Some days I wonder why God decided to give human beings noses.
I think that and then I have to put on a pair of glasses and I know at least one reason.
There are other times I am glad I have a nose: as a child my favorite intersection in Tulsa Oklahoma was 21st and Sheridan. It was the corner where the WONDER BREAD factory was located. It seemed they were always baking their bread.
A cooking steak or a new car interior. Our noses can enjoy a lot of things in this world.
If you ask someone what their favorite fragrance is you will probably get different responses depending on whether they are men or women.
Women will probably talk about the smell of a certain flower while men will describe some item of food.
But there are some things in this life that are just not worth smelling: dairy near our house, skunk recently deceased or had recently released, exhaust from the car you are stuck behind going 10 miles under the speed limit in a no passing zone.
But if there are so many things offensive to our noses just imagine how God must react to the putrid stench of sin or some of the smelly things even believers do.
Why do we call the place church members sit as being in our OWN PEW?
How big a stink can we sometimes raise and maybe not even know it
Some children decided to play a trick on Grandpa one day. When he was taking a nap, they sprayed his mustache with bug spray. When he woke up, he sniffed the air and said, "Something in this house stinks."
He went into the kitchen and said, "This kitchen stinks!" He went outside and said, "THE WHOLE WORLD STINKS!" It wasn’t the world that stunk, it was Grandpa!
If you were a flower in God’s garden what would you smell like?
14 But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place.
15 For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; 16 to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life.
And who is adequate for these things? 17 For we are not like many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.
In these verses Paul gives us an idea of what is pleasing to God. The kind of things He is looking for in our lives. Do you want your life to be the kind of life that smells to God like that WONDERBREAD factory did to me?
1. GOD IS PLEASED WITH A LIFE OF TRIUMPH:
• Triumphant living in Christ
14 But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ,
One of the pictures this type of language would paint in the world that Paul was writing to was the idea of a parade which was common when a victorious general came home from battle with his troops.
At least 5000 of the enemy must have fallen in one single engagement.
The general must have gained positive territory, not merely defended territory already controlled by Rome. The parade started with public officials followed by trumpeters followed by spoils taken from the conquered land followed by a white bull for sacrifice followed by wretched captives in chains.
Then came the musicians. At length the conquering general appeared in a chariot pulled by white horses. Then came his family followed by the victorious soldiers.
As they moved through the streets, the people shouted “Triumph!” “Triumph!” “Triumph!”
The Christian life is meant to be a victory parade. All different types are a part of this parade but we all make our way through the streets together.
One of the keys is to be the ones in the street walking and not the ones on the sidelines recognizing the exploits of others.
Hebrews 12 says that we should all be in the parade while those who have gone before us are our witnesses to our race which is run as we are looking unto Jesus.
God, who always leads us in triumph: God doesn’t have a plan of defeat for your life.
If you are walking that way then somehow you have gotten off of God’s path for you.
triumph in Christ: our victories are not ‘for’ Christ but ‘in Christ’. Apart from Christ working thru our lives we cannot win the victories He is wanting us to win in life.
“We are more than Conquerors through Him who loves us.” Romans 8:37
Jesus told His disciple to pray in a way that God’s will can be done on earth as it is in heaven. The literal language is that God wants it done on earth as it is already being done in heaven. God wants to see transference from heaven to earth of the things pleasing to Him and that comes when we begin to behave on earth so that the things in heaven can make an appearance here.
2. GOD IS PLEASED WITH THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIMSELF IN OUR LIVES: and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place.
There is no triumph apart from the knowledge of God in our lives.
Our triumphs are based upon our acting by faith upon the promises and known will of God.
Sometimes we hear people talk about the ‘sweet smell of victory’.
15 For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; 16 to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life.
When these parades would happen the generals would be accompanied by priests with incense who would swing their carriers so the smell would go in all directions.
That smell meant victory to the marchers and the crowd but it also meant defeat and execution to the captives in the parade.
I am not sure what kind of cologne or perfume any of you like to wear. One of the fragrances I occasionally wear is one called, ‘MCGRAW’. A signature fragrance from Tim McGraw. There are some strange fragrances out there being marketed such as ‘Burger King’, Play Doh’, ‘Cheese’, and even ‘Paint’.(sniffing paint)
The truth is that WE WILL SMELL LIKE WHAT WE ARE AROUND THE MOST.
We pick up more fragrances than we put on depending on where we spend our time.
Some people smell like BBQ or Mexican food or cigarettes.
God wants us to smell like JESUS.
Ruth Bell Graham defined a saint as someone who makes it easy to believe in Jesus.
The more we carry His aroma the more the world will pick up that scent on us before we ever speak a word about Him.
The problem is that when we smell like Jesus it will be attractive to some and very offensive to others.
Whenever I or anyone else stand and share the complete Gospel in accordance with the full knowledge of Christ it will always be a message of life and a message of death. A message of hope and a message of judgment.
To share anything else is to compromise the gospel and to ignore the full knowledge of Him we are given in God’s Word.
There is no GOOD NEWS without the BAD NEWS that makes it the GOOD NEWS.
I can announce the score of a ballgame by either saying that one team won or that the Cowboys lost. Both communicate the same message.
This is why the Word of God is a sword with TWO EDGES.
This is why the world needs to hear of a Jesus Who is not only the SAVIOR for some but will be the JUDGE for many.
The less we invest in the truths of the Bible the less we will experience God’s victory in our life.
Our society will react less to hear that they CAN HAVE Jesus and more to being told that they NEED Jesus. That He is the only WAY, the only TRUTH and the only LIFE….and that NO ONE comes but by Him.
When Brit Hume was asked his opinion about golf star TIGER WOODS. Tabloids and TV and newspapers had covered the story naming one after another of Tiger’s reported mistresses. So when Brit Hume was asked about it on the Fox News Sunday show, he said that he thought Tiger could save his golfing career but salvaging his personal life was another matter.
Then his comments went in an unexpected direction:
The extent to which he can recover – seems to me to depend on his faith. He’s said to be a Buddhist; I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, “Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.”
The next day he went on The O’Reilly Factor and repeated what he had said and then he went even further during a radio interview:
Christianity is uniquely and especially about redemption and forgiveness. That is what the cornerstone of what the faith is about. It is that the God of the universe sent His only begotten Son, who died a hideous death on the cross, to atone for all of our sins.
Near the end of his interview with Bill O’Reilly he said that the name of Jesus has always been explosive. “You speak the name of Jesus Christ . . . and all hell breaks loose.”
The gospel reveals our sin and then offers an eternal remedy. It explains our guilt and shows us the way to forgiveness. It strips away from us every excuse we have, and then it offers to clothe us in the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Jim Elliot once prayed, “Father, make me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to decision. Let me not be a milepost on a single road. Make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.”
Part of our job as believers is to bring every person we encounter over the issue of Who Jesus is to a point of CRISIS.
To make them consider what it means to know Him but also to reject Him.
WHEN GOD SMELLS THAT GOING ON then it is a SWEET AROMA.
Ray Stedman: It is hopeless to look to secular leadership to get us out of the mess we are in. If the church is not going to say to the world what God has sent it to say, there is no hope for this country or any other country today. It is truth we need. It is light in our darkness we need.
A strange sign greets visitors to Vienna, Austria. Translated from the German, it says, "Welcome to Vienna, where the salt is in the saltshaker." What they mean is that they “don't put salt on the streets in the winter”!
The church is the salt of the earth, but we do no good if we stay in the saltshaker. In the church. NOBODY LIKES SALT IN THE SHAKER BUT ALMOST EVERYONE LIKES SALT THAT IS SHAKEN. Sprinkled into their life at just the right amount to bring the right flavor to the moment.
3. THERE ARE THINGS THAT GOD IS NOT PLEASED WITH:
WHAT STINKS TO GOD? Paul mentions one particular thing.
There are some people who try to remove the stench from their life by just adding the perfume or cologne. What they desperately need is a shower but they think they can fix the problem by just trying to add the cologne.
If the stench of sin has not been dealt with in your life then don’t think you can just cover it up by going around and saying you belong to Jesus. Dab a little of His name here and a little there. Bless you brother. I am Christian….I go to church…when the sin in your life is still very evident but just looks a little more religious.
The true power of the fragrance comes when it alone is what is present in your life.
There are some people whom people look at and they say, ‘I hear Jesus but I smell sin’.
And who is adequate for these things?
None of us are adequate to try to live the Christian life.
If we are not the real deal then it will be evident one way or another.
17 For we are not like many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.
Paul describes those who thought they had they fragrance of Christ because they used God’s Word but the truth was they carried an offensive smell to all of heaven.
a) False teachers peddle God’s Word instead of proclaiming it.
They get into the ministry for different reason than for God’s glory.
It may be for money, or popularity, or success or to gain a following.
Peddling was a word used to describe a street salesman presenting his wares.
They seem to always promise to do for people exactly what they want in their lives.
We see a lot of infomercials in our day as TV has become the new place to peddle your wares. Many so called preachers peddle health and wealth, ‘your best life now’, success, spiritual secrets to the end times…whatever the religious seeker will buy.
Paul said in another place that they TICKLE men’s ears instead of giving them the truth that might confront their condition before God.
In fact the actual word for PEDDLING that Paul chose to use spoke not only of a street vendor but of a CON MAN who sold corrupted wares.
Cheap imitations or knock offs of the real thing.
The most common was those who sold WATERED DOWN WINE.
In our day we now see on every street a peddler selling a watered down gospel.
PAUL said we don’t peddle the gospel by trying to package it to be acceptable but proclaim it just as God has given it. No watering it down so anyone can swallow it.
We are to proclaim a gospel that many might choke on.
Otherwise what we do might be acceptable to men but offensive to God.
JOHN 12: Beautiful story of Jesus and His disciples at the home of Mary.
Lazarus is also sitting at the table after the resurrection experience of John 11.
Starting in verse 3 the chapter describes something amazing that Mary does.
Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. John 12:3
Mary did something very costly in what she sacrifice by taking this expensive perfume and anointing Jesus with it. The fragrance filled the house but also was on Jesus.
Then Mary wiped His feet with her hair so that when Mary left the house and everywhere she went she smelled just the same as Jesus.
The world needs us to do the same.
