This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to day five of our look at 2nd Corinthians 12. I almost hate to leave
this chapter. We're going to look at verses 11 to 21 today.

We've been talking about how God works in the lives of His servant and three
things that you need. You need a vision to sustain you. You need a thorn to
humble you.

And number three, we're going to look at these verses today. You need a love to
motivate you. You have to ask yourself, as God's servant, what's the driving
force of your life?

Is it success or accomplishment or acceptance? Well, in order to understand the
driving force of your life, you have to think about what does the power of God
give you the strength to do? And God does not give His power just for your
success or your accomplishment or even for your feeling of self-acceptance.

And it doesn't mean that God doesn't want you to have some success or may have
some accomplishments He wants you to do or may want you to feel good about what
He's doing in your life. But those aren't the reasons. Those aren't the
motivations.

I'm convinced that the biblical driving force of our lives is nothing but love.
That's the motivator of our lives. And Paul talks again about his love for the
Corinthians in these verses.

So as we walk through these verses today, I want to talk together about four
words that describe how this motivating love comes about in each of us. The
first two words come out of verses 11 to 14. These words all have to do with the
kinds of choices I make in my life.

11 to 14 says this, "I have made a fool of myself, but you drove me to it. I too
have been commended by you, for I am not in the least inferior to the super
apostles, even though I am nothing. The things that mark an apostle, signs,
wonders and miracles, were done among you with such great perseverance.

How were you inferior to the other churches, except that I was never a burden to
you? Forgive me this wrong. Now I am ready to visit you for the third time, and
I will not be a burden to you, because what I want is not your possessions, but
you.

After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents
for their children. " Now, first, before we look at the first of these four
words, there are a couple of phrases in this that people get caught up in. Paul
says, "You drove me to do this.

" And some people think, "Well, wait, you shouldn't be driven by other people. "
Paul is tongue-in-cheek here. He's talking about being a fool of myself, and you
drove me to it.

He is in some sense joking with the Corinthians at this point. "The only reason
I do this is you drove me to it. " Then he makes another sarcastic
tongue-in-cheek remark when he talks again about these super apostles.

And then he gets serious and says, "You saw the signs of an apostle. Why can't
you trust that? " See, these super apostles, if you've forgotten, were some
professional teachers who'd begun to sway the thinking of the Corinthians along
legalistic lines, along prideful lines.

And Paul says, "No, you've got to get back to grace. " But as he talks, as he
talks about the struggles that they've had, you get to hear the heart of Paul
towards these people that he served. And there are four words I want to pick up
on as we walk through these verses that have to do with how love becomes the
driving force of your life.

The first word is priority. If love is to be the driving force of my life, I've
got to choose people over things. And Paul talks about that here.

He says, "I don't want your possessions. I want you. " I've said this often.

You either use people to love things or you use things to love people. It's one
or the other. If you love things, you're going to use people.

If you love people, you're going to use things to love them. They're just a
tool. Paul had this confidence in Christ that changed the priority of his
relationships all around him.

He could think of others first because he wasn't worried about himself. He had
that self-centered sense of selfishness that all of us struggle with, dealt with
in his life because it was love for other people. And that caused a new priority
to come into his life.

And so he chose people over other things. And that included accomplishments in
his life. That included so many of the kinds of things that this world includes
as valuable.

Paul knew it was going to last. People are going to last. And so because of
that, he chose to love.

This man who was so driven in his life. You don't have to read many of his
letters to see how driven he was to be all that God wanted him to be, to do all
that God wanted him to do. This man in the end was driven to love, to love the
Lord and to love people because he knew that's what would last.

So priority, that's the first word. The second word is relationship. If you're
going to love others, you have to be in relationship with others.

It's amazing to me that some people try to make a priority of loving others, but
they don't have any relationship with anybody. So there's a second choice you
make. I choose being in a family over being alone.

Now Paul says here, he talks about family relationship. Children should not save
up for their parents, but parents for their children. I had someone on our
research team ask me, is this a command about what parents should do that we
have to save for our children?

No, it's more an expression of what they always do. You can't help but do it
because your kids have needs. And the fact that it's not the other way around.

There's a responsibility that he had. But what impresses me here is the fact
that once again, Paul is talking about his relationship with other believers in
terms of a family. Paul saw this tie between himself and others.

And so he calls Jews his fellow kinsmen. He calls others his fellow workers or
his brothers, those in Corinth, he's calling his spiritual children. There's
this family relationship.

I've met too many people who want to be a great servant of God, but somehow they
want to do it like from the high holy hill. They're up and above others, they're
not related to others, they're not in relationship with others. You can't do it
that way.

You can't love others without loving others, without being involved in
relationship with them, without being part of the family. In fact, it'll wear
you out to try to do that. If you're caught up in that, come down from the high
holy hill, get back involved in the family.

You've got brothers, you've got sisters, you've got spiritual parents, you've
got spiritual children. And when you're involved in the family, you realize
that's how love works. That's how love is motivated in my life.

First priority, I choose people over things. Second relationship, I choose being
in a family over being alone. And then there's a third choice, a third choice
that's in verses 15 to 18, sacrifice.

I choose others over myself. Let me read these verses. So, I will very gladly
spend for you everything I have and expend myself as well.

If I love you more, will you love me less? Be that as it may, I have not been a
burden to you. Yes, crafty fellow that I am, I caught you by trickery.

Did I exploit you through any of the men that I sent to you? I urged Titus to go
to you and I sent our brother with him. Titus did not exploit you, did he?

Did we not act in the same spirit and follow the same course? Paul is dealing
with some problems the Corinthians had been given because of these false
teachers that Paul hadn't taken care of them. He didn't care about them as much
as the other churches.

He was just trying to trick them. And Paul says, of course that didn't happen
because the truth is, I choose you over myself. I'll spend for you everything I
have and I'll expend myself as well.

He willingly gave whatever he had and he willingly gave himself as well. Paul
put a great value on people and that meant two specific things. He would spend
himself for people.

He would spend his things and himself for people and he would not exploit
people. He would not use people. He talks about both of them, these verses,
sacrifice.

I choose others over myself. Now if you're to do that, you're going to need the
four quality of relationships that Paul talks about here and that's, I would
call this quality identity. I choose to find my identity, my love in Christ.

In verse 19 Paul says, have you been thinking all along that we've been
defending ourselves to you? We've been speaking in the sight of God as those in
Christ. And everything we do, dear friends, is for your strengthening.

Speaking in the sight of God as those in Christ. Do what you do in the presence
of God and find your identity in Christ. If you try to find your identity in
others, your acceptance, feelings of acceptance from others or in things, you
will be driven to use others or to use things to build your identity.

Paul is able to say everything we have done is for your strengthening. The only
way that Paul could do this is because he was secure in the love of Christ.
Listen, if my security is in the love of others, I will try to use others to
strengthen my security.

When my security is in the love of Christ, I can serve others to strengthen
their love. Let me say that again, it's so important to understand. If my
security is trying to be found in the love of others, I will inevitably try to
use others to strengthen my security.

But when my security is in the love of Christ, I am then set free to serve
others to strengthen their love, to strengthen them. Now in all of this, in this
relationship, in all these words that we've talked about, there is a risk.
There's a risk in love, and that is love can be rejected.

Paul talks about that risk in verses 20 and 21, the last verses in this chapter.
"For I am afraid that when I come, I may not find you as I want you to be, and
you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be quarreling,
jealousy, outbursts of anger, faction, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorder.

I am afraid that when I come again, my God will humble me before you, and I will
be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of impurity,
sexual sin, and debauchery in which they have indulged. " Paul says, "I love
you, and I want to strengthen you, but I know I'm taking a risk. You may not
listen to me.

You may get caught up in quarreling, and jealousy, and outbursts of anger, and
factions, and slander, and gossip, and arrogance, and disorder. " Someone on our
research team called that Satan's short list of what he wants in churches.
That's what Satan wants in churches, gossip and factions.

And Paul says, "I know it could happen to you. When I love you, it is a risk.
When you love anyone, it's a risk.

The only way you're going to find the strength to take that risk is by finding
your identity in Christ. And once you find your identity in Christ, that he
loves you no matter what, whether someone else rejects you, whether someone else
accepts your word from the Lord, your word from scripture or not, once you find
that, then I want to say this to you. Love is worth the risk.

Because without the love, there'll be no change. Without the love, there'll be
no growth. Without the love, there'll be no transformation.

Without the love, there'll be no relationship. Jesus took the risk to love me,
the risk to go to a cross to love you. I'm glad he took that risk.

So today, find your identity in Christ, and out of that, take the risk to love.
Our Father, we come to you, and we humbly ask that you give us the strength to
take that risk today. It's always a risk to love, but there's a greater risk in
not loving, we know that.

There's a greater risk not only to what won't happen in other people's lives,
but to the hardened heart that will happen in our lives. So yeah, we may be
hurt. Yes, others may not accept, others may reject, but Lord, because we know
you love us, help us to find our strength there, our security there, our
identity there, because we know you love us, help us today to take the risk to
love.

We ask this in the name of Jesus, amen. Next week, Chapter 13, which is the last
chapter of 2 Corinthians, you've almost made it through. We're going to end our
study by looking at Paul's strong closing encouragements for us.