Sermon for 6/27/2004
What’s That Smell?
2 Corinthians 2:14-16
Introduction:
Aromatherapy means "treatment using scents". It is a treatment of caring for the body with pleasant smelling oils. The essential oils are added to the bath or massaged into the skin, inhaled directly or diffused to scent an entire room. Aromatherapy is used for the relief of pain, care for the skin, alleviate tension and fatigue and invigorate the entire body. It has been said that certain scents can help with the body’s digestion, respiratory, circulatory and excretory systems. Certain aromas can help to alleviate pain and reduce bruising. Some scents can help with arthritis and with common muscle pain. Some smells can relieve headaches and ease depression and even help to improve memory. All of this has not been evaluated.
It is known that odors we smell have a significant impact on how we feel. In dealing with patients who have lost the sense of smell, doctors have found that a life without fragrance can lead to high incidence of psychiatric problems such as anxiety and depression. We have the capability to distinguish 10,000 different smells. It is believed that smells enter through cilia (the fine hairs lining the nose) to the limbic system, the part of the brain that controls our moods, emotions, memory and learning. Researchers have tried odor experiments only in the work place. According to the publication Communication Briefings, one Japanese firm reports that air scented with lavender cut keypunching errors by 21 %. Jasmine-scented air dropped errors by 33 % and lemon in the air was even better- this cut errors by 54 %. Lavender reduces stress. Jasmine relaxes. Lemon stimulates. Odors do make a difference.
WBTU:
A. People are concerned about how they smell. Should be because in the first 4 minutes people evaluate us on how we smell. That memory sticks with us. American’s spend money each year on perfumes and colognes in an effort to smell good. From the neck down, there are deodorants, special soaps, body splashes and powders.
B. Why do some groups burn incense before, during and after worship services. It sets the mood and with those smells it has programmed people to begin worship.
C. This doesn’t matter. Yes, it does. Just come into an auditorium with dead animals or sewage and it will definitely set a bad tone for worship. Many places have flowers in the auditorium and it is for beauty but it is also for fragrance. Make it a pleasant atmosphere. Bring up good memories of flowers and gardens.
D. This gives new significance to a Scripture that has always intrigued me. 2 Corinthians 2:14-17.
E. A Christian emits (in a figurative way) the very smell of Christ’s sweet sacrifice. We cannot buy it in a bottle. It does not ooze out of our pores. It comes out in our attitudes, actions and words. That sweet smell affects everybody around us. So it might not be a bad idea to ask yourself, “What do I really smell like?” If we know Christ our lives will smell good. This will naturally make a difference to those around us.
Thesis: This morning we are going to look at these verses from 2 Corinthians 2:14-16 and throughout we need to ask ourselves, “What do I smell like?”
For instances:
I. The victory of Christ over his enemies.
A. Leads us in triumph in Christ.
B. What is pictured here is the Roman triumphal procession
1. After a Roman army would conquer a particular tribe or people, there would be a ticker tape parade. However, it was different from the ones that we know.
2. Roman triumph was an incomparable spectacle. There’s never been anything before; there’s never been anything since, to rival it in drama, in splendor. After a great victory, the Roman senate would vote to give the conquering army and general a Triumph celebration.
3. All Rome made a holiday of it. And sometimes those triumphs were so long that a man standing at one place, it could take three solid days for the great procession to pass that one vantage point.
4. In a long parade would start first at rank upon rank of trumpeters, blowing their trumpets and heralding the approach of the great triumph. Then behind them would come the magistrates and the senators and all of the great patricians of Rome. Then behind the magistrates and the great leaders of Rome, there would march the conquering army. And interspersed among the army would be wagonloads of loot, of plunder, from the conquered country, from the ravaged capital, from the defeated army. There’d be wagonloads of gold and silver coins piled up high. There’d be wagonloads of adornment, of jewelry, of all kinds of garment and raiment. There’d be wagonloads and train loads of art, paintings, sculpture, statues, plunder.
5. Then behind the Roman army, with all of its loot and all of its wagonloads filled with plunder, behind them came the captives. They picked the best, the strongest, the finest, of the captives of the people, and they marched along in strange garb and strange speech and strange language.
6. And then last of all was the hero of the hour, the conquering general. He comes in a chariot dressed in the purple and golden robes of Jupiter. Many times, chained with a golden chain to the chariot of a conquering general was the general or the king or the queen that the man defeated. If he had the defeated king, he would have him executed. This defeated leader would be hanged or thrown off of a cliff or thrown into a cistern or cavern and have it sealed as an act of celebration.
7. Then the victorious general would go into the temple of Jupiter and offer a sacrifice. The parade was over but not the festivities. The Roman soldiers would take the wagonloads of plunder for themselves. Then the victorious general and his high ranking officers would throw a party for the people of Rome in the Circus Maximus. There would be food and liquor and women dancing. There would be gladiator games many times with the defeated soldiers being the gladiators. They would fight each other and animals to the death.
8. After this, the great general would take any enemies left and have them executed.
9. One day soon Christ, the Victor, is coming back. There will be a Triumph in the courts of heaven that will last forever and ever. We will join the parade and we will have all the plunder that is worth having, all that is beautiful and good. Any trophies or decorations that we have will be cast at the feet of the conquering General. All the glories of the nations will be there. We will glorify Christ who offered himself as a sacrifice for our sins. Christ will take Satan and his angels and all who followed him and cast them into the lake of burning sulfur. Then there will be dancing and singing and eating like never before.
10. We, as Christians, are the soldiers who share in the benefits of Christ victory. (Rom 8:37 NIV) No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
11. In our daily life we celebrate the victory of Christ over his enemies through the victory he gives us.
II. The Fragrance of Victory
A. From the beginning of the triumph parade to its consummation on the Capitol[ine] Hill (temple of Jupiter), all the way through, there would be great, burning bonfires here and there. Into these fires there were people who poured perfume so that the smell of the perfume filled the air.
B. People would throw fragrant flowers into the streets and as they were crushed beneath the feet of those in the procession it would fill the air with their fragrance.
C. Not only that, but as the great army marched by, there would be people swinging censers filled with burning incense. Consequently, the whole route and the whole city smelled of perfume and incense. It was everywhere along the way.
B. Now, this great triumph had all through it that fragrance, perfume and incense. And as they marched through it, why, it was a great, great triumph for those who were victorious, for those who were in the conquest. And the smell of it, the odor of it, the savor of it, brought to their minds the great achievement and the glory of what the conquest had brought to Rome.
C. In the same way, Jesus in his atoning death and resurrection offers the fragrance of righteousness and eternal life to all.
D. One day Christ will come like we have mentioned. In the meantime, we are the ones (his soldiers), who diffuse, spread everywhere the fragrance of His victory.
III. The Fragrance of Christ in our life.
A. We can have that fragrance in our lives. The fragrance of victory. Not just around successful times but at all times through Christ.
B. How?
1. Let the Lord give you a bath. Plan of salvation.
2. Take regular baths through the Word of God and prayer.
3. Stay out of the garbage dumps of the world.
a. This world stinks of sin. It gives off an odor that is worse than a skunk.
b. Now we cannot completely avoid the pungent odor of the world, but we can stay out of the garbage dump. No matter how much perfume you put into the landfill, it will still stink.
c. Stay away from sin and tempting situations.
4. Keep your clothes and linens clean and bright. Righteous acts. Get rid of clothing that stinks. (Jude 1:23 NIV) hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.
5. Let the fragrance of Christ sink into your soul. Communion and church and being thankful for the sacrifice of Christ. He is the victor. Around a scent long enough it will linger.
IV. Spreading the fragrance of Christ into the world.
A. This world is filled with the stink of sin.
B. The gospel of Christ became a sweet smelling fragrance that the early church spread throughout the world.
C. As we travel through life we are sending a sweet smelling fragrance to God in a world that otherwise stinks.
D. As we spread the gospel of Christ through preaching, teaching, witnessing and holy living we are spreading the fragrance of Christ. Regardless of how people receive it, it is still a sweet smelling fragrance before God. (We are to God)
E. Some people love the smell of sin and hate the fragrance of Christ.
1. To the defeated enemy the smells along the Roman Triumph were smells of ridicule and death.
2. Same smells, but two different reactions.
F. W.A. Criswell- I remember a man who had moved away from our church, and he went where there wasn’t any gospel church at all. And after he’d been gone about four or five years, he came back. And he sat out there in front of me for the first time in four or five years, and he listened to the message of Jesus, our Savior, for the first time in four or five years. And from the minute that I began to preach, until I closed that sermon, he sat there with the tears just rolling off of his face.
And after the service was over, he said to me, "I couldn’t help crying.”
"Oh," he said, "I cannot tell you how starved has been my soul and how hungry is my heart."
Now, may I contrast that? There came to see me a blessed, consecrated, Christian girl, and she had a little child. And by her side coming to see me was her young husband.
She had married across the lines of her faith, and the husband was asking for a divorce. And that poor girl, Christian and given to God, did not want to break up her home. And she had that little child with her, and she was pleading with her husband not to break up the home.
And when I asked the husband about it, this is what he said. He said, "In order to marry this girl, I promised her that I would go to church."
And he said, "For these few years, I have sought to keep that promise. But," he says, "I absolutely refuse any longer to be bound by any such promises I made."
And I said, "Why? Why couldn’t you go to church once on Sunday morning?"
And he said, "I’ll tell you why. I hate everything about it."
I said, "Why, man, you don’t mean that. The beautiful choir? The singing? The people and the friends that you make down there?"
He said, "I mean, I hate everything about it."
He said, "I hate the sermon, and I hate the music, and I hate the choir, and I hate the people. And I don’t want them to speak to me, and I don’t want to be friends to them, and I don’t want them to be friends to me."
"Well," I said, "what are you going to do with your life?"
He said, "I have my own friends, and I like them, and I like to be there. And I like that life, and I’m going in that direction. And I’m going to break up my home."
Well, all I could do was pray. Wasn’t nothing to say. There’s nothing to do. I prayed and begged, and did pray, all to no end and to no effect.
Conclusion:
A. With asthma and breathing problems in our day there is an effort to have everything be odor free. May it never be in the church!
B. Can the world smell the fragrance of Christ in your life?
C. Can God smell the fragrance of Christ in your life?
D. How do you feel about Christ? Is he the smell of life or the smell of death?
