Worry About Yourself Series

Let’s start this morning with a time of confession. By show of hands, how many of you have ever had a mysterious ailment that caused you to turn to Dr. Google or WebMD for a diagnosis? Raise your hand again if you convinced yourself that said diagnosis was likely terminal. Raise your hand again if you actually argued with your real doctor when he or she laughed at your self-diagnosis? Anyone? We’re all friends this morning, we can be honest (I think some of you are lying).

In a similar story, Shannon recently had to have an ultrasound for some intestinal pain that she was having and the results came back with a really wild diagnosis. And so we got on google and researched it from every angle and immediately starting making plans for a procedure so weird, that you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But that night, Shannon convinced me to seek the advice of my baby brother, who also happens to be a surgeon. And as much as it pained me, I reached out to him via text and showed him the report. He immediately replied, “That’s an over read…it’s misdiagnosis.”

Now, I’m gonna be honest, it made me a little mad. How could he possibly know? He didn’t see the actual scan. He lives too far away to have seen Shannon with his own eyes. And I really wanted to argue with him. And so I started to rattle back a quick text when I saw these two little initials appear in my head...they were the initials behind his name—“M.D.” And those two little letters represent years of medical school, a fellowship at Ohio State, five years of experience as a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, and approximately 10,000 surgeries. In the moment, I really wanted my internet experience to trump his credentials. But truth be told, his credentials and his vast experience made him more than qualified to “treat” Shannon and to give her a better future. And much to my chagrin, he turned out to be right.

Today, we are closing out our study through the book of 2 Corinthians. And for 12 chapters, Paul has been forced to defend himself as a trustworthy apostle. The church members in Corinth had been doing their own research with the help of the false teachers known as the Super Apostles, and Paul has been forced to be the doctor from our opening illustration that has to rattle off his credentials to prove that he’s the real deal and can be trusted to point people to Jesus.

And in chapter 12, verse 11 Paul basically says, “Shame on you for making me stoop to such a level. I should be commended by you and instead, you’re making me act like a fool, forcing me to drop to the level of these Super Apostles, that are in it for themselves. They don’t have your best interest in mind. They have no idea what they’re talking about. I’m the real doctor here.” And then he says in verses 14-15, “I seek not what is yours [in other words, unlike the Super Apostles, he didn’t want ANYTHING from them], I want YOU…I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls.”

Paul is in the business of “soul care.” He basically says, “Wring me out. Take everything I have. It’s all for you. I have proven that I don’t want ANYTHING in return. I’m just here to protect you and to lead your souls to Jesus.” And church, that’s ministry in a nutshell. It’s all about the personal sacrifice of digging through the brokenness and messiness of relationships and dysfunction with the purpose of glorifying Jesus as we make disciples.

This morning we’re going to pick up in chapter 13. And like just about every writer in the Bible, Paul closes out this letter with some final warnings and challenges to the church.

2 Corinthians 13:5-10

"Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! 6 I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test. 7 But we pray to God that you may not do wrong—not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed. 8 For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. 9 For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. Your restoration is what we pray for. 10 For this reason I write these things while I am away from you, that when I come I may not have to be severe in my use of the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down."