overly self-protective and secure about the possibilities of what might happen. But if you think that way, you're never going to get close to anyone.

Self-protection that you have to keep yourself from being hurt, right? Isn't that why people have self-protection? They want to keep themselves from getting hurt. They end up never getting close to anyone because they're too self-protective, right? You don't want to go down that path. So there's other reasons we may struggle to speak freely.

Some people genuinely just have a difficulty putting what is inside of them into words. Maybe, is that you? I mean, you just don't even know how to say it. You don't even know how to put it into words.

You just, you know, it's like, I'm afraid, but you can't articulate, or that hurt me. And the person says, well, how did it hurt you? You just don't even know how to articulate that. Maybe no one taught you how to articulate what you were feeling and what happened.

And that would bring up the question, what were conversations like in your home growing up? We really are products of our parents in a lot of ways. And this is something that parents, we teach our kids. Were you trained to be a conversationalist, or were you trained to be a concealer, right? A lot of kids, they grow up in a family, they're trained to conceal your emotions, conceal your feelings.

If you speak openly and honestly, even if you speak about something hurtful a parent has done, the parent then punishes you emotionally for what you said, and that trains the child to never open up, keep their mouth shut. But you're gonna bring that into your relationships in the church. You're gonna do the exact same thing in this context.

Did people talk about fear, sins, disappointment? Did your dad sit at the table and apologize publicly for his sin that he committed to the whole family of being impatient? Or did he conceal that and never acknowledge that? And you were trained to not acknowledge sin even though it might appear just to be something subtle, when no sin is subtle and excusable. Was your home's message, don't show weakness, don't talk about problems, keep it inside? So some of you, you've learned concealment growing up, and that's affecting you having deep relationships in the context of this church. But it's not a hopeless situation, okay? Don't think it's hopeless, it's not.

Now, I'd also add here, temperament is not sin. Some of us have natural temperaments that are different than other people in the church. Some naturally speak more easily than others.

But personality cannot be a permanent excuse for refusing the kind of truthfulness that we should have. Would you guys agree with that? As I've shared, I was one of the shyest people growing up, all my friends were on the internet, I was a gamer, that's where all my friends were at. I didn't like to interact with people, as we would call, in real life.

But the Lord saved me, He put a love for the gospel in my heart, and it led me to go downtown, stand on a wall, and open air preach to people in front of the Alamo. That was not natural. But the Christian life is not natural.

The Christian life is full of the power of the Holy Spirit that transforms you into a different person. And no matter how natural your temperament was and not talking growing up, God can crush all of that and change you. Doesn't mean the change in one person is going to be identical in another, but don't set the bar low in your life, Christian.

Do you not know that your old man was crucified with Christ? Do you not know that you've become obedient from the heart? So second thing here is, speaking freely includes difficult truth. What did Paul's free speech include? Look at chapter seven, verse eight. For even if I made you grieve with my letter.

Huh, you ever gotten a letter that made you grieve? You ever gotten one of those emails and you open it up and it just does something inside of you. Makes you grieve, you're frustrated, something going on. I mean, they got that from Paul.

Earlier on, he says, I wrote out of much affliction and anguish of heart with many tears. So Paul's openness included correction. So to speak freely does not mean I tell you everything pleasant that I feel.

It's not speaking freely, that's actually being deceitful and dishonest. Speaking freely also means I love you enough to tell you something you may not want to hear. Right, what is that proverb? Profuse are the kisses of an enemy, but what of the friend? The rebukes of the friend.

That's the kind thing in your life. Paul, he had affliction, anguish, tears. A hard man can say hard things and feel nothing, but Paul could say hard things while his heart was breaking.

That is truth with an open heart. And why do I bring up this topic of correction? I think correction often becomes a fork in the road in our relationships. What do I mean? Someone close to you says something difficult, and it hurts, and now you've got two roads at least, two paths.

One road, it says that hurt, and you say, is it true? That's the right path. The other says, how dare they say that to me? And if pride takes over, the door begins to close, and pride pulls out this little guy again, and he installs it back on his door in that relationship. That's all you're gonna get.

Three inches, you're not on my couch anymore. You're not in a deep, close relationship with anymore. Stay out, because you love me enough to rebuke me.

Now they don't say it in that way, but that's what's happening, right? They're actually loving you. You become guarded, you stop sharing. Their access to you now diminishes.

So the correction might have lasted 20 minutes, but the restriction in your heart now might last 20 years towards that individual, and that's a wrong restriction. The Proverbs say a reprover should be like a gold ring on your finger. Someone who loves you enough to tell you the truth should be like an expensive ring on your finger where you look at that and you remember what they shared to you that no one else had the guts to do, and which proved they loved you more than others who passed it by out of fear and intimidation.

So you can't demand deep relationships or reserving the right to become distant every time somebody tells you something difficult. Let me just say that again. You cannot demand I want deep relationships in my life, and yet try to reserve the right that every time someone tells me something difficult, I become distant.

So many people, you're trained to do that as a kid. Just become distant, and you bring that into your adulthood as a Christian. Think about it.

You want someone close enough to encourage you, understand you, pray for you, comfort, laugh with you, share life with you, but are they allowed to become close enough to rebuke you? Because the closer somebody gets, what happens? The more of you they're gonna see, right? The closer you get, the more people see, and then what happens? I've brought it up before, Jonathan San Buenaventura, I've known him 19 years, and he got close to me, and he started to see all my warts, and then he tried to correct my warts, and then I defended my warts, and I was proud, and that's what happens, and I didn't like being around Jonathan at certain times, because he loved me, and so what are you gonna do? Go find people to be around who aren't gonna love you enough to tell you the truth, and do your problems go away? Absolutely, your problems do not go away, because the problems are still inside of your heart. The people who love you enough to tell you the truth, you've removed yourself from them, and will ultimately lead to your doom. The closer someone gets, the more likely they're gonna see who you really are, and they're gonna tell you truths that you've not heard.

A person who cannot receive love and correction, they place basically a ceiling on every relationship. Our relationship's not any higher than this. Let's just keep it right down here.

Really shallow, I don't wanna get any higher than this. You can say encouraging things to me, you can't correct me. Sooner or later, people discover there are things I'm not allowed to say.

Do you have that? Do you have relationships right now where you think there's things I'm not allowed to say to that person? That's a sad place to be. And I would say, what if that's one of you, your relationship with me, and I've done something that's caused you to have an inability to communicate something to me? Right, that's the introspective question we should ask for ourselves. When free speech disappears, relational depth disappears with it.

All right, third thing. What restricts the heart? Paul says you're not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. Something happened inside of them.

What put the chain on the door? And I've already hit on this, but one major answer was suspicion. Chapter seven, verse two. We've wronged no one, we've taken advantage of no one.

Apparently, the accusers were accusing and giving suspicions about Paul that he was taking advantage of the Corinthians. And once you believe someone has used you, manipulated you, or acted against you, your heart naturally begins to close. And if they really have manipulated you, you should have a heart close.

You don't play into their manipulation the next five years of your life, right? They need to repent, and if they don't, distance has to happen, because they're going to wreck you. But what am I believing about this person? What am I believing? She didn't call because she doesn't care? You ever had that happen? You know, someone didn't call, do you assume it's because they didn't care? Is that true? Someone corrects you, have you ever had this? He corrected me because he thinks he's better than me. Ever had something like that come to your mind? She did that because she's jealous.

I was going to do the same thing. She beat me to it, she's jealous to be seen. They don't really love me.

They're using me. I mean, if you think thoughts like that, notice what's happened. You're no longer merely evaluating what the people are doing.

You're evaluating in your mind why they're doing it, and you're assigning motives to them when they've had no opportunity to clearly express to you why they did what they did. And now you have evil suspicions in your heart towards them, and that's going to wreck you, right? That will mess your perspective up of this individual. Now my affections are no longer responding to who you actually are.

They're responding to a person I've constructed in my own mind. Proverbs 17, 9, He who gossips a matter does what? Separates close friends. And you know what that text actually indicates? Separates, he doesn't say friends, he says what? So that means Solomon is giving a category that there are people who could be close friends.

If you know me, I don't like the terminology best friends. People say they have one best friend or this, but the Bible does use close friends. There's people that you can be close with, and you should be close with, and you should have a close friendship with, and that can be separated by gossip, by sharing some information with someone else that they share to you in confidence that you should not have shared.

It's incredible how fast friendships can be dismantled. Other things restrict the heart. Bitterness, right? An offense gets replayed until the person becomes nothing more than what they did to you.

What else can restrict the heart? Busyness, selfish busyness. You want deep relationships, but everything else already has first claim on your calendar, right? Real love takes time. Time itself, does it create depth? No.

You can know someone 20 years, as I said, and still be shallow, but love eventually has to become embodied where you're spending time together, and you're having heartfelt conversations together, and you're living life together. To say I care about you eventually means I gave an evening to you. I noticed you weren't there.

I called. I sat with you in the hospital. Mike Sanchez in the hospital recently.

I was not able to visit him. Who visited him? People who visited him. I imagine Mike feels closer to those people possibly who took that time to go and be with him, or I invited you into my home.

Hospitality is a great way we can communicate depth and closeness, or listening when the conversation becomes inconvenient. Right? They call at 11 at night or something, and you need to talk for three hours, and you're willing to do that. That's embodying love.

It's embodying the words I care for you, by actually bearing the burden in a tangible way. So time doesn't create depth by itself, but without time, you're gonna lose love. And we've experienced that.

There's people that God has moved other places in our Christian life, and we're not as close to them anymore. Doesn't mean we didn't have a close relationship, but now that we don't have time with them in our own local church, and in different gatherings of the church, there's just distance naturally that was created. It's not a wrong reality.

God brings different people into our lives at different seasons. Just briefly, another restrictor is unrealistic expectations. Sometimes you want a deep relationship so badly, that you know what you end up doing? You're demanding to get something from someone in this church, or another human that you can only get from who? From Christ.

What a friend we have in Jesus, all our cares and sorrows to bear. You've got people out there, I don't need the church, I got Christ. If you got Christ, you're in His body, and you need the church.

But you also have people in the church who can live too much off of people, and not be alone with the Lord. So there's two ditches on both sides of the road, don't drive into either of those ditches. A fourth thing here, a wide open heart does more than reveal itself.

Here's another distinction I think is important. We often think relational debt means I told you my secrets. But Paul's language goes further.

He says I've made room for you in my life. Deep relationships are not primarily about revealing yourself, they're about giving yourself. You know what I'm saying? You can give and open up and share.

We could have someone get a testimony and share all these things, but if they're not giving of themselves to the person, you're not going to have that same debt. Paul said, he wept over them. 2 Corinthians 2, out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears.

Many tears. Their spiritual condition affected Paul. The people who are not in the church right now, who are neglecting to come to church, who've not been here, do we have tears? Are they on our minds? I can think of someone right now who's not been around, who's had up and down struggles.

How does that affect me? Paul felt deeply for their souls. In 2 Corinthians 11, he said, I have divine jealousy for you to present you as a bride to Christ. Their faithfulness to Christ mattered to Paul.

2 Corinthians 12, flip there, this is such a glorious verse if you're in 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 12, 15, I love what Paul says here. I looked at this not too long ago, but verse 15, I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls.

If I love you more, am I to be loved less? Then he says, granting I myself didn't burden you. I wasn't crafty, you say, and got the better of you by deceit. That's another thing they were saying.

Paul got the better of them by deceit. He said, that wasn't how it was. Paul was spent for them in a glad way.

Restricted heart says, I'll give you exactly what you give me. Paul says, I will gladly be spent and be spent and be spent for you no matter what you do in return. That's called unconditional love.

And who is our example of unconditional love? Christ. Even his correction was for their good. He said, for building up and not tearing you down in chapter 13.

So Paul's goal was never, how can I put these people in their place? Paul's goal was, how can these people be built up? He says in verse three, we looked at it, this remarkable chapter seven, verse three, I do not say this to condemn you. I've said before, you are in our hearts to die together and to live together. That may be one of the deepest statements in this entire discussion that Paul makes right here.

Paul's merely, he's not merely saying, you know a lot about me, right? He's saying, your life has become bound up with my life. We're living together. That is relational depth, right? Romans 12, rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

Your joy matters to me. Your weeping matters. Your spiritual welfare matters.

That is much more than just exchanging private information. You see the point? You could exchange private information and it still be shallow. All right, a fifth thing.

You following me? We're thinking about deep relationships, specifically in the church. Fifth thing, deep relationships require two widened hearts. You saw how Paul, he says, his heart is wide.

He speaks freely, he weeps. So what happens? Do the Corinthians automatically open their hearts? Nope, they resist him. And that teaches us something very important.

One person cannot create a mutually deep relationship by themselves, right? It takes, I heard this saying growing up, and I don't know much about what tango is, but it takes two to tango. That's how it's always stood out in my mind. I mean, you can't dance with just yourself.

It takes two individuals, right? You gotta have one who opens up and the other who's opening up. Paul says, in return, widen your hearts. This also teaches us this.

Christian love remains my duty whether somebody returns it or not, right? Paul's not restricted even though they are. That's how we gotta be. And you know, people kinda pick up on who that is in the church too.

They kinda get a sense. Who are people in the church who are just very open books, they're very honest, they're making time to meet with people, to interact with people, and you should rightly feel gravitated towards those individuals. And you hear from others, yeah, I met with so-and-so and that was beneficial, that was helpful, right? Many of you expressed that about Vess.

That's been one of the sorrows of Vess being gone in Nicaragua. We're thankful he's gone to Nicaragua. But there's a certain relational depth in a meeting with people and pulling things out of them and them trusting Vess to bear their hearts that is healthy and good for the church.

So I could open my door, but I can't remove the chain from yours. But I can stand there really friendly and talkative and I can wait for a while and you might eventually say, you know what, come and sit on my couch. You know, use the chain imagery.

But if I'm right there and I'm like, why aren't you opening the door? Come on, let me in. That's gonna make you shut the door, put the deadbolt on, right? So we can come across too aggressive. Possibly.

Maybe that's what some people need. They need the door to get kicked out, I guess. Those who end up, yeah.

Look, not every failed friendship is your fault, right? I don't know what you're thinking at this point into this message and you're thinking, you might be introspective and thinking, well, man, I'm really restricted in my heart and shame on me. And I don't know, maybe it's not as bad as you think. Might maybe be more on the other side and you do have an open heart.

Ask God to search your heart, Psalm 139. He'll make it clear where you could grow. But not every failed friendship is your fault.

You don't wanna turn this subject into another law by which lonely Christians condemn themselves that this is another area I'm failing as a Christian and woe is me. Don't do that. Not every Christian's gonna have the same number of close relationships, right? Not every member of the church is gonna be equally close with every other member in the church.

That's not what I'm calling us to. I'm kind of wanting to stir you up and help encourage you that if you had a survey, do you have any close, deep relationships with people in the church? What would you say? And if any of you here would say none, well, let's work in that direction. Or you can say, I have that.

There's some people I go to, even if it's just one person, where there's a closeness and a depth there in your life. And if you feel like you don't have, maybe you have it and you're defining it wrongly, but maybe you don't have that. I don't want you to be content with that.

We wanna help you with that. Us pastors, we wanna help you in that area. Maybe you never learned from your parents about how to develop these relationships.

You struggle to have conversations. Now, what boundaries do you have? And are the boundaries you have governed by wisdom and holiness? Or by fear, resentment, pride? Some people ask their boundaries. I want distance.

You're not gonna discover whether a relationship is truly deep merely when two people finally tell each other everything. Very often, you discover its depth when one disappoints the other. And as any of you who've ever gotten marriage counseling advice from me on who to marry, I'll tell you one of the most important things I've brought up again and again is, have you ever corrected the person that you plan on marrying and how do they respond? And have you corrected them multiple times? How do they, do they respond by agreeing or do they respond by agreeing and acting differently? And if they don't, and the pattern is they agree but they don't change, that's a scary, right? A scary reality.

But even that is not hopeless. That very often you discover the relational depth when you disappoint someone. Because love survives the disappointment.

When sin is confessed, love for the person can survive that. When forgiveness is needed, love can survive that, right? Doesn't that make the relationship all the deeper often when someone is sinned against you? That's not always the case. Sometimes sin hardens someone's heart and it creates horrible distance.

So what makes a Christian relationship deep? Let me try to gather all this together. Room in the heart. Freedom in speech, right, we've spoken freely.

Trust and truthfulness, I know you and can be known. Teachability and forgiveness, truth and failure do not automatically end the relationship. If it does, it's not deep.

Self-giving affection, Paul said, I'll gladly be spent. So the biblical question isn't merely how much of yourself have you exposed, but how much room have you made for another person? How much room? And I've turned the question around. Maybe you came in here saying I don't have any deep relationships.

Before asking why won't anyone get close to me, ask this, do I want to be known but show little curiosity about knowing others? I mean, if you have a curiosity about knowing others, I know we haven't had a fellowship meal for a month. You stay for the fellowship meal and you go and sit at a table with people that you don't even know, right? Or when we break and this 10 a.m. ends, you don't just go talk to the people you already know. You find other people.

And when you go up to them, yes, ask them something. Like, brother, I never actually heard your testimony when you joined the church. Or you ask them something.

Maybe it's hard for you to ask questions like that. Ask them, do they have a dog, do they have a pet? Or do you just cut real deep, real fast? What are you reading in the Word of God? Hey, have you faced any temptations this week? What are you facing? They might not trust you to answer that question. You know, I got a list of questions I try to ask people to cut through surface and go deep.

And you know what, I find you brethren are very open and I appreciate that. And as one of your pastors, I hope that's a reality that you trust me to be open and pour your guts out to me and not get uncomfortable about my probing or Jeff or Craig's probing. We're doing that because we're shepherding your souls.

We're going to be judged. And if we're wasting time on superficial fluff, what's my answer going to be to God? Well, I was too intimidated to go deep with these people because I didn't want to offend them. And can somebody correct me without losing me? Has someone, has some old hurt put the chain on the door? Can I say with Paul, as far as I can tell, you're not restricted by me.

Right? I was asking myself that. What is restricting some of my relationships from being deeper? I had an answer that came into my mind. You might have an answer in your own mind.

What in this season of your life could be restricting that? What can you do about that? Is there something you can do about that? Is it just a different season of life that you're in? So Paul proves you can have an open heart and it can coexist with confronting people and pain. Because that's what he had with the Corinthians. And his heart was still open to them.

It means I've not allowed what happened between us to make my heart small towards you. Is something happening in a relationship that's causing your heart to be small towards someone? You might be justified in the smallness of your heart because of what they've done, but most likely you're probably not. You're checking out when you should be diving deeper in love, or as Paul says, widen your heart.

Widen it. I can't go any, you know, it's just this wide. I don't, no.

Paul says get it open. Get all that affection out. Get all that, get that love.

Yes, it's gonna show itself in conversation, truthful speech, all these realities. So come back to the door. Maybe you recognize the chain.

An old correction, a disappointment, a motive that was assigned to you. Christ probably isn't telling you go find a better friend. Maybe He's saying widen your heart and make room and you be a better friend to this person who's offended you.

And ultimately, all this, we need more than better social skills. Having a deep relationship is not about having good social skills, right? It's about being honest, truthful, and free of self-consciousness and pride. That's so much of what's wrapped up in this.

And you know what we ultimately need? We need the affection of Jesus Christ. Paul says in Philippians 1, he yearned for the believers with the affection of Christ Jesus. That's what can make a small heart large.

Christ knew His people completely. He bore our weaknesses. He told us the truth.

He forgave us. He carried our burdens. He welcomed us.

He served us. He revealed Himself to us. He gave Himself for us.

So maybe the real question in this whole time, and you can forget everything I've said up to this point, and you ask, how can I get a deeper relationship? Maybe what you need to hear is what would happen if my relationship with Christ was deepened? Would that not enlarge my heart? Maybe that's the whole focus. It's not on getting deeper relationships with people. It's knowing Christ more.

That will free you of all the self and fleshly garbage that gets in the way of you loving others more. The love of Christ becomes larger than your fear of being rejected. Larger than your pride.

Larger than old offenses. Old offenses end up being just shriveling as little dust in the sand. And it's insignificant.

Larger than your preferences, the love of Christ becomes so big. And it should, because the love of Christ surpasses knowledge. Paul could look at the Corinthians after being misunderstood, accused, resisted, tears, correction, and still say our heart is wide open.

Can you say that? Is your heart wide open? If you can't, maybe know where the chain is at. These aren't actually that hard to take off. I just went and got a screwdriver and unscrewed it from my door.

I'd say it's that easy in the spiritual realm too. Just get the lies and it just comes right off. You think this is stuck? I mean, some of you might have 20 of these on your door.

I hope not. Widen your heart. And I'm not saying this is some big problem in our church.

Please don't understand that. But just different ones had mentioned this. Thinking of this topic of deep relationships.

So, I don't know, Jeff, you have anything you want to add? Okay, let's pray. We're out of time. Father, Lord, whether this message was balanced in the right way, I don't know.

Were there weak, introspective sheep heard something I said and feels condemned right now? I don't know that either. But I pray you'd break through all of that and you'd help each and every individual Christian with what they needed from this message right now. And Lord, I pray you'd help us to widen our hearts.

Lord, I pray you would get rid of restrictions in our hearts. Lord, that there would be a free flow of affection. Lord, we're gonna take the Lord's Supper and what are we doing when we take it? We're being reminded of the symbols of a body.

Lord, help us to continue to live that reality out. Lord, help us to, in a greater way, bear with one another. Father, we just need your help.

Lord, you've made us in your image and you are relational and you have a relationship with us. Lord, I do pray that last point, enlarge our hearts to see more of your love, Lord Jesus. Because that will really help in the depth of relationships.

Lord, it'll free us. So much of it, we just gotta be free. Free of self.

Lord, crucify the passions of our flesh that are waging war against our bodies. Lord, just thoughts that hit our minds that are just so focused on me and self. Lord, would you destroy that? Would you purge us of that? Lord, make us all the more a free people.

Lord, open books. Transparent people. Lord, transparency can be some modern term, but Lord, there's truth to that.

Paul was transparent. His heart was open. He started 2 Corinthians 1, talking about his despairing of life itself and feeling like he received the sentence of death.

Lord, that's pretty honest and transparent. But it was so he would no longer rely on himself, but on you who raised the dead. Lord, help us to be a people who rely upon you.

Lord, show us more of Christ. Lord, continue to be with us. Bless our meeting.

Lord, bless this time right now where we interact. Lord, grow us in our ability to have deep and deeper and deepening relationships. Lord, grow us in our ability to maintain relationships we already have.

We might feel like some distance is going. We haven't made time for certain people and there's a little coldness there. Lord, help us to be more aggressive to make time for that.

Lord, make time for a lot of things in our lives. Help us make time for these things that matter so much, near and dear to your heart. Thank you, in Christ's name, amen.