The Fragrance of Christ

We know David said that God made our bodies a wonderful thing, something that we should be very thankful for. And in those bodies, we take a lot of it for granted, but one of the things I remember that our young people, our children, when they're growing up, they learned the five senses that we have, the kind of defying humans, and I guess defying animals as well, but something that we have that helps us navigate the physical universe. We know those five senses are sight, taste, touch, hearing, and smell. And we learn a lot for that, and it's hard to even imagine life without those five senses, because it just helps us to appreciate everything around us. We feel the physical universe.

And of course, God uses those same senses that we have in the physical sense to talk about and to help us draw spiritual principles as well. When we talk about sight, most of us here can't even imagine a world without sight, where we were just totally blind. And people who don't have the gift of sight, how dark their world must be and how empty it must be to not be able to see things. And we know that's all important to us, but in the Bible, God tells us it's the same thing in the spiritual sense.

He talks about opening our eyes that we may see. He talks about taking the speck out of our eye, rather than looking at the other person's eye and worrying about the moat that is there. He gives us visions of his kingdoms that we may see things beyond this life that motivate us and spur us on. So when we hear those analogies that God gives of sight, we can relate to what we have today and what we see around us so we can understand the principle better. We have the sense of hearing, which is the same way.

How quiet, how empty would our lives be if we just couldn't hear anything? And so when we read about people in the Bible who are deaf, I don't know that we can appreciate how empty or what's missing in their lives. Because to hear the sounds of each other's voices, to hear the sounds around us, to hear the sounds of the birds chirping, and all those things we take for granted makes our physical life more complete.

And God says the same thing about hearing in a spiritual sense. He says that his sheep will know the shepherd's voice. They'll know the shepherd's voice. He's not talking about the physical voice, but we'll hear the words that are said. We'll hear when it's truth. We'll be able to understand what is going on with that. And God opens our ears that we may hear the truth and that we may receive it and that it may enrich our lives.

We talk about touch. Touch is an important part of all of our lives. There are studies that show that if a little baby is never touched, they die. They die. We all need each other's. We all need the touch of each other.

And so when we greet each other, we hug each other, we handshake, touch is a part of all of our lives. And our homes touch is an important thing. And touch is an important part of our spiritual lives, too. You know, God ordained that when someone is sick, what do we do? They come to the elders, we lay hands on them, and we anoint them. And marriages, we touch. We lay hands on the people. When someone's ordained, we lay hands on them. And so touch is an important part of our spiritual lives as well. And it's as if God is touching us when we call Him into our lives and into those special occasions, and include Him in what we're doing and ask Him to bless what is going on.

You know, God can touch us with His Spirit as well. There's taste. I know there's been a few times in my life when I've been sick, and your taste just disappears. And it's like you just don't even want to eat. It's like, what's the point in eating? You can't taste anything. I guess you get hungry enough that eventually you just have to eat to sustain your strength. But I know several of you have gone through that in life.

And taste, without taste, it's fascinating and it's a wonderful thing to be able to taste the different things that God has given us in life, in the foods to enjoy. And taste is there in the spiritual sense as well.

In a very harrowing verse in Hebrews 10, 26, and 27, He says, once you have tasted, once you've tasted the truth, once you've felt it, once you've enjoyed that, and you go back and you reject it and go back to the world, there is no second sacrifice for sin. In Revelation, there's the way it's written is just fascinating in Revelation when John is given the little book, and he's told, eat the little book.

And when he eats the little book, symbolically, he says, it tasted sweet in my mouth. Because it's a sweet gospel and a sweet, a sweet pleasing calling that God has given us. And the truth of what he's working in our lives is a special thing.

But then when he digested it and it was in his stomach, it was sour. It was bitter. And he realized what people are going to have to go through, what the world is going to have to go through before the sweetness of Jesus Christ returning and that good taste that will be in the world. But God gives us a taste of His kingdom. He gives us a taste of the things that are coming. And once we taste it, once we taste it this way of life, we would never want to go back.

And there's a sense of smell as well. If we didn't have the sense of smell, the world would be a different place. It would be a different place for us as well. And I know we've had colds and other respiratory problems. Maybe our sense of smell has gone wrong.

And again, it seems that there's just something missing when you can smell nothing. But what does smell, what does smell have to do spiritually? Turn with me back to 2 Corinthians. I was reading through 2 Corinthians a little while back. And I came across some verses, or they caught my attention, that I had never really noticed these verses before. And that, in 2 Corinthians, you know, some commentaries will say, this could even be the fourth letter that Paul wrote to the Corinthians.

It was 1 Corinthians. And we can talk about that a little bit more in the Bible study. 1 Corinthians may be the second letter that he wrote. 2 Corinthians could be the third or fourth letter, but it's the one that we have preserved for us today. And it's kind of a very nice gospel because Paul, after a corrective 1 Corinthians letter, you know, in 2 Corinthians he sees that the churches listened to what he has had to say.

And they've turned from some ways that they were going that were astray and come back to God. So, we go to verse 11 in 2 Corinthians 2, talking about we shouldn't be ignorant of Satan's devices. But let's pick it up in verse 12. Verse 12, chapter 2, 2 Corinthians says, Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ's gospel, and the door was opened to me by the Lord, well, when Paul came, he was looking for Troas, he was looking for Titus, to see how did the Corinthians receive that letter.

He was troubled by the things that he had heard, troubled by the way they may have taken it. He wanted to know what happened to it. So, I said it turned out for good. He goes, I had no rest in my spirit, because I didn't find Titus my brother. But taking my leave of them, I departed from Macedonia. Verse 14, now thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ. So, he was happy because it's like, you know, he did things the way God would want them to. He was preaching the Word of God. He was correcting them in love.

He was helping them because he was very concerned about them being in the kingdom and becoming all that God wanted them to be. And we always have triumph in Christ. It could be that we are troubled at times. It could be that people don't want to hear what we have to say. We may be persecuted. We may be anything. We may have people not like us. But we always are led to triumph in Christ. Through everything and every problem we have, we always are led in triumph to Christ.

And he says, and through us, let me read the whole verse, now thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ. And through us diffuses the fragrance of his knowledge in every place. The fragrance of his knowledge, the smell of his knowledge. He diffuses that through us. Now, we can diffuse other smells through us. We can put cologne on. We can do perfumes. We can do other things and whatever. But God says to his people, and Paul says, he diffuses the fragrance of his truth, of his knowledge in every place.

There's kind of a smell that's there. There's a fragrance, a pleasing aroma. Verse 15, we are to God the fragrance of Christ. That's you and me. We are to God the fragrance of Christ. That's kind of an interesting, for lack of a better word, thing for God to say.

When he looks at you and me, when he looks at his church, he looks at it and says, you're the fragrance of Christ. You leave the same impression. You leave the same smell. There's that sense about you. I was very pleased with Christ, and I'm very pleased with you because there's a familiarity with you. When I smell how you do, when I smell how you're living, when I smell the effect that you have on people, it's a pleasant fragrance.

For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. Both within the church, there's the fragrance of Christ, and even outside the church. To the people that we run into every day at the stores and our places of employment, places of education, our neighborhood, our family members. To the one, he says, in verse 16, we are the aroma of death, leading to death. To the other, the aroma of life leading to life.

Well, you know, some people have that same reaction to different smells, right? Sometimes we smell a cologne and we think, man, that is a really good smell. I like that cologne. I like that perfume. Others would look at it and say, I don't care for that smell at all. It just kind of has a problem. You know, I just don't like it. You know, we live in a day and age where one of the recent health things that have come about are people who have fragrance sensitivities. And, you know, no one knows exactly why those things have developed, but it seems to be increasing.

And there's probably several here. I know in the Orlando church there's several that have that. And while one person might see that fragrance that they're wearing as something very pleasing and other people, others will look at that and they become sick. And so when they smell that smell, they don't think it's pleasing at all. Same smell, different reaction, based on what our history is and based on what our experience is and based on our personal tastes as well. And so here in verse 16, Paul is saying the same thing. He's saying, you know, and then he's actually referring, the commentaries say, to one of the things that happened in Rome.

Of course, at the time that he wrote to the Corinthian church, it was under Roman domination. They had conquered the Greece. They had conquered the Greece. And the Romans had a practice that when they conquered a people, the commentaries say, and the background is, that they would march through the city and they would burn incense. They would parade through the city with the victors and the captives as well. And they would burn incense as they go.

And usually, they said, was the favorite incense, incense, incense of the general or whoever was leading the battle. So as they marched through the city, there would be these waft of errors out there, the smell. And so the Roman soldiers, it was a sweet smell because it was a sweet smell of victory.

And to the people who were in the town who were for the Romans, it was a sweet smell of victory. And when they smelled that smell, they realized, we've won, we've triumphed, we're the victors. But to the people who were captives, that very same smell was the smell of death because they knew their lives had forever changed.

It was the smell of defeat. It was the smell of humiliation. It was the smell of coming death because they knew what their future was. So even if they survived what was going on at that time, whenever they would smell that smell again, they would think of that time in their lives when the Romans had conquered them and they were being let off as slaves or to their death.

Same smell, different reactions. And so when we look at even Christ's life, God says He had a fragrance about Him. There was something about Him. Many people liked it. Many people flocked to Him to hear what He was saying.

Not just His words, but His whole demeanor, His whole personality, the whole way that He lived His life was a pleasing aroma to some people, but then other people just hated it. Hated it so much they wanted Him dead. They didn't like His flavor. They didn't like that smell. They didn't like that aroma. And so it is with us. So it is with us. Some people, when they see our lives and how we live, they would look at it and say, There's a good, I feel good about those people.

When I'm around them, their aura, their fragrance, it's pleasing to be around. They're a good people. They're a good person. They see you and me, and hopefully they say, I like, I like being that person. I like being around them. They would come to the church and they would say, I like being in that church.

There's something about it. So the question for us today is, what fragrance do we give off? What fragrance do we individually give off? Is it the fragrance of Christ? What fragrance do I, as a group, as a church, give to other people? Is it the fragrance of Christ that God diffuses through us? He diffuses His knowledge through us.

The fragrance of His knowledge, which is sweet, which is very uplifting, very encouraging, very inspiring, because the true gospel of Jesus Christ is an enormously satisfying gospel to know that He will return. He will set up His kingdom on earth. And in that kingdom, all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, regardless of what they've done, they will learn God's way and they will be happy and they will enjoy the benefits of living God's way of life. And through His people that work with Him, and His Holy Spirit, that knowledge will be diffused through everyone.

But what is our fragrance? What about us? Let's go back and look at a little bit of what makes up the fragrance of Jesus Christ. Back in Matthew, in just a couple of chapters here, we can kind of see what it was that made up the fragrance of Christ, but was pleasing to people. And how many people in that age and in that society flocked to Him, flocked to Him? You know, we... I'm not going to turn there today, but a few weeks ago, we talked about the tax collector Zacchaeus.

You know, that was such a pleasing thing to him that he actually went out and climbed up a tree because he just wanted to be close. He knew and he wanted that fragrance that Jesus Christ would have to be there. In Matthew 8, verse 1, we see when Christ had come down from the mountain, after He completed His Sermon on the Mount, when He had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed Him. They wanted to be around Him.

You know, researchers have long ago discovered that, you know, we all have our own personal smell, and it sounds bad sometimes, but we have our own personal thing, and we're attracted. You know, our spouses, we are attracted to the way they smell. We like being around that, and that's part of what attracts us, you know, along with many other things as well. Researchers have found that family members have similar smells, I guess. Should have looked up what a better word for that was, but it draws us together, and it's a familiarity, and it makes us feel comfortable.

Jesus Christ, you know, what He preached, who He was. God says, that's the fragrance that He had. Great multitudes, great multitudes followed Him. Verse 18 says it again, when Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, He gave a command to depart to the other side. And what He did in the intervening verses there is what how He was with the people. Anyone that was brought to Him, He healed them. He was concerned with them. He didn't ask them a bunch of questions. He didn't say, you're not worthy of my time. I'm not interested in you.

He healed everyone. That's just the way He was. He loved everyone, and He was a picture of that. There wasn't anyone that came to Him that He would not talk to. And people saw that it was different than the fragrance of the Pharisees. It was different than the fragrance of the Sadducees. It was different than the fragrance of the Jews, who were very partial to their own and who would not talk to this person or this class or these occupations.

It's a difference. He had a fragrance about Him of openness, approachability, love, and that He was willing to heal any that came to Him. Over in chapter 9 and verse 11. It says, when the Pharisees saw it...

No, let's look at verse 9. Let's look at verse 9 here in chapter 9. As Jesus passed on... talks about multitudes again. Verse 9 says, As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew, sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, Follow me. So he arose and followed him. And it happened as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. Ah, here's a fragrance we like. Here's someone who has the fragrance of acceptance, who is willing to talk to me and not has crossed me off his list as unworthy, not worth my time, or that even worse, it would be a sin and not even talk to Him. And so they came and approached Him because they had that very satisfying experience of who He was and the aroma that surrounded Him. But we see here in verse 11, not everyone liked that. Multitudes did. Thousands did. Four thousand, five thousand would come and listen to Him because they wanted to be around Him and they liked what He was doing. But the Pharisees in verse 11, when they saw that, they said, Why did your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? We don't like that flavor. We don't like that smell. We don't like what you're doing. What is your master doing? That doesn't set right with us. That's a foul odor to us that He would actually sit down with tax collectors, that He would actually, they would say later, talk with a Samaritan woman at the well, that He would talk with a woman caught in adultery and then excuse her and that condemned her to death on the spot. That's a foul odor to us. That's against what we want. We don't like that. And as that became more and more pronounced with them, they wanted Him dead. They didn't like that. Many, many, many liked the fragrance of Christ. It was attractive to them. It was appealing to them. But others would see the same thing and say, We don't want any part of it. And so today, the same thing could happen to us. We may be very appealing to God. We may be appealing to each other. We may be appealing to our families. But there are some out there who simply will not like the fragrance of the knowledge of God diffusing through us or the fragrance that we give off when we come into a room. That they, we don't want any of that. We don't like that smell. And as we look at the world around us, we can see that time growing closer and closer. Not just us, but anyone who believes in the Bible, who says they follow God, the world is more and more, you know, they kind of hold their hoes and say, We don't even want anything to do with you. That's an antiquated way. It's not for the 21st century. It's not for 2018. You know, we are smarter. We're smarter than that. We don't need to be, we don't need to be paying attention to ancient, ancient manuscripts and things. And when they hear the word Christian, and not just you and me, but the word Christian, when they hear someone believes in God, would follow the laws of God. They kind of hold their hoes and say, We don't like what you give off. We don't want to be around you. We can see that more and more happening. And as we get further and further down the road and closer and closer to the return of Jesus Christ, that will be people's reaction to us. Doesn't mean that we should change course. Doesn't mean that we should change course. It means that we should keep doing exactly what Jesus Christ did. Keep doing exactly what Paul and the other apostles did. Because it led to their death. But they never changed that fragrance because that fragrance was pleasing to God. Done in chapter 9, here where we are, verse 35.

And then, put him to death, he had compassion on them. He wasn't looking forward to the time when he would return and to the tribulation where they would kind of get what they had coming to them. He had compassion on them. And so, we would say, your flavor is, you don't have vengeance on people. You don't hate them. Rather, he says in the Beatitudes, Blessed are they who mourn. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.

So, Jesus Christ had a fragrance. That same fragrance that should be in us. As we're led by his Spirit, part of the same family that Jesus Christ is part of. As God works with us, as he develops us, as we become more and more like him. Letting go of the old things that made up our fragrance, that are well listed in the Bible, all through the New Testament. Let go of these things that define you, the lying, the bitterness, the gossip, the things that would define a foul odor in God's eyes. And put on these other attributes. Use these things and have that mix be part of who, you, what you smell like. And so, God calls us. We repent. We're baptized. We receive the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit helps us to think like Jesus Christ. And as we yield to that Holy Spirit, as we make the choices in our daily lives, to choose God and not just do the things that we have always done, the way we've always done it, when we choose him and make the choice, I'm denying self. What I naturally want to do is this, but you know what? I know that the fragrance I need to be developing in my life is this, that Jesus Christ did. This, that the Bible says. This instruction, as we build that into our lives, and that can be difficult. You know, when perfumers make their perfume or their clones, they make their compounds and they test it out, and they have to make choices of what is until they come up with a pleasing aroma. We don't have to make the choices, well, we have to make the choices day by day. But we know what the components of that fragrance of Christ is. But just because we've received the Holy Spirit, and just because we've repented, just because we have the Holy Spirit, just like we would say and know that, you know, that doesn't mean that we are saved until the very end, no matter what we do. God expects that we are going to follow His way. But if we leave, if we determine that the taste of this life is not what we want and doesn't satisfy us and we go back to our old way, or leave it to go to a different way, if we're not satisfied with what God has given us, then we can lose that salvation. We know that. And that's a choice we make day by day, because we all have things happen in our lives that could take us away, little things that happen that we might think, ah, but we go back to the Bible and we look and see where the Bible is because this is the source of the fragrance that we live, the source of the fragrance that God wants to create in us. But you know, some Christians just don't have that good fragrance. Paul talks about that here, back in Romans 2.

Romans 2.

Let's pick it up in verse 17.

Verse 17, he says, Indeed, you are called a Jew. Well, he's talking to a Jewish audience at that point. Today we might say, indeed, you are a Christian. You've been baptized. You're part of God's church. Indeed, you are called a Christian, and you rest on the law. Well, we are followed. We live by God's Holy Spirit. We're led by God's Holy Spirit, we say, and I hope that we are truly.

Indeed, you are a Christian, and you say you have the Spirit of God, and make your boast in God, and know His will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the Word of God, and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness. You're confident that your fragrance that you're giving off is of Christ, and that when someone asks you a question, you can explain it from the Bible, and you can explain it from your heart, and you can be sincere. You're confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, having the form of knowledge and truth in the law.

And then He asks some hard questions to us. You, then, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal? In all that that means, in a spiritual sense, and not just the physical sense, because we keep the physical law, but we keep the spiritual law, as Jesus so clearly instructed in the Sermon on the Mount. You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal? You who say, don't commit adultery, do you commit adultery? And not just the physical act, but do you visit those websites?

Is that something secret that goes on in your life? Are you doing things? Thinking that you're hiding it from God, are you preaching one thing and not doing another? Are you talking the talk, but not walking the walk? Because God calls us to talk the talk, but also to walk the walk. You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? Do you have your own idols? Is there something that you would put ahead of God, but haven't really even thought of that, maybe? You who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law?

You can see what he's saying here. What is your fragrance? Is it pure? Is it the perfect mix that God is looking for? Is it the compound that He has put together, that He has led you to? Or is it your own mixture? A mixture of, it looks good to the people around me, sounds good to what I say, but what I do personally?

It's kind of different. And so it's not the totally pleasing aroma to God that He's looking for. The totally pleasing aroma that Jesus Christ gave. The totally pleasing aroma that preaching and knowing and following the pure truth of the Bible and not mixing it with other things and keeping all of it the way that God had instructed us to, that that would be the thing that God would look to us that we would be doing if we begin to smell and have the fragrance and the aroma of Jesus Christ. You know, we could go on and we could say so many other things. You know, Paul could have listed a whole thing here.

We could talk about hypocrisy because certainly that's a foul-loader. Pharisees had that hypocrisy, Jesus Christ said He wanted no part of that. They didn't want the part of Jesus Christ that was purity, but He was pure and a pleasing aroma. We could talk about gossip. We could talk about talking down about other people. We could talk about the things that are the opposite of what Jesus Christ's fragrance or an aroma was and should be in us. Verse 24, he says, you know, that's, if you do these things, that's a different aroma.

That's a different fragrance. For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. You know what? You're giving a false fragrance to the people around you. They look at you who say you are a Christian, and in Romans 7, or Romans 2, who say they're a Jew, and they're saying, oh, we don't like that smell. We hear you saying one thing, but we see you doing it something else. That's not something that we find pleasing. That's not something that we can hang our hats on and say, we appreciate you.

And he says, the Gentiles, because of what you're doing, Paul says, you're creating a foul odor to the Gentiles because they're looking at you and they're saying, well, that's, you know, what's so different about that than anything else? God wants His people to be a pleasing fragrance to Him with exactly the right mix of the components of a Christian life that He would dictate for us and that His Holy Spirit leads us to if indeed we are following Him.

We know this concept of fragrance and aroma. It's not just here in 2 Corinthians 2. It's really throughout the Bible. You can go back and you can look in the concordance and you can see that how many times aroma and fragrance shows up in the Bible. The Old Testament incense was there. That was in aroma.

Let's go back and look at some of the things in the Bible, Old and New Testament, where God's talked about a pleasing aroma to Him and see some of the things that He associates it with in these examples that He gives.

Back in Genesis 8 and verse 20, the first time we see the word aroma show up, it's after the great flood, it's after Noah and his family have exited the ark, and they realize God has delivered them and saved them through that terrible time that came upon the earth.

They were the only ones who were living God's way in that time, something that should just boggle our minds, that in the face of the whole world, literally the whole world jeering at them and saying, what are you doing? They stayed strong right through it all. Chapter 8, verse 20, Noah built an altar to the eternal and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered bird offerings on the altar. Every clean animal, every clean bird, everything pleasing to God, everything that He said that He would accept as a sacrifice. And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma.

When He saw what Noah and his family did, that they offered and they followed His instructions specifically, He saw their yieldedness. He saw their thankfulness. He saw their dedication to Him. He felt their unity with Him, that they were at one with Him and they knew and they were willing to serve Him and do whatever He said.

They had shown it all their lives and certainly in the hundred years before that, they kept building the ark. They kept constructing it. They kept doing what God said. They weren't diverted from the task that He lied for them. They didn't listen to the world around them. They didn't find themselves doubting and saying, Is God really going to flood the earth? That doesn't even seem like something that is possible.

But they did it. They just kept doing it. And when God saw their sacrifice, when He saw their hearts, it was a pleasing aroma to Him. They were at one with Him. They loved Him with all their heart, mind and soul. Back in Exodus 29, Israel has come out of Egypt. God is instructing them on building a tabernacle. He's establishing the priesthood there.

He gives them some detailed instructions. How the tabernacle should be, the instruments that are used in it, the various things that we're going to be used in the service to God and in a physical sense, in that physical temple, in a time when a physical people were doing the physical things that God had expected Him to. And in a time when He's consecrating the priests and dedicating them as priests, in chapter 29 of Exodus, you can see in verse 1 there, it says, This is what you will do to them, to hallow them for ministering to me as priests.

In verse 18, He lists all these things. In verse 18, He says, And you shall burn the whole ram on the altar, the offering. It's a burnt offering to the Lord. It's a sweet aroma, an offering made by fire to the Lord. They were dedicating their lives to service to God. They were dedicating their lives to be His priests. They were going to do that.

They weren't going to be thinking of themselves in any other way. That was going to be their lives. And they were committing to that. And when God saw them dedicating their lives to being priests, it was a pleasing aroma to them. You and I are pretty much in the same boat. God has called us, it says in Revelation, to be a kingdom of priests or kings and priests. However that's translated back there in Revelation 5 and Revelation 1 to Him. When we're called, He's preparing us. When we're baptized, we're committing to Him. You prepare me. You get me ready. I've dedicated my life to becoming what you want me to become. It doesn't mean we check out a physical life.

We still have work to do. We still have careers that we need to work to be in. We still have families to provide for. We still get married, have kids, train them, and everything else. But we dedicate our lives to becoming what God wants us to be. And dedicating our lives to letting Him mold us into what He wants us to become, just as the priests did back there in Exodus 29, and they offered that sacrifice.

And when God saw that sacrifice, what they were willing to do was pleasing to Him.

Just like when we sacrifice our lives and say, I give up what I want. Not my will, but your will, God. Not my way, but your way, God. When He sees that and it comes from our heart, it's a pleasing aroma to Him, to see that we're willing to do that. And dedicate ourselves to Him. Back in Ezekiel. In Ezekiel 20, He's talking to His people, Israel. Today, He would be talking to all of us who He has called, who have become His people. In Ezekiel 20, He's talking of a time when He will gather Israel back together, and He's going to call them His physical people, His people. In Exodus 20, verse 36, He says this, as we set the backgrounds here of these verses, He says, Let's drop down to verse 40.

I will accept you as a sweet aroma when I bring you out from the peoples. God's brought us out of the peoples, a society. He's brought us out to learn His things, to be His people, to recognize Him as God. And in us, as people see what we do, taste what we do as we are close to them, as they see the fragrance of our lives and what we do, they should begin to understand who we are, and they should hallow God, because it's not of us. It's not our decisions. It's not our personalities. We always keep our personalities, but it's God and His Spirit that makes us a pleasing sacrifice to Him and a pleasing fragrance to Him. Verse 22, And there you will remember your ways and all your doings, with which you were defiled, and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight because of all the evils that you have committed. What's he talking about there? Repentance, right? Repentance. You're going to look at yourself. You're going to see the way you lived your life. You're going to loathe yourselves thinking, how could I have done that? How could I have made those decisions? How could we have rejected the ancient people of Israel, God, the way we did? Why didn't we listen to Him? Why didn't we follow Him? Why did we go our own way rather than following Him? And they will turn to Him, and God says, that is a sweet aroma. When repentance is in the air, when He sees people turn from their own ways to recognize what they've done, and they begin to follow Him with all their heart, with all their mind, with all their soul, totally committed to Him, willing to give up whatever it is that they need to of their own desires, their own ways, certainly the lust that we have, to yield those all to God. Repentance is a pleasing fragrance to God. It's part of who we are, but it's not the only part of fragrance. We've seen other things that are part of the fragrance of Christ. Paul was more than just one component. Paul had several components to him that were pleasing to God. Jesus Christ was not just there to preach. His whole personality was pleasing to God. The way He approached people, the way they saw His love, the way they saw His compassion, the way He was, was a whole pleasing sacrifice to God. Forward in Ephesians 1. Ephesians 5, verse 1. Paul, as he is speaking to the church of Ephesus and to all of us as well. In verse 1, he says, Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. Follow Him. Do what He does. Commit yourself. Yield yourselves. Make the choices to follow Him. Be imitators of God as dear children. Follow your father. Follow your elder brother. Follow those who have been examples for Him for us. And, verse 2, and walk in love. And that's agape, that word, walk in agape. Walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, and offering in a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. He loved all of mankind. He was a picture of agape. He was willing to give up His life because He loved mankind that much. And He Himself said, You know, we should be willing to do that. It takes a lifetime to come to that point. But God progresses us, and as He develops the fragrance of Christ, as His Spirit works in us, and as the unattractive ingredients in our lives are dissipated, we become more and more a pleasing aroma to God. Jesus Christ had a lot of components to Him, a lot of things that He did, and God saw Him, and even though He had all the reasons in the world to dislike the people of His time, He still loved them.

He was totally yielded to God. He was willing to sacrifice whatever to God. He looked to God. He took His words from God.

He was a pleasing aroma to God.

One more that you probably have been thinking about since I talked about incense. Let's go back to Psalm 141. Psalm 141.

Verse 1.

Lord, I cry out to You. Lord, I cry out to You, David says, make haste to me. Give ear to my voice when I cry out to You. Let my prayer be set before You as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

Listen to my prayer. Let my prayer come up before You as incense, a pleasing aroma to God. Let that arise before You. Back at the end of the Bible in royal relation, we see that same thing, that same fragrance, that sweet aroma wafting up before God as the world is coming to the conclusion of this present age with Jesus Christ about to return. Revelation 8.

Verse 1. It says, When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about a half an hour. And John writes, I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets. Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar, which was before the throne, and the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints ascended before God from the angels' hands.

God was very pleased with that aroma. He keeps those prayers. He remembers those prayers that come from our heart, that show our dedication to Him, our loyalty to Him, our commitment to Him, our desire to follow Him, and to do whatever He wants. He remembers those things, and as a... excuse me...

He remembers those things, and as they come up before Him, they're a pleasing aroma.

Our prayers. What we do every day, I hope, in praying to God, He remembers. They come up as sweet incense to Him.

So we see that there are pleasing aromas. Let's go back to Romans 12, and just kind of summarize some of what we talked about, because Romans 12 is a very good chapter that will talk about the ingredients of a sweet-smelling aroma.

Jesus Christ so perfectly demonstrated everything we're going to read here in Romans 12.

I know the first few verses are memory verses to most of us, but let's read them anyway, because again, we see the sweet-smelling aroma of Jesus Christ, the same aroma that we should be offering as we live our lives. Verse 1, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Frankly, everything we have, everything we ever have will be, everything we ever will have, we owe to God.

It's our reasonable service. Without Him, we're dead. We have no future, we have no hope. The fact that we live, the fact that we have the future, He, Jesus Christ, has saved our lives, we owe Him everything. So to offer ourselves to Him is a reasonable sacrifice. And don't be perconformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Get away from the ways of this world that are an unpleasant odor to God. But let Him transform your mind and put these things in that are a pleasing aroma to Him. For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. Ah! Humility. Humility is one of those ingredients of a sweet-smelling aroma to God. Jesus Christ perfectly demonstrated that. Not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members don't have the same function, and then He goes through it. I'm not going to read through the things about the spiritual gifts that He gives, because God does give us those things. It says in Ephesians 5 that everything that God gives us, all the people that are here, we're all part of what He wanted to be, and when we participate, and we're with the program, if you will, the body functions perfectly as a pleasing aroma to God. Let's drop down to verse 9. Let love be without hypocrisy. Love from your heart. Let that agape be part of that ingredient. John 13, 35 says that as people come among us, they should see that. When they walk through that door, they should smell that sweet-smelling aroma of love, agape. Christ said, let that be the chief identifying characteristic of you, that when they see and they come among, they think, this is where I need to be. This is something I'm pleased with. This is something that I want to be around. This is something that meshes with what my will is. Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhoor what is evil, cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love and honor-giving preference to one another. Don't lag in diligence. Be zealous. Fervent in spirit. Serving the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Continue steadfastly in prayer. Distribute to the needs of the saints. We know who the saints are. Be given to hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Just like Jesus Christ did. Just like He would have all of us to do because we are bonded, we are united, we are all of one family. When one hurts, everyone hurts. When one rejoices, we all rejoice. Be of the same mind toward one another. No partiality. No looking down on one another. No talking down on one another. No gossiping about each other. No trying to cast aspersions on each other. Be kindly to each other and be of the same mind toward one another. Don't set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Everyone, everyone is a part of God's family that comes into what God calls, it becomes part of who we are. Don't be wise in your own opinion. Defer to what the Bible says. Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men.

If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Jesus Christ, as much as was dependent on him, he lived peaceably. He wasn't looking to stir up trouble. He was just simply living the truth of God and would have been at peace with everyone except they didn't want to be at peace with him. Beloved, don't avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath, for it is written, Vengence is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink, for in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head. Don't be overcome by evil. Overcome evil with good. You can go through, and as we read that, if you think about Jesus Christ, he perfectly demonstrated every single one of those traits. The same thing he would have us do. People of integrity, people of commitment, people of love, people that are bound together, people who know who God is and know who they are and are led by his Holy Spirit, and who demonstrate that in the actions that we have. None of us perfectly, but we bear with one another, and we bear with one another, and are patient with another and encourage one another. A pleasing fragrance to God. A sweet-smelling aroma to God. Let's go back to Exodus 30. There's an interesting thing back here in Exodus 30, as God talks about pleasing aromas, and as he's setting up the tabernacle, and he's setting up the system of sacrifices that he wanted Israel to adhere to. One of the altars that he has, he has the altars, of course, where the burnt offerings and all the offerings would take place. He's got the places in the temple that are holy to him. In chapter 30, he talks about a special place, and you can see the attention that he paid to this place. Let's look at Exodus 30 in verse 1. It says, Now, isn't that interesting? All the things that the Israelites were doing that he wanted to do, he goes, I want you to have an altar, and on that altar, its purpose is that you will burn incense on it. You shall make an altar to burn incense on. You shall make it a vacation wood. Drop down to verse 3. And you shall overlay its top, its sides all around, and its horns with pure gold, and you shall make for it a molding of gold all around. So important that he said, let's blow it with gold. This is an important thing that we want done here.

Two gold rings you shall make for it under the molding on both its sides. Place them on its two sides, and they will be the holders for the poles with which to bear it. And he says in verse 5, again, lay them, overlay them with gold. Put it before the veil, that is before the Ark of the Testimony, before the mercy seat, that is over the testimony where I will meet with you. Aaron, the high priest, will burn on its sweet incense every morning, every day. When he tends to lamps, he shall burn incense on it. And God wanted an everlasting and ever-burning light that was going to be in that temple. They were charged to keep that light ever-burning. And he says, I want that incense. I want that smell there, too. Now, when Aaron lights the lamps at twilight, he shall burn incense on it, a perpetual incense before the Eternal, throughout your generations.

I want that identifying smell. I want that identifying aroma to be in my temple. You shall not offer strange incense on it. I'm not saying you choose what to burn on it. I don't want people coming in and saying, I'm in charge today, so this is my favorite incense, I'm burning it. You shall not offer strange incense on it. God doesn't say anything. He told them exactly what he wanted to do, or what he wanted the compound to be here, as we'll see in a minute.

He shall not offer strange incense on it, or a burnt offering, or a green offering, nor shall you pour a drink offering on it. This is only for the burning of incense that's going to happen every day, every morning, a perpetual, a perpetual incense before God, throughout your generations. And then in verse 10, you know, he says, Aaron will make atonement for it. Let's go back down to verse 34.

He's talking about us through the time, you know, through the courses here. You'll see some of the ointment that the anointing oil was going to be for the priests as they came in. But in 34, he talks about this incense. It says, And the Lord said to Moses, Take sweet spices, Sacte, and Onyka, and Galvanum, in pure frankincense with these sweet spices. There will be all amounts of each. Here's the ingredients of the incense that you're going to burn every single day, every single day in the tabernacle, every single day in the temple. This is the identifying smell, aroma, that's going to be in my place.

Take these sweet spices, and pure frankincense, there shall be equal amounts of each. You shall make of these an incense, a compound, not just one component, a compound, fashioned by God, determined by God. Because it wasn't just one of those spices that was the pleasing, it was the combination of everything, a complete smell, a complete aroma that would last throughout Israel, and the people that came there, and to God.

You shall make of these incense, a compound, according to the art of the perfumer, salted, pure, and holy. And you shall beat some of it very fine, and put some of it before the testimony of the Tabernacle of Meeting, where I will meet with you. It will be most holy to you. You notice the people of Israel would come close to that Tabernacle and Temple.

And remember, there were millions, at least a million, two million, some commentaries, say three million people in the company of Israel. I mean, as big as what? The name of the city that's got two million people in it. They weren't all living right next door to the Temple. They were living spread out all around in that wilderness. But when they came close to that Temple, whenever they came close to it, they would smell that incense. They'd smell that aroma. When they came by, they would smell the aroma of God. They would see it, and they would feel it, and they became associated... we're close to God.

We see the Temple. We can taste His way of life. We can smell the aroma that's associated with God. And God said, this is the smell always. I don't want you making your own compound. I don't want you determining for yourself what it's going to be. Here's exactly what I want associated with me. If you're going to offer a pleasing aroma to me, just like He would tell you and me, live by every word of the Bible.

Follow His Spirit. Become who I want you to be. Let me determine who you will be. And grow you into who I want you to become. And He goes on, just in case I didn't get it clear, He says in verse 37, But as for the incense which you shall make, don't make any of it for yourselves.

This compound is only for God. This is only for God. You should not make any of it for yourselves according to its composition. It shall be to you holy for the eternal. The only place you will smell this is in my temple. Though when people smell it, they know it's of God. They recognize it, they identify it, they look to it. And it gives them that sense, we're close to God. Whoever makes any like it, to smell it, he shall be cut off from his people.

I don't want you creating this in your home. It's my aroma, God says. This is what I want to be the identifying characteristic of you. This is the smell that's associated with my temple. God would say the same thing to us. When people see us, you know, we're getting closer and closer to pass over a time that we should be looking at ourselves and examining ourselves and looking to see are we living the way God called us to do. A good self-examination question is, do what fragrance do I give off? Am I giving off the fragrance that God has dictated? Or have I decided that I'll make my own compound? A little bit of what he said, or maybe a lot of what he said, but mixed with a little bit of what I want?

Or is it exactly that we're working toward what God wants us to do? When our family, when our friends, when our neighbors, when our coworkers see us and they're around us, is this something that's pleasing to them? Do they see us as people that, you know, they may not understand and don't understand why we believe what we believe? But do they look at it and say, it is a pleasing aroma.

It's nice to have someone working with us who I can depend on, someone who's honest, someone who's not always talking about the boss or trying to put him down or calling him name, someone who isn't stirring controversy among the other coworkers, someone who isn't running with every tail that's out there.

But someone who comes to work, does their job, gives me the hours that I pay him for, someone that I can depend on. Is that the fragrance we give off? As a church, what fragrance do we give off? When someone walks in those doors, is it the way Jesus Christ said He is will for us would be? That by the way we are with each other, they will know, they will know that they found the Church of God. Is that the fragrance we give off? Well, we certainly can give that off if that's what we want to do. Is that the identifiable fragrance that people would know?

Because, you know, God put us all in His Church, and He put us in the Church for a reason. Individually He works with us, but as a group He works with us as well, because there will be everyone that God works with, not just lone wolves and people, but people who are committed to Him.

Back in 2 Corinthians 2, back where we started. In verse 14, I'll read the verses again, and I didn't read the last part of verse 16. 2 Corinthians 2, verse 14, Thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ, among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to the one we are the aroma of death, leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things? One of the versions of the Bible in the translation says, Who is equal to such a task?

The answer is, you and I are equal to the task. God's given us the tools we need. He's given us His Holy Spirit. It takes us to make the choices to follow Him, and to become who He wants us to be. And when we do, when we do, He will see in us, and our lives will be that pleasing fragrance to those around us, and a sweet aroma to God.