Part Three — Here to be the Aroma of God in the Neighborhood & World
Let’s pray…
It’s funny how people interact with you once they know you are a pastor or some other kind of “churchman.”
I have a day job of shooting photos at a newspaper. Like I’ve said before, it brings me into contact with the socially upper crust and the people that society has rejected. I see the best and the worst in people and — across the board — God has given me the ability to put people at ease.
A lot of times, when they talk with me, they let their defenses down and the real them often times comes out. This is the only way to get a good picture. If they’re putting up a facade, it shows.
Anyway, as people relax and they become more genuine, some of the roughest characters let very tender words slip out, while some grandmothers and politicians could make you blush with the things they say, And I’m a sailor’s kid, I’ve heard (and said) it all.
What’s funny, or odd, or at least interesting is that it is usually soon after a person lets a filthy remark go, or gossip, or something similar, that someone who knows me will come up and ask me how the church is going.
What happens next is a hilarious and sometimes awkward amount of backpedaling on the other person’s side of the conversation.
If they had been cursing, they start using words like heck and darn and, if they’d just been badmouthing a person, they will oftentimes start to say things like, well, I guess he’s not all bad, I guess we all need forgiveness sometimes.
Anyway, it’s weird.
And, when that person comes up and asks me about the church, I am always releaved that I didn’t join in on the gossip or say something ugly or undignified. Believe me, it is still possible for me to do that and I am always watchful of that kind of behavior in my life.
And here’s the thing: Regardless of my title or position, I should, as an adopted child of God, bring an air of godliness into situations and relationships. I should bring a presence of peace and joy and encouragement.
Really, we all have a presence, good or bad, that we bring into an environment. Am I right?
It’s that way people would describe you by your everyday demeanor, or how your attitude and words and actions have defined you.
If you can’t see how you come across think about your boss, or your parents. When they walk in a room, they bring a presence don’t they.
I talk about my brothers a lot. When they come into a room, they own that room, they are funny, they are engaging and they have a spark to their personalities that is contagious.
Anyway here’s where we’re going: In the last two weeks we have been talking about our mission, we’ve been talking about why WE are here. Why we, The Church in the Grass, is here. What’s our mission?
In the first week we talked about the first part. Presenting God’s message of salvation, that is being Gospel centered, Christ centered in everything we do.
Then we talked about the importance of a church family. We said and we continually say, that once we have accepted Jesus as our Savior we are adopted into the family of believers.
And we talked about how that adoption makes us a part of the universal church (every Christian everywhere globally). And the local church, where we plug in as part of a congregation like this one or one that you might be a part of somewhere else on Sundays.
Tonight, we’re moving into the last part of the mission of our church, which says:
Our goal is to present...the proper expression of God’s love into the world...
When we say our mission is to present the proper expression of God’s love into the world, that’s not to say it is only the mission of our church, of the church in the grass. It’s what we are all called to, what we are designed for as Christ followers.
Now, before we go on let me give credit to Pastor Ron Grubb, he was our pastor in Lancaster, Ohio, at Lancaster Community Church, that is where I received my ordination. I consider Ron to be one of my mentors and this topic is what I would call close to his heart. So a lot of this corresponds with what we heard from him on a fairly regular basis for the two years that we lived in Lancaster.
The Bible teaches and we believe that if we have truly been saved, justified, made right with God by the shed blood of Christ on the cross, and if we have truly plugged into a local family of believers and we are growing deeper in our faith through the study of the word, obedience to the word and by living lives together in gospel community, then this third part of the mission should just happen as a by-product.
Here’s what I mean, please turn in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 2:14-16a:
Let’s break this down a little bit: You see Paul lays out that it all starts and ends with God.
In other words, he’s acknowledging that God leads us, not through our own way, but through Christ and not for our own recognition, but so that God may be recognized.
We are in Christ, we are reflecting Him, or as the passage says, we are spreading His fragrance EVERYWHERE. Moving on…
What does this mean? How are we the aroma of Christ to God? What’s the aroma of Christ? Well if you look through the Old Testament, the nation of Israel had an elaborate sacrificial system designed to cover their sins and make them right with God for a time.
What this passage in 2 Corinthians points us back to is the burnt offerings of the nation of Israel. For example in Leviticus 4:27-31 these instructions are given:
And we are taught in the book of Hebrews, chapter 10 that Jesus is the perfect, once and for all sacrifice. All of the Old Testament sacrifices pointed to Him and He became the sacrifice that was perfectly acceptable and complete and pleasing to God.
And now 2 Corinthians 15 says:
How can this be? First by taking on the righteousness of Christ. His righteousness was placed on us when He took our sins at the cross. When God looks at us He sees His son’s righteousness and His son was the pleasing aroma.
But also, this is a daily part of our walk once we are saved. It is a natural effect of true salvation.
In Romans 12:1, Paul says:
And the writer of Hebrews says in 13:15-16:
So we become the aroma of Christ to God by first taking on His righteousness, that is in Salvation, then in our sanctifying walk with the Holy Spirit daily, throughout our life.
And, getting to the point of our mission at the Church in the Grass, and truly, or mission as Christ followers everywhere around the world, the aroma that we produce, the air of godliness that we produce THROUGH CHRIST, will be evident to all.
Back to 2 Corinthians again:
That includes everyone we come into contact with everywhere at any and all times, they are either in the saved or perishing groups.
This goes back to the teaching from the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus told us that if we become peacemakers and become recognizable as children of God, that we should then expect the same reaction that He, the actual Son of God, experienced (Matt. 5:9-11).
And this is what we talked about when we talked about His teaching on the salt and the light of the world (Matthew 5:13-16). Some people are going to be drawn out of the darkness toward the light and others will run away from the light.
But here’s the thing, if we are truly following Christ we will have no more control over reflecting God into the world than a flame has control over shining light or a flower has control over producing its sweet smell. It just happens. It just is. We simply bring the fragrance Jesus into everywhere we go.
So what are you bringing into the environment, what “aroma” are you giving off? You might say to yourself while listening to this message. Ken, I think I produce the aroma of Christ here, at church; but EVERYWHERE? I’m not so sure of that.
If that’s where you are, I understand. I was there too, and on some occasions I still wrestle with this.
The fact is we all smell like something. And if we find ourselves giving off the sweet smelling sacrifice here at church and during our prayer time and maybe when we are on a mission trip or doing service work then that is great.
But if that’s where it stops, if we take on the smell of the world, so to speak, when we go back into the “secular” places, than I think we are suffering under one of two delusions.
First, we may be buying into the secular and spiritual divisions that our culture likes to create. Let me make this clear, for the Christ follower, there is no division. In the workplace, with our friends, with our family, in traffic, at the grocery store, in the voting booth and at home alone, we are spiritual beings, connected to God by Christ.
In Ephesians 4:1, we are called to live lives that are worthy of the calling we received, or as Philippians 1:27 says worthy of the Gospel of Christ.
In every conversation, in every business decision, in every parenting choice, in every interaction with a non-believer, we frame it all up in our hearts and in our minds with the Gospel and ask ourselves is this word, action or thought a sweet smelling sacrifice.
And finally, if it is not an aroma of life found in Christ, I suggest we might look in the miror a little longer and remember what we see.
Here’s what I mean, James 1:21-25 says:
21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.
22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.
If you are not producing the sweet aroma of Christ, if you find your life still has a very worldly stench. If you are having a hard time in helping us fulfill the mission to present the proper expression of God’s love into the world, may I suggest that there is still some un-repented or unrecognized sin in your life that needs to be dealt with.
That sin needs to be confessed, needs to be laid down at the cross.
That repentance is part of our daily sacrifice of our bodies in Romans 12.
Look deeply into the Word of God for yourself, meditate on it day and night as we are called to do, let it seep into the core of who you are and as Jesus commands, obey His words.
Don’t just hear them or know them in your head, do what you’ve heard so that your usefulness in the Kingdom movement may go unhindered.
Let’s pray...
Listen, If you’ve been stirred to confess something or you need prayer, then please don’t leave until you’ve had a chance to do that. That is why we are here as a family.
If you are good, go in peace, remember the reason you are here in the world this week. To be a sweet smelling sacrifice.
