An Aroma: Pleasant or putrid

2 Corinthians 2:1-14-16

When I arrived in Troas to proclaim the Message of the Messiah, I found the place wide open: God had opened the door; all I had to do was walk through it. But when I didn’t find Titus waiting for me with news of your condition, I couldn’t relax. Worried about you, I left and came on to Macedonia province looking for Titus and a reassuring word on you. And I got it, thank God! In the Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade. Through us, he brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, which is recognized by those on the way of salvation—an aroma redolent with life. But those on the way to destruction treat us more like the stench from a rotting corpse.

Pray:

About 2 years ago now, my wife and I needed to buy a new roof for our house. We were given the option for delayed payment to buy some time to get some more money. In a brilliant move, I offered to take on a second job. Then in the fall, my wife was offered a Sunday only job getting payed to watch kids, which she was already doing. Then, the following February, I was offered a similar set of hours to do another one of my passions, make coffee. Then two weeks later, well you get the gist, 4 total jobs, working 7 days a week, my average day is 13 hours of work, but throw commuting and it makes it harder.

My second job, the one that started it all, is McDonalds. As I began pondering how I would share what God was birthing in my heart and mind, I was reminded of an experience I had shortly after I started working at McDonalds. I came home on a Saturday of hard work and went to hug my wife. She pushed me away saying “WHEW! You stink!” As you can imagine, that hurt! I mean, I am her husband, we’ve been through a lot together, sure she has a bionic nose, but rejection hurts!

Then I had a thought, it was the stench of McDonalds. I had gotten used to it. I couldn’t smell the nasty stank that was on my body. At my Church job, I work with coffee. I love coffee. When I get home on Sunday afternoons, my hands smell like the rich, carmely goodness of coffee.

This got me thinking, though, about who we are perceived. The aroma we give off. There are several parallels I would like to draw out very quickly.

As I have mentioned, there are some EXTREMES we need to cover.

The good and the bad. These are the smells that 2 Corinthians describes as an “exquisite fragrance…redolent with life” Can any one name the worst thing you ever smelled?

For me, it’s the smell I give off when I am done with McDonalds, sweat mingled with rotting food that is stuck to the bottom of my shoes, that is putrid. But what are some other smells?

The point I want to make here is that in life, we can affect how we smell to God. The way we walk, talk, act, and most importantly, what we believe affect that. Do you realize that without Faith it is impossible to please God the father? (Hebrews 11:6) Faith in Christ is what makes us smell pleasing to God. Paul goes on to expound in chapter 5 about how Christ, who knew no sin, became sin for us so that we could openly embrace God the father without fear of “whew! You stink!”

There is another kind of smell, those who work with or have worked with youth are probably very familiar with. That’s the smell of MASKED STINK. This is interesting, because at its core, it is still stink. Its like that one kid who doesn’t wear deodorant on hot summer days, was at school all day, did PE, didn’t take a shower, didn’t change his clothes, and then tried to cover over the smell with AXE, right?

You smell, from a distance, what smells like a decent smell, then are bombarded by a weird mix of BO and AXE. I feel like the bible talks about this too, when it comes to self-righteousness. That is the righteousness (or right standing) that is put in place by our own measures.

Isaiah 64:6

But how angry you’ve been with us!
    We’ve sinned and kept at it so long!
    Is there any hope for us? Can we be saved?
We’re all sin-infected, sin-contaminated.
    Our best efforts are grease-stained rags.
We dry up like autumn leaves—
    sin-dried, we’re blown off by the wind.

Our best effort at righteousness, or right standing with God, is nothing more than a grease stained rag, we can’t do it.

I love what Philippians 3:7-9 says here:

The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I’m tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn’t want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God’s righteousness.

So today, allow yourself to be a pleasant aroma, a sweet offering of Love to God the father.