The sense of smell is a powerful sense.
If you are like me, as an example, the smell of a coffee especially in the morning, is a reviving smell. You can be asleep and then, if someone loves you enough to make it for you, the smell is able to wake you up.
This is fantastic. What a great way to wake up.
When you are put camping or caravanning. It is the morning and you are out in the middle of nowhere and the smell of coffee is just wonderful.
It revives our sense and it creates in us these pleasant memories.
Those of you who enjoy coffee will be able to say, “I remember when we sat at that certain place and we had a coffee”.
Smell and memory go together.
Of all of the senses the sense of smell in our relationship with God, initially, seemed to be the one which would be the most difficult to put in place.
How do you talk about a God who “smells”?
Yet, in the Scripture, we also see that God puts smell and pleasant memories together.
We see this happening in a number of examples in Scripture.
We start in Genesis 8. The context is after the flood.
Noah and his family have built the ark and, in obedience to God, they went into the ark and they were preserved.
The flood has now gone and the family are able to come out of the ark onto dry ground.
Then the Scriptures record what Noah does in response to this event.
Genesis 8:18-22 (read)
The Lord smelt the pleasing aroma!
The smell has created in God a memory. So everything God smells the sacrifices he is reminded of the promises he made.
Further on in Exodus 30 we have another example.
In this context we are talking about the provisions for the tabernacle.
What is to be built in the tabernacle. How the tabernacle is to be set up. And how the various components of the tabernacle are to function.
Among the furniture is the alter of incense - Exodus 30:34-38 describes the nature and purpose of this alter (read)
This is God’s special perfume that is given to the people. God says, “I want you to make this and put in on the alter. The reason I want you to do this is because I want this pleasant smell to be a reminder of my connection with you.
We also know that as this mixture is lit it creates a vapour which is a pointer to the prayers which we rise up to God and which he hears.
“May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.” (Psalm 141:2)
The lifting up of the prayers of Israel is a pleasant aroma to God.
God is creating a pleasant memory of the times when the prayers
In your own time later sit down and have a look for yourself. Particularly at the sacrifices in Exodus and Leviticus. Regularly you will find that the idea that the sacrifice was a “pleasing aroma” to the Lord.
There is this definite picture in the Scriptures of God, “smelling”. Of these sacrifices creating in God a pleasant memory.
Just on the basis of the aroma.
Just on the basis of the smell.
So think about that for a moment. Our actions produce in God a pleasant memory. The way that we respond to God and the way we interact with God is a pleasant interaction.
Such being the case we should see this as an encouragement to interact more and more with God.
I can be a person who creates in God a pleasant memory.
How great is that!
Me with all my shortcomings and weakness and failing and sin … I can make a sacrifice and live a life of sacrifice and God sees that and says, “This is pleasant. I am so thankful that you have created this memory for me.”
So how do we put this into action?
Again we go back to the Scripture and we gain our directions from Scripture.
Ephesians 5:1-2 (read)
Christ brings the offering and it is a pleasing aroma.
You see here Jesus fulfilling the Old Testament sacrificial system in every way … even to the point of offering a pleasing aroma. Then we are called to walk in the same way.. That our lives are a pleasing aroma to the Lord.
In the context of these verses, both before and after, is a whole list of ways that we can live which is pleasing to God.
Making a pleasing aroma impacts our speech. Be people who have wholesome speech.
Paul talks about putting off sexual immorality. Paul talks about avoiding greed. There is a whole range of actions which are pleasing.
All we need to do is be familiar with these actions and put them into place. God smells this pleasing aroma and it creates a pleasant memory.
If we want to be a fragrant offering to God there is a call for transformation in our lives.
And it isn’t a call for following rules and regulations. Christianity isn’t about primarily about acting a certain way. The transformation is one which takes place in our heart.
Romans 12:1-2 (read)
The word aroma doesn’t come up here, but the idea of sacrifice is clear.
And note that transformation doesn’t come but following the rules … but by the renewing of the mind.
Let your mind be transformed to be more and more like Christ.
For the more you have the mind of Christ the more you understand the will of God.
And the more you understand the will of God the more you are able to be like Christ.
It is like a spiral. But not a downward spiral, it is an upward spiral.
The Scripture transforms our thinking, so that we are transformed in our actions.
This is the fragrant offering. God is so pleased when we take His word and we listen to it and we are transformed by it.
A pleasing aroma.
When we live like this we don’t even see that we are making a sacrifice. We don’t feel that we are giving up anything. Instead what we see is opportunity.
Philippians 4:18-19 (read)
18 I have received full payment and have more than enough. I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.
19 And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.
The Philippian church has seen the needs of Paul and they have sent monetary help and also they have sent Epaphroditus to help. Paul sees this action and he describes them as a fragrant offering.
Is it powerful to think that the things that we do for each other … helping and supporting each other … is a pleasing aroma to God. As we live as church
… as we walk with each other.
… as we witness and testify.
… as we engage with the community.
… as we serve.
God looks at all of this and it is creating a pleasant memory because it is a pleasing aroma.
How exciting it is to get to the end of the day and think, “God is pleased with me.”
So often, isn’t it, we get to the end of the day and think, “God must be upset with me. I didn’t act, or live, or think, how I should have.”
But here we are reminded that it is not impossible, in fact it should be that we get to the end of the day, being able to know that God is pleased because we have given the fragrant offering.
And, as we make the sacrifice, God extends the promise that he will meet all our needs.
As we look after each other God also continues to look after us.
Again it is another cycle.
But it doesn’t stop there. The fact that we are a pleasing aroma to God has an impact on the people around us. In 2 Corinthians 2 Paul talks about the difficulties he has been going through and people have been standing against him. Then in 2 Corinthians 2:14-16 Paul summarises the impact of these difficulties (read)
Note here that the aroma is not just about the sacrifice, it is also about the Word of God.
Going out into the world and spreading the Word.
Basically what Paul is saying here is that we smell like God. As that smell goes out people are going to respond one way or another.
For some people they are going to say, “I don’t like that smell and I am going to stand against that smell and I am offended by that smell.” I don’t like what God is all about. That is what Paul is describing when he talks about the aroma of death.
For other people they see the smell they say, “That is pleasant. I want to know more. I want to hear more. I want to understand more. Who is this God? Why does he enable you to be such a pleasant smell in my life.”
As we live out our life and be that aroma to God, our life is going to create in others resistance or encouragement.
We are going to create a memory.
This is the calling. To be the aroma of Christ as we go out into this world.
Which brings us to a really significant question.
Who is equal to this task?
Because we know it is easy to not be those who make a pleasing aroma.
Think about babies for a moment.
Babies can smell wonderful. You pick them up and they smell so nice and you just want to hold them. In an instant that can go from that to smelling terrible. The smell they make is so bad that no amount of lotion, and no amount of covering up is going to get rid of the vileness that is the smell of a baby.
Isn’t it true that we are like that?
There are days when we are a pleasing aroma to the Lord. But there are also days when we feel like we are a stench to the Lord.
That we haven’t lived as we should. Who is equal to this task.
We know our failings.
We know our weaknesses.
We know we have let God down.
We know we have let down the people who are closest to us - let alone those who are further from us.
We know all this. We are sure of this.
We get to the end of the day and we say to God, “God I really stank today. I really messed it up”.
But here is the wonderful truth that we can take home from today.
Never does the Scripture say that an “unpleasant aroma” was offered to the Lord.
Every time we read in the Scripture about a smell it is says , “this was a pleasing aroma to the Lord.”
Now I am not saying that we can’t make God sad, and upset and deserving of God’s wrath.
But what we see in Scripture is that when the memory of the smell is a memory which is a “stench” then it is not a long term memory.
The pleasant memories are long term.
The stench is not.
Because ultimately, when we are in Christ, God chooses to ignore that which was “unpleasantly” offered. It is because of the work of Jesus that we can have confidence and hope.
We saw why before in Ephesians 5:1-2.
1 Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
When we stand in Christ and when we stand in his love, even though we smell and our stench is an offense to God, the fragrance of Christ’s offering covers the stench of our offering.
Christ enables us, in our sin-stained stench, to stand before God as a pleasing aroma.
Not only does God see us through Christ. He smells us through Christ.
Isn’t it great to know. Indeed what we have seen is that, in Christ, all of the senses are engaged in our relationship with God.
Christ touches us.
Christ hears us.
Christ sees us.
That he enables us to smell like him.
Taste and see that the Lord is good.
All these sense come together - enabling us to have hope and security in God.
So today, as we get to the end of this series, I want to encourage all of us to be those people who understand that in Christ we should not doubt that we are a pleasing aroma.
All the stench has been covered.
We can go and live in the joy and freedom of being able to say, “Lord here I am, a pleasing aroma to you. Not in my own strength but because of the grace of Christ.
Prayer
