Sermon Outline, Palm Sunday

Peter J. Leithart, April 05, 2006

Much of the following was inspired by a lecture by Dr. David Powlison of the counseling center at Westminster Seminary, Philadelphia.

INTRODUCTION
As disciples of Jesus, we are all called to take our cross to suffer with Him. He suffered because He provoked murderous hatred from his enemies. Our afflictions are less grand: The car battery dies the same day you're having a job interview and you have to get the kids to the dentist before school and you shut the car hood on our thumb and get grease on your new power tie and then get stuck in traffic until the cop pulls you over. . . . Is this suffering with Christ? How?

THE TEXT
"Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in all Achaia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 1:1-14).

SUFFERING AND MINISTRY
We know from Paul's first letter that the Corinthian church was in bad shape, plagued by schism, debates about meats, conflicts over spiritual gifts, and doubts about the resurrection. Sometime between the first and second letter, another issue began to rattle the Corinthians: Paul's claims as an apostle. Much of 2 Corinthians is Paul's defense of his apostolic ministry, which is also a defense of the reliability of the gospel he preached at Corinth.

Paradoxically, Paul points to his afflictions above all as evidence of his apostolic status (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:16-33). That is what he is talking about in chapter 1: The "we" or "us" is an "apostolic" we, referring to Paul, his colleagues (Timothy, 1:1), and the other apostles. Assaulted by Judaizers and threatened by Gentiles, the apostles share uniquely in the sufferings of Christ, so that they can minister Christ’s comfort to the churches (vv. 5-6). Sharing in Christ's sufferings enabled the apostles to minister to Christ's people.

OUR SUFFERINGS
Though Paul is talking specifically about the apostles, what he says about suffering has a wider application in the church. After all, though the apostles (and, following them, ministers and elders) have a unique ministry in the church, all believers are called to service in the church (Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 12; Ephesians 4). To make us effective ministers, God brings affliction.

What are the results of affliction? It is possible to respond to affliction with what Paul calls "fleshly wisdom" (v. 12). Things get hard, and we get angry, blame other people, seek to escape affliction in drugs, drink, and sex (cf. Galatians 5:19-21). Those are fleshly responses primarily because those responses are faithless, unbelieving. Our sufferings work for our sanctification when we draw the conclusion that we are unreliable, but that we serve a reliable God, a God who not only brings affliction but who rescues from affliction (v. 9). Sufferings bring the most fundamental change possible, the change from self-idolatry to worship of the true God. And, when we have suffered and seen God’s faithfulness, we can encourage others to trust Him in their afflictions. A young woman loses her husband, and feels that she died with him; a friend who has also known loss is able to give her hope in the God who raises the dead (v. 9).

CONCLUSION
All affliction can be a sharing in Christ's suffering – if we respond in faith and if we, like our Lord and like Paul, turn our suffering into suffering for the comfort and salvation of others (v. 6).