Godliness: How to Smell Like Jesus

GODLINESS: HOW TO SMELL LIKE JESUS
Read Ephesians 5:1-21

Introduction:
The Headlines in the National Post this week read: “Sex May Have Sunk BC Ferry.” What a fitting depiction of sin’s consequence - “sin sinks the ship!” The horror of the story is that, because two crew members of the Queen of the North couldn’t control themselves and were so overcome by their selfishness, that two people lost their lives and many other lived were placed in harms way. The only good news in this story is that more didn’t die.

Then, almost as soon as I recovered from the shock of that story, another tragedy flashed across my computer screen- “Anna Nicole Dead: Former Playmate collapses in Florida hotel room”. Geraldo called her a “living train wreck.” Anna Nicole Smith is epitome of gratuitous sensuality, excessive materialism, and moral bankruptcy; her permissive and seemingly pleasure filled life was so empty. Sin makes us into living train wrecks!

Our text this morning offers us an alternative to sinking the ship and crashing the train of our life. It says, “be imitators of God as dear children.”[1] It’s a picture of a child mimicking his parent.

Our kids do that: Parker sometimes dresses up like me and he puts my big shoes on and grabs his brief case like he was going to work. And Petra loves to mimic Gerda- she talks to Piersen like a little mommy and sets up her room like a house with herself as the mother. That’s the picture of how exaggerated it is for us to imitate God and try to fill His shoes. The command is not for the purpose of comedy though; rather it keeps our conscience free and strengthens our faith, “which some having rejected have suffered shipwreck” (1 Timothy 1:19).

But how can we mimic God when we can’t see him? That’s one of the wonderful benefits of Christ’s divinity. Whoever has seen the Son has seen the Father. Paul describes him as a sweet smelling aroma… a fragrant offering and sacrifice. We can know about the character of God by studying the character of the Son and his life as a fragrant offering in his grace, obedience and humility as it is portrayed in the gospels.

I. What God is Not Like:
Before we look at how to imitate the fragrance of God, let’s look at the foul odor of what God is not like. God is not like what is described in vv. 3 and following, nor are his children like that. They are the stench of sulfur; the sons of disobedience in verse 6. These are those who are apathetic to evil and rebellion against God. They’re living train wrecks. Dead in trespasses and sin- as was every one of us before Jesus rescued us from our sinking ships.

Fornication
Paul lists some of the characteristics of the sons of disobedience. He says don’t even let these things be named among you- things such as fornication, which the NIV translates, ‘sexual immorality’. This is not just sexual intercourse; the Greek word is porneia, it includes voyeurism, pornography, ritual prostitution, homosexuality, concupiscence, adultery, bestiality etc.

The whole sexual revolution of the 60’s and 70’s has been founded upon the premise that fornication is fun and natural and that warnings of scripture were written by jealous old repressed white men. But hasn’t 30 years of unwanted pregnancies, single parenthood, a holocaust of abortions, the loneliness pandemic, and the unfathomable grief caused by AIDS proven that the warnings of scripture were meant to protect us and that the gurus of free sex were the real villains who were just out for their own pleasure no matter what it has cost our society and its most vulnerable?

Uncleanness
Another characteristic of the sons of disobedience is uncleanness, or impurity (NIV); it can mean profligate or decadent living and brings to mind the lifestyle of the man who took his inheritance from his undead father and,
took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. (Luke 15:13-16).

You can imagine his reckless living- he became a living train wreck a ship off course and about to plunge into the icy sea. At first it was ideal; he was far away from home, anonymous, surrounded by people who were his friend as long as he had money.

Verse 4 is a picture of the prodigal in the midst of his reckless living surrounded by filthy obscene talk, foolish conversations and coarse jokes. The prodigal’s reckless living landed him a servant to pigs; a startling irony when you consider how unclean pigs are to Jews. But that’s where we see the gospel- the prodigal son came to his senses and returned to his father. He turned from the darkness of unclean living and came into the light, just as everyone here who calls themselves a Christian has done. How wicked it would have been for that son to return to his father, beg his forgiveness, and receive his father’s mercy, only to again return to serving pigs?

Coveting
Another characteristic of the sons of disobedience are covetousness. Do not be fooled by this outmoded sounding word. Coveting is the foundation of our society. Everything is based on coveting and without it our society would fall apart. All of our advertising is designed to cause us to covet- to make us want what we don’t have or need; look how popular the commercials have become during the Super Bowl. I bet more people watched the Super Bowl for the commercials then the actual game.

Look at every financial decision you make: The clothes you wear, the realtor you shopped with, the car you drive, the place you vacation, where your kids play… I bet each one is informed by an advertisement that was designed to appeal to your vanity and covetousness.

Why is coveting wrong? For one thing it leads to theft; for another it implies thanklessness- coveting is never satiated- it feeds itself on the things it acquires. Verse 5 says to covet is to commit idolatry. I have to confess, I covet; I want things I don’t need. I wish I had an Ipod (especially one with video); I want a better car, I want to own a house, I want to go on vacation to the Philippines with Larry and Delma, I want nicer clothes, a successful ministry like John Macarthur, popularity, I wish I was taller, more handsome, rich…. And I know I’m not the only one: aren’t we all guilty of idolatry? Thank God for His grace or we would all be like those sons of disobedience.

Verse 7 reminds us that we were once in darkness, but now we are light and so we ought not to be partakers with the sons of disobedience, but rather to walk as children of light (v. 9) in all goodness, righteousness, and truth (all descriptors of Jesus) proving what is acceptable to the Lord. How do we prove what is acceptable? Paul says it in verse 11: Expose the unfruitful works of darkness.

When we walk as children of light, when we imitate God, when we mimic the odour of Christ- we become living sacrifices showing that we are children of God, we shine light on the darkness, we expose unfruitful works…. So let’s look now at the positive: What is God Like so we can imitate Him- How we can become a fragrant aroma and smell like Jesus.

II. What God is Like (How to Smell Like Jesus)
2 Corinthians 2:15-16 says that “we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, to the other the aroma of life leading to life.”

Jesus was the aroma of death for some in his grace, his obedience, his humility; he was also the aroma of life to others in those same qualities of grace, obedience and humility. This is the application, the how we smell like Jesus. I chose three attributes of Jesus- his grace, his obedience and his humility- not because they were the only attributes of his fragrant sacrifice. In fact if I were to list all the elements of Christ’s fragrance, we would never leave here.

1. Humility
Jesus’ humility exposed the unfruitful works of the sons of disobedience in so many ways, its hard to choose just one example, but how about the woman caught in adultery. Can you imagine what those Pharisees must have thought as they went to gather her and bring her before Jesus to entrap him? They must have thought, in their self righteous smug, “Now we going to deal with two problems at the same time- we can get rid of this worthless fornicator and we can expose this uneducated Galilean bumpkin.” There was likely some violence in their apprehension of the women, for she would surely have known that the Pharisees plan was to kill her and in her mind, their righteous indignation seemed very religious, very scriptural.

But Jesus went further then them, not only did he shine light on the darkness of the prostitute, but he also shone the light on the darkness of the self righteous Pharisees; he did it with one of the most gracious sentences that have ever been uttered, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” And slowly, one by one, the Pharisees were overcome by the conviction of their own sinfulness and walked away from this train wreck.

But Jesus was without sin- so he picked up a stone and began to stone her right? Absolutely not! Instead, Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more” (John 8:1-12). That’s how we mimic the fragrance of Christ and expose the unfruitful works of darkness- by mimicking Christ’s grace towards one another and towards unbelievers.

2. Obedience
We also imitate God and smell like Jesus exposing sin when we learn to mimic Christ’s obedience. For Jesus the Word of God was more then ink on paper, it had more power then simple propositions- he was the embodiment of the Word; the Word made flesh[2]. Likewise, our obedience means that we get this word inside us so it can fill every limb, every joint, every extremity, every brain cell and blood vessel with the desire and knowledge to be obedient to God.

We must be Obedient, even when it hurts- just as Christ was obedient. On the eve of his crucifixion, he prayed, “Father, spare me from this only if it is your will, nevertheless, I will do whatever you ask” (Lk 22:42- my paraphrase). “Consider him who has endured such hostility at the hand of sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart” (Heb 12:3)
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree… (1 Peter 2:21-24).

Perhaps, the grace of Christ is bet displayed in the heat of his agony, when he not only offered salvation to one of the covetous, foolish talking thieves who hung on the cross next to him, but he also interceded on behalf of his accusers saying, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing.” That’s how we smell like Christ. That’s how we expose darkness.

3. Humility
Finally, we imitate God when we mimic the humility of Christ. His humility is displayed in several ways:
· When he took on our nature, he emptied himself of the riches of heaven and became a servant (Ph 2:7);
· In his partaking of our weakness he suffered and was tempted in every way (Heb 4:14; 5:7);
· His humiliation unto death resulted in his exaltation:
And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:8-11).

Therefore He says, “Awake you sleeper and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” Redeem the time by understanding the will of God in grace, humility and obedience, submit to one another, for the days are evil.

Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.Take my moments and my days; let them flow in ceaseless praise.Take my hands, and let them move at the impulse of Thy love.Take my feet, and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee.
(F. Havergal)

THAT’S HOW WE SMELL LIKE CHRIST!

NOTES:
[1] The Greek translated ‘imitators’ is where we get our word mimic. Mimic has come to mean an exaggerated imitation of someone’s voice, gestures are appearance.
[2] Jesus said, “I have come to your will, O my God, and your Law is written within my heart” (Ps 40:8).