SPEAKER_00: Morning, everyone.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the study.
SPEAKER_00: It's good to uh to be with you in your home on your phone or on your uh on your TV as we continue this series in Paul's second letter to the Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it is a uh it's such a rich and warm book.
SPEAKER_00: There's no book uh like it uh in the New Testament, insofar as you see Paul's uh heart laid bare.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it is a uh it is a highly charged book, and uh I think one uh that is good for us in this season as we seek to kind of process all of the things that have been uh been going on and how we go forward from uh from here as as Christian disciples.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm glad to be opening it up with you.
SPEAKER_00: Please keep the the passage that Anya read uh open uh in front of you or on your phone and let's pray together as we as we look at it.
SPEAKER_00: Our Father, we pray that uh that your word would uh would do the work this morning of uh of convicting people of their need for Jesus and uh of helping those who uh are trusting and following Him to trust and to follow all the more closely.
SPEAKER_00: May your spirit be at work through your powerful word, we pray, in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm sure I'm not alone in this, but there's a there's a fairly constant temptation, isn't there, uh, to uh to look or to sound more impressive.
SPEAKER_00: There's a a temptation to present the best possible image of ourselves on this medium that you're watching us or watching me on now, or perhaps you find yourself in a uh in a meeting or in a class, and the temptation comes to say something that uh makes you sound uh more uh thoughtful or intelligent.
SPEAKER_00: You know these people in your class or in or in a meeting, and they uh they ask a question, uh not because they're genuinely seeking an answer, uh, but because they want to show how uh how smart they are in the crafting of their question.
SPEAKER_00: Um and if you don't know who that is, then it might be you.
SPEAKER_00: Um but that is a temptation, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: And it's not something that I'm immune to, not something that the Christian pastor is immune to.
SPEAKER_00: We all get uh suckered into this uh this way of thinking.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, there's the uh there's the teleevangelists, and this is probably about as far as I'm going to get to to that.
SPEAKER_00: There's the televangelists who uh uh swagger around the world in their in their gulf streams and uh and look uh very impressive uh to uh to the crowds.
SPEAKER_00: But even for uh lowly church planters, there's a temptation to um garner a following or to uh to sound impressive or to build uh one's own ministry platform.
SPEAKER_00: I think if you pause for a moment, and certainly as I've reflected on it this week, I think if I pause for a moment and think about why that is, why it is that I actually want to be regarded as uh impressive or admired or congratulated, at least in part, it comes from a uh a belief that deep down I don't really feel particularly impressive.
SPEAKER_00: Is that something that you share?
SPEAKER_00: You don't actually feel particularly smart or are you dyed?
SPEAKER_00: You might not even have said the word are you dyed before, but you don't feel particularly impressive.
SPEAKER_00: To say nothing of the fact that oftentimes as Christians, because of the call to follow Jesus and uh and in a sense, the kind of the high bar that that is, that we are very often can feel like a little bit of an imposter as a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever felt a little bit like a fraud in your faith?
SPEAKER_00: The Corinthians thought that Paul was a bit of a fraud, they thought that he didn't look particularly impressive, he didn't speak particularly well, he wasn't, by all accounts, particularly handsome, and so he was easily dismissed.
SPEAKER_00: And in this section, we actually begin a uh a new part that will run for for a few weeks, uh particularly from verse 14 uh through to well, really chapter seven, where Paul is kind of laying out what real Christian discipleship looks like, uh, what the markers of of real ministry look like, his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that he's a pain to say is that yeah, it doesn't look particularly impressive.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to show them what being an authentic follower of Jesus is actually like.
SPEAKER_00: So if you feel like I do from time to time that you're not particularly impressive, or you're given to a bit of self-loathing because you wished you were better than you were, then I think probably we're in good company this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I think we need to hear what Paul has to say because Paul has some really encouraging things to say about what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's big image in the in this passage, the passage that Anya read, is that of a Roman victory parade.
SPEAKER_00: And that's very crucial for our understanding of uh of how of how this passage is working, uh, or of what's going on and how we understand Christian discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: Our equivalent today uh would be like a uh like an open-top bus parade.
SPEAKER_00: So imagine if uh if Dublin won the San Maguire again, or if if Ireland won the World Cup, what there would be is that the team would would gather on an open top bus and they would be paraded through the streets of Dublin and uh and people would see the uh the trophy, the San Maguire, the World Cup, and they would gather around it and they would be cheering and screaming, and everybody would be delighted.
SPEAKER_00: The Roman victory parade was something similar to that.
SPEAKER_00: In ancient Rome, if a uh if a great general won a momentous victory, he would be given a uh a parade through the streets of Rome.
SPEAKER_00: It would begin on the outskirts and he would come into the city as the as the conquering hero.
SPEAKER_00: Now, uh uh open top buses were few and far between in the ancient world.
SPEAKER_00: So what he would stand on is he would uh he would stand on a great chariot uh that would be led by four pure white horses, uh, and he would be there in a purple robe uh signifying his regal victorious nature.
SPEAKER_00: He'd actually have his face painted red in order to resemble uh the Roman god Jupiter, that's the Greek god Zeus, uh, as they as to show his uh his godlike majesty.
SPEAKER_00: And he would uh he would come into the city and uh and people would be uh would be following him and people would throng together to be uh around him.
SPEAKER_00: People would carry uh placards, uh kind of like uh kind of like the those women that you uh that you see apparently at uh boxing matches and things and kind of like round one, round two, but they would carry placards of uh of names of uh of peoples who had been conquered, who'd been subjugated by this great and mighty hero, or uh, or cities that had been uh uh that had been conquered or sieged in the in the course of the battle.
SPEAKER_00: Behind him would come his his soldiers, his his right-hand men, along with any Roman citizens who had been taken into slavery by the uh by the enemies, and this hero had freed, he'd liberated them.
SPEAKER_00: They would all join in the train, and then at the at the very back, there would be those who had been captured, those enemy combatants who had been captured and who were paraded through the sh through the streets in open shame.
SPEAKER_00: But there was another group of people before the victor would arrive, just ahead of him, there were people who would carry uh huge bowls of incense or censors, which are those uh those things that you waft that you maybe see in kind of Catholic churches and things like that.
SPEAKER_00: And they would walk ahead of the hero and they would spread this fragrance, this aroma, this incense ahead of him.
SPEAKER_00: And you were in the crowd and you smelt the incense, what you would know is the hero is coming, the champion is on his way, the conquering general is about to arrive.
SPEAKER_00: That's what these incense carriers were uh were signifying by their job.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul in his path in this passage identifies himself with those people, that he is one of those incense carriers, that to be a Christian disciple is to be one of those aroma spreaders that herald the coming of the king.
SPEAKER_00: So, what does that mean for us this morning?
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to be, as Paul says in this passage, the aroma of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: And what does that tell us about being a disciple of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: First, what that tells us about being a disciple of Christ is that our lives, your life, my life, as a follower of Jesus, it points beyond us.
SPEAKER_00: Our lives point beyond ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that Paul doesn't say that he's on horseback or that he's riding in the chariot with the with the great conquering hero.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say that he's one of Jesus' chief lieutenants, even though he's one of the 13 apostles.
SPEAKER_00: He's not waving from the top of the open top boss.
SPEAKER_00: His job is in some senses forgettable.
SPEAKER_00: Because people don't focus on the uh on the incense uh carrier, they smell the the aroma and then they look beyond them.
SPEAKER_00: They look and go and say, Oh, he's coming.
SPEAKER_00: There he is, he's over there.
SPEAKER_00: His job is not to look impressive, to receive cheers and congratulations.
SPEAKER_00: It's not to receive the worship and praise of people.
SPEAKER_00: He's the incense carrier telling everyone that the king's coming.
SPEAKER_00: This is who we are as disciples.
SPEAKER_00: When the world says, can you just be a little bit more impressive?
SPEAKER_00: We say, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta look beyond me and see the guy who's coming after me, and see how impressive he is.
SPEAKER_00: Christ is the victor.
SPEAKER_00: He is the conquering hero.
SPEAKER_00: His battleground was not some great field of valor.
SPEAKER_00: It was the hill known as Golgotha.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' victory, the victory that he won, was not by strength of arms.
SPEAKER_00: It was by weakness.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, from an earthly point of view, looks like he died in shame and ignominy.
SPEAKER_00: But we as Christians know that he died bearing sin.
SPEAKER_00: The shame that he died in was our shame, and he took it.
SPEAKER_00: He died to defeat our enemies, to defeat that sin that separates us from God, to defeat Satan who would destroy and lie and kill.
SPEAKER_00: And the proof, the proof that that really worked, that Jesus really achieved that victory was his resurrection from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: The fact that he did not stay dead, but was raised to life.
SPEAKER_00: And now, in a sense, what Jesus is doing is Jesus is on his victory parade across time and generations and across this globe as the gospel goes out, the victor is on the move.
SPEAKER_00: The spread of the gospel is the victory parade of King Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Many will look and miss it.
SPEAKER_00: Others will think that it is a relic and a rel and a relevance.
SPEAKER_00: But others will look at us and see us pointing, and they'll look and go, the king, the king is coming.
SPEAKER_00: And they will pay homage too.
SPEAKER_00: Our lives as fragrant aromas of Jesus point beyond ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Second, what we do as Christian disciples, you and I, is we spread the aroma of Christ everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 14, Paul says, But thanks be to God who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Notice those kind of uh those all-encompassing words.
SPEAKER_00: He's always leading us, and he leads us everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And you think about that, you think about the context that he's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: He's just said in verse 12 and 13 how anxious he was.
SPEAKER_00: Things were not going well for Paul in an earthly sense.
SPEAKER_00: He was he was worried about his his brother Titus.
SPEAKER_00: You see that verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: When I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, even though a door was opened for me in the Lord, my spirit was not at rest.
SPEAKER_00: That is, he was anxious because I did not find my brother Titus there.
SPEAKER_00: So I took leave and went on to Macedonia.
SPEAKER_00: But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession.
SPEAKER_00: When we think about this everywhere, part of the understanding of that is that in every season of life, Paul was in anxiety and heartbreak, but thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphant procession.
SPEAKER_00: What that tells us is that the triumphal procession of King Jesus is not always an easy road.
SPEAKER_00: Andrew prayed for some of those people in our number who are not walking in the easy road of the triumphal procession.
SPEAKER_00: Who know how difficult it is from time to time to be a follower of King Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, the prophets took up an image of the myrtle tree.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've ever seen a myrtle tree or know what it looks like.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I can vaguely kind of conceive of it in my mind, but it's not really important for uh for what I'm about to tell you.
SPEAKER_00: Because the way that the uh the prophets understood the myrtle tree is that they they said that Israel was like a myrtle tree.
SPEAKER_00: And the thing that you need to know about a myrtle tree is that it gives off a fragrance at a particular point, it gives off a wonderful, sweet aroma when it is crushed, when the flowers are pressed, that is when the essential oils come out, and when the sweet aroma comes out, and and the the prophets, as they looked at what was going on in the Old Testament and the exile and all of those things, they said that Israel was like a myrtle tree, that as it was crushed to give off a fragrance.
SPEAKER_00: It is often when we weather the storms of this life that our witness to Jesus becomes all the more potent.
SPEAKER_00: Moreover, it is a comfort, it is a comfort to the Christian that when we are in grief, to remember that we are still, in fact, on that triumphal procession, we are still sharing in the triumph of King Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That is the pattern of the Christian life, that is the pattern of Jesus' life.
SPEAKER_00: Suffering now, glory later.
SPEAKER_00: But we were always on triumphal procession.
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, uh, everywhere might not necessarily might not necessarily just mean every season of life, whether things are going well or things are going badly.
SPEAKER_00: It might just mean every sphere of life.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it probably does mean that also.
SPEAKER_00: That Paul sees himself as a as a as an aroma spreader, as an incense bearer, as a disciple of Jesus in every sphere and location of his life, wherever he goes.
SPEAKER_00: Last uh summer, when we were in lockdown, I got given, I didn't buy this, it was a wonderful gift.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I got given a smoker.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that's you know, not some uh not some emphysemic old lady to stand out the back.
SPEAKER_00: No, that's not what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: Uh a smoker is like a uh it's like a barbecue uh with a lid on it, and you uh and you light a fire in one part and it cooks meat very slowly uh using hot smoke.
SPEAKER_00: And as you can understand, it's a very smoky thing to to use.
SPEAKER_00: When I'm using the smoker, uh all of the windows get shut.
SPEAKER_00: And when I'm using the smoker, uh the smoke clings uh to me, not just to my clothes, I think it actually um clings to my skin.
SPEAKER_00: So when I'm in the shower the next morning, I can still smell the smoke.
SPEAKER_00: It goes wherever I go, it lingers with me.
SPEAKER_00: I always smell of it, whether I'm outside or inside, whether I've gone out somewhere, whatever is going on.
SPEAKER_00: The aroma of Christ should be like that.
SPEAKER_00: Should be something that lingers on us, that clings to us, that is perceptible on us wherever we go.
SPEAKER_00: It's so easy, isn't it, to compartmentalize our life, to parcel out our uh our work life, our our home life, whether that's as a single or a married person, and then we have our our church life, our community group life, what you're doing now.
SPEAKER_00: And those can be placed in kind of hermetically sealed Tupperware boxes.
SPEAKER_00: Paul was saying, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: The aroma of Christ has to permeate across those different spheres, those different.
SPEAKER_00: Aspects of who we are is to diffuse our faith should diffuse through our private life, our professional life, our social life.
SPEAKER_00: Social life is when you actually get to go out and do things and go and see people.
SPEAKER_00: It's a thing that we used to have.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you'll get it back.
SPEAKER_00: The point is that our faith is to permeate all of those things.
SPEAKER_00: We spread the aroma of Christ everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: That's our second point.
SPEAKER_00: Third.
SPEAKER_00: To be the aroma of Christ is to embody and to share Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It means both embodying Jesus and sharing Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Have a look at 14 and 15 again.
SPEAKER_00: But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphant procession and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: For we are the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.
SPEAKER_00: We embody it and we share it.
SPEAKER_00: So that it evokes that thing.
SPEAKER_00: So clean cotton, the Yankee candle smell, and as it burns, or as you lift the lid off and you and you smell it, you're supposed to get the same sort of uh scent memory as when you climb into a bed that has brand new sheets on it that have been dried outside.
SPEAKER_00: And you smell and you you snuggle up and you oh they smell great because they don't smell like me yet.
SPEAKER_00: Or you at Christmas time might have got your uh your mulled wine scented candle, and and what it's supposed to supposed to do is it kind of Christmas day uh smells all through the Christmas season.
SPEAKER_00: It brings back memories of times with friends and family, or uh, or times when we were when we were younger, or baked cookies.
SPEAKER_00: Again, supposed to evoke and remind you of those of those days, maybe baking with a parent, baking with a grandparent.
SPEAKER_00: It it has taken that the essence of that, and that that scent is so evocative, so powerful that it takes you back to another place.
SPEAKER_00: Do you ever smell something?
SPEAKER_00: And just for a second, you're 13 again.
SPEAKER_00: Davidov by Cool Water.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, or uh sorry, Cool Water by Davidoff, you know, is what we what we as teenage boys all used to kind of slap on us as we as we went out to school discos, hoping that uh that some girl would look across the room and uh and take pity on us uh for it for a slow dance.
SPEAKER_00: So every time I smell that smell, oh gosh, I'm 13 again.
SPEAKER_00: When my grandfather died, I uh I took from his room the flat cap that he wore uh basically all of the time that I knew him, uh 21 years or so.
SPEAKER_00: And on the rare occasion that that I get it out of the cupboard and I put it on again, I can I can smell him on it.
SPEAKER_00: And when I smell him on it, I'm I'm eight years old again, and I'm holding his hand in Black Rock County Live, and I'm walking down into the village, and he's gonna buy me ice cream.
SPEAKER_00: To be the aroma of Christ is to live and to speak in such a way that evokes Jesus, it is to embody and to live in a and to speak in a way that is unmistakably Him.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul's seeking to do.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul is seeking to do in his in his accepting of weakness, in his accepting of the reproach and uh and shaming of the Corinthians and in his and in the gentleness of his response, he's seeking to be essentially Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: To be the aroma of Christ is to smell unmistakably of the Lord who we follow, to embody his humility, his compassion, as well as his courage and his endurance.
SPEAKER_00: It is to distill and emulate his glad obedience of his heavenly father, his prayerful dependence.
SPEAKER_00: Paul wants to be unmistakably Christ-like, to embody something of his character.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul isn't just saying uh this phrase that was attributed to Francis of Assisi, though there's no evidence that he said it, uh, to uh preach the gospel, use words if you have to.
SPEAKER_00: That's not really a Christian idea.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, to to be gospel people is to be people who verbalize the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul isn't just saying preach the gospel by your actions, um, because in verse 14 he says that we spread the fragrance of Jesus as we share the knowledge of him.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see that?
SPEAKER_00: Uh you see how the words kind of link together, and through us, this is 14b, through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: People need to see and sense Jesus on us, but they also need to be told, to be told who he is, what he did, and why it's good.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is good news, and news needs to be declared, news needs to be told.
SPEAKER_00: You don't turn on the 6-1 news or the 9 o'clock news, and nobody, well, nobody does that anyway, but you don't log on to your news site and have the the journalist or the news reporter uh do an interpretive dance while you uh try and figure out what's really going on.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, he tells you the news.
SPEAKER_00: We need to tell people who Jesus is, what he achieved, why he is the victor, why it matters that sin has been defeated, that sin that separates us from God and that divides us as human beings.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus overcame that.
SPEAKER_00: We need to tell people that we need to gossip the gospel to one another and in our everyday lives.
SPEAKER_00: We need to tell people why it's good that Jesus is the King.
SPEAKER_00: And so a question to reflect on might be Is the aroma of Christ in the nostrils of those around you?
SPEAKER_00: Is the aroma of Christ in the nostrils of those that you live with, that you work with, that you see on a regular basis, when in fact we are able to see people on a regular basis.
SPEAKER_00: This aroma, this life, is the life that God delights in.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul says, verse 15, verse 15 a, just that first little phrase, for we are the aroma of Christ to God.
SPEAKER_00: That that smell, as it were, it it diffuses in two ways.
SPEAKER_00: It diffuses on the horizontal, we're going to see that, but it always diffuses vertically, and it is the life, it is the smell, it is the essence that God delights in, because it's the essence of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, not our impressive achievements, or in fact our spectacular failures.
SPEAKER_00: The common phrase, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: One life will soon be past, only what is done for Christ will last.
SPEAKER_00: And just while we're thinking about being the aroma of Christ, spreading the aroma of Christ everywhere, of spreading the knowledge of him everywhere?
SPEAKER_00: What of the nations?
SPEAKER_00: What of those who have never heard, who have never had the smell of Jesus in their nostrils?
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't this passage call us to spread the aroma of Christ to those people?
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't it at least call us to consider what it might mean to to aerosolize and to and to spread out?
SPEAKER_00: To spread out to the parts of Dublin, even where Christ is not yet known, not really, not as he truly is to the villages forgotten by Christian witness for a century.
SPEAKER_00: What about those?
SPEAKER_00: Don't they deserve to smell the beautiful aroma of King Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: What about the onreach peoples?
SPEAKER_00: What about the fourteen thousand or so distinct language groups that have never so much has had a whiff of the life offering gospel of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Don't they need to smell the sweetness of forgiveness and love?
SPEAKER_00: Fourthly and finally, there's no you know, 16 sub points, just one.
SPEAKER_00: Fourthly and finally, the aroma of Christ, while always pleasing to God, will divide people.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul says.
SPEAKER_00: The aroma of Christ will divide people.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 15 and 16 again.
SPEAKER_00: For we are the aroma of Christ to God, that's a vertical dimension, among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.
SPEAKER_00: To one, the fragrance from death to death, and the other a fragrance from life to life.
SPEAKER_00: Who is sufficient for these things?
SPEAKER_00: Uh it was fun uh this week thinking about smells that divide the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: Uh maybe uh maybe smash the like button now, get your get your phone by you and smash the like button if, like me, you like the smell of petrol.
SPEAKER_00: And you can you can just hit the wow emoji uh if you if you don't, uh, because it's a divisive smell, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: I really like the smell of petrol, but not everybody does.
SPEAKER_00: Or uh, if you're going through Dublin, you might like the smell of hops that arises from the Guinness factory, another smell that I really like.
SPEAKER_00: But my mum, for instance, she hates it.
SPEAKER_00: She thinks it's it's sickening and sweet and awful, but it's the same smell.
SPEAKER_00: Same with the smell of garlic.
SPEAKER_00: Some people love the smell of freshly baked garlic bread, and other people are like, oh, that stinks.
SPEAKER_00: Or the smell of something like cigar smoke.
SPEAKER_00: Some people, oh, that smells so good.
SPEAKER_00: Other people like, oh, that is acrid.
SPEAKER_00: Why are they doing that?
SPEAKER_00: Same smell.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, somebody is uh, I should have shut my WhatsApp down.
SPEAKER_00: Same smell, two distinct reactions, and it's the same with the gospel of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: When people smell Christ, that is, when they hear the gospel uh from us, when people smell Christ, there are two different and distinct reactions.
SPEAKER_00: For for for some, the gospel is is it's odious, it's it's it's off-putting, but for others, it might begin as an intriguing smell.
SPEAKER_00: In a city in Europe that you're unfamiliar with, sometimes what you find walking down one of those streets, normally in the old time, is you get that intriguing smell of or maybe some paella being made or some uh bread being freshly baked or uh or a wood fire cooking some pizza, and you you follow your nose, it's almost like one of those cartoon things where they where the where the smoke kind of turns into a finger and kind of beckons you along.
SPEAKER_00: Smell is intriguing.
SPEAKER_00: For some, the gospel of Jesus will smell like that, and it will become more beautiful in their nostrils.
SPEAKER_00: When the Roman champion, come back to me, back to ancient Rome.
SPEAKER_00: When the Roman champion was riding in his victory parade, I mentioned that there were two types of people in his train.
SPEAKER_00: There were the conquered enemies, the conquered enemies who had fought against the uh the champion and were subdued, and they were being led to their destruction.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, oftentimes what would happen is that they would ceremoniously be uh be put to death.
SPEAKER_00: And you can imagine, can you, that if you are if you're one of those people uh coming behind the mighty champion, as the smell of the incense wafts back through the crowd and hits your nostrils, what's it going to smell like?
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna smell like death because you know that smelling that means that your end is coming.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be odious and repulsive and awful to you.
SPEAKER_00: For those who remain hardened to God's King, who refuse to acknowledge him, who remain in their treasonous rebellion, the gospel will always stink.
SPEAKER_00: But the other group, the other group of people that's coming behind the champion, who were they?
SPEAKER_00: They were the people who were liberated, they were the people who were freed from slavery, they were the pride and joy of the victor.
SPEAKER_00: And they followed him with gladness.
SPEAKER_00: They followed him because they were now free, free because of him.
SPEAKER_00: And so, as the incense from the incense burners floated back and hit their nostrils, what did it smell like?
SPEAKER_00: It smelled like freedom, it smelled like salvation, it smelled wonderful because what it what it did is it was a sensory reminder that they were now free people.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see that they really had been saved?
SPEAKER_00: Our job, our job, we carry the fragrance wherever we go, we entrust the results to God.
SPEAKER_00: That is what Paul means when he asks this question at the end of verse 16, and I'm nearly finished.
SPEAKER_00: When he asks this question, who is sufficient for these things?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 17 essentially is the answer, and the answer is God.
SPEAKER_00: God is sufficient for these things.
SPEAKER_00: What Paul is asking is who could who could bear the weight of responsibility of this?
SPEAKER_00: That some will smell death and others would smell life.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine for a second that that you were walking through the street or walking through a a shopping center, Dundrum Town Center, or Blanchard Town Center, or something like that.
SPEAKER_00: And as you walked through those those concourses or down that street, what would happen is that some people would they would drop dead, they would immediately fall down dead at your feet because of what they smelt off you.
SPEAKER_00: How could you bear the the pressure of that?
SPEAKER_00: How could you bear the weight of responsibility of that?
SPEAKER_00: Paul says that he is someone commissioned by God and who discharges his ministry in the sight of God, that it is God who is sufficient, it is God who is responsible ultimately for people's salvation or condemnation, that he simply carries the incense and entrusts the results to him.
SPEAKER_00: We operate under God's commissioning, and we similarly entrust the results to him.
SPEAKER_00: The draw and the temptation to be impressive is such a powerful one.
SPEAKER_00: The world is always looking for the next person to admire, the next victor to look up to, someone who is overcome, someone who has emerged victorious.
SPEAKER_00: The Christian understands that we are not the champion.
SPEAKER_00: We're not the hero of the story.
SPEAKER_00: We're the ones pointing to the hero and go, look at him, look at what he has done, look how glad I am to be in his victory train, to be that liberated person who has smelt the gospel and smelt it as life.
SPEAKER_00: And so I gladly carry the incense of the knowledge of him wherever I go.
SPEAKER_00: He really is the one who has conquered the enemies that eternally matter.
SPEAKER_00: Our sin that separated us from God, the devil who would lie and kill and destroy.
SPEAKER_00: Christ is our mighty champion.
SPEAKER_00: Take heart, friends.
SPEAKER_00: Take heart as we seek to spread and to be the aroma of Christ, to spread the message of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Take heart that God will bring people to life.
SPEAKER_00: Our part is to be a faithful follower.
SPEAKER_00: Let me pray.
SPEAKER_00: We praise you, Lord Jesus, that you are our mighty champion, our reigning and victorious King.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for defeating those enemies that we could never overcome.
SPEAKER_00: We gladly, with the help of your spirit, walk in your victory train.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to be the aroma of Christ, Heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_00: Help those around us to sense and to hear something of Jesus from us.
SPEAKER_00: And would you?
SPEAKER_00: By your great mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Bring people to life through that witness.
SPEAKER_00: Not for our glory, not that we might somehow be seen as impressive, but for the glory of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We pray these things in his name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Amen, everyone.
SPEAKER_00: See you at coffee time.