The Satisfaction of Stewardship

Sermon Transcript

I think it’s easy for a lot of biblically taught Christians, which I hope you are a part of, for us to throw rocks and disparage and to call out the prosperity preachers who are out there exploiting people, leveraging their platforms to have people give and give and give and they boast about their Rolex watches and they buy their private jets and fly around the country and around the world. It’s easy for us to see the problems there and even to say well, that’s not biblical Christianity. But such well-taught biblical Christians, I find, can easily, as well, in the meantime, see their relationship with Christ in a similar way. Christ is really here in our lives to keep us safe, keep our kids from trouble, get us through our sickness when we’re sick, to bless our plans and empower our ambitions and to kind of help us along in life. It’s unfortunate that it’s easy to see the problem there and it is almost a cartoonish extrapolation of the worst of the ways that we treat the Lord, but we have a hard time sometimes seeing that in our own relationship with God. You may be well taught enough to never say Christ is my co-pilot. I hope that bumper sticker is not on your car. But we sure do have a lot of instructions that we’re barking at him. Turn right here, turn left there, slow down. I don’t want to go down that street. Please take me over here. He’s not our Uber driver either. So we need to rethink this. And if only there was an illustration, maybe a historic illustration that could help kind of readjust our thinking, to put it in terms that would be biblical, to give us some kind of way to view our relationship with God that would kind of reset our thinking when we merge off into seeing Christ as our life coach and our helper.

 

By God’s grace, there is one. There happens to be one in Second Corinthians Chapter 2. So I want you to take your Bibles and turn there. We’re going to look at verses 14 through 17, just four short verses. But I want you to see how powerful this illustration is. And unfortunately on the surface we often miss it. Of course, you got to remember this was written 2,000 years ago. This is not the kind of thing that you might be thinking of when you immediately recognize what Paul’s talking about here. Remember, we went through his personal travel plans and how he was anxious about the concern for the Corinthians. Well, we got past all of that and now we break into this what I warned you would be a parenthetical section in the book of Second Corinthians. And he’s going to start talking about the greatness of what it is to be a Christian. And he starts with an illustration. This is a good way to end our series here talking about the “Ups and Downs of the Christian Life.” And I mean, this is the ultimate “up” but there’s a paradoxical, almost oxymoronic aspect to this, that there is something that doesn’t quite feel natural. It’s not the way I like to think of my relationship with Christ, but it is the way I ought to think about my relationship with Christ.

 

So let’s take a look at it and try and think like a first-century Corinthian who would know exactly what Paul is enlisting as an illustration. Second Corinthians Chapter 2 verses 14 through 17. I’ll read this from the English Standard Version. Are you with me on this this morning? OK. “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.” Let’s not even go any further and try to understand what would have popped immediately into the mind of the Corinthians. When we talk about a “triumphal procession,” you may picture Jesus riding into Jerusalem with palm branches waving, people saying Hosanna, and dragging his feet on this little donkey that he’s riding in on. That is not at all what the Corinthians would have thought if he used these two words together, “triumphal procession.” And then you add to it spreading the fragrance of something, they immediately knew exactly what he was talking about.

 

This Corinthian city, a lot closer to Rome than it is to Jerusalem, they’d know precisely what Paul was talking about, something you can look in the history books and discover was a parade. A parade of a victory that the Senate would allow to have happen in Rome when a general on some kind of conquest was able to defeat at least 5,000 opponents. If you conquered a particular part of the Roman Empire and you were able to take down at least 5,000 hostile enemies, then they would authorize in the Senate that you could have a triumphal procession. It would be down the Via Sacra in Rome and it would end at the temple of Jupiter and it would involve actually the political elites of Rome who would be walking in the front. You can picture them with their togas as they walk down the street. The senators would often involve themselves in this parade and behind them would be the musicians and the trumpeters who would be making clear this was a festive celebration of victory. And behind them there would be the priests who would have their censers that they would be swinging about as the smoke went out and filled, as the crowds would gather around the sides of the street, much like a modern American parade, as everyone would be cheering as this smoke went up, this fragrance of the incense would go out into the crowd.

 

Then there would be the prisoners, the captives, the people who were taken captive, and they would be followed by the Roman soldiers who had them in chains and would lead them to the temple in Rome. And probably many of them, if they weren’t conscripted, would actually be executed by the Romans who were holding them. Then there would be some horses and a gilded chariot and there would the general. And the general would be riding majestically with a laurel wreath on his head with a gilded scepter in his hand, and then behind him all the army coming back from war. This would be a big parade, and everyone would be so excited if you were part of the Roman Empire that your soldiers had bravely gone out and conquered, and the general himself had been honored in such a way.

 

Now if you’ve been to Rome, as our Gap Year students are about to go, we recognize a feature of the modern city of Rome that you’ll be taken to, the Arch of Triumph, as we would say as a Yankee in America. And that arch is a depiction of a triumphal procession. It was the one that took place when the general Titus went through Jerusalem and ransacked Jerusalem and took the Temple Mount and all of the riches and all the gold and everything that they found there, and they brought it back through the city streets. And that huge archway going all the way back to the first century, which this was written before that took place, not long before it took place, but there would be a triumphal procession that many of these people who read this letter would see. They would certainly hear of it, and if they happened to be in Rome for business or travel or education, they would have seen this with their own eyes. This is a big deal. Certainly, sometimes there were monuments like that Arch of Triumph that would be set in the city center as a trophy of victory.

 

This is very different than Jesus humbly coming in and fulfilling Zechariah’s prophecy about a lowly servant coming in his humility to save people and give his life as a ransom for many. This is a very different view, and it’s the view that Paul wants us to have about the present. About the present. When Christ left and ascended, he commissioned his people to be witnesses of his message in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. We often talk about the Great Commission in Matthew 28, and that picture of him saying to the people, “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded.” You got a lesson here in your mouth, first to make a disciple, it’s called the gospel, and then to teach them to obey everything the general says. And here’s Paul saying this is what we’re doing. We’re like those priests in a sense because we’re spreading the fragrance of Christ. And our general has already, he’s already won the battle. On the cross, he said “Tetelestai,” meaning “it is finished,” it’s done. Sins have been paid for, the temple curtain was torn. This was the end of the era when it came to Old Testament Israel. At least it was a huge parenthetical gap between the 69th and 70th week, at least in my eschatology, to understand the time of Jacob’s Trouble that was coming.

 

But for now, it’s the time of the Jews and the Gentiles and one new thing, one new man, as Paul put it in Ephesians, to start this thing called the Church that is now supposed to fulfill the Abrahamic covenant to spread the blessing of the ultimate offspring of Abraham to the whole world, to every family of the earth. And our job is to go from the epicenter of all this, Jerusalem into Judea and into Samaria and then to the ends of the earth and here we sit 2,000 years later because some people took this picture literally and they said we want to do what this says. We want to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere. Drop down to the bottom of this passage in verse 17. We have the word “commissioned.” “We’re not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.” This parade, this victory parade, has already begun. Christ has completed all that is required for the kingdom. And we here, as Christians, are marching down a narrow road that most of the world is not interested in hearing and he’ll talk about this in the analogy. In one sense, we’re not only the priests with the censers spreading the fragrance, but we’re one of the captives, the general has come into enemy territory and while we were still hostile and enemies against God, Romans Chapter 5 says, “Christ dies for us.” And he prays in his high priestly prayer in John 17, I’ve got people here in this world and I’ve gotten them and they’re the people who you’ve given me and I brought them safely so far and I’m speaking these things he says not only for those who believe on me now, but all those who WILL believe on me. He’s got people, as he said in John 10, sheep of another fold. And here we are, most of us in this room, at least Gentiles, on the other side of the planet at the end of the earth here on coastal California, 2,000 years later because people have “spread the fragrance” of Christ and we’ve become captives.

 

Read the whole text now with that in your mind, but thanks be to God who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession. This is a little different than the triumphal entry. “He spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.” Because “We are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one the fragrance from death to death,” if they’re perishing, they don’t like our message, “to the other a fragrance from life to life,” if they’re called to eternal life they love this message we’re bringing them. We get to be that dividing voice that is either going to separate you into a pile of saying I hate this message, I’m not interested in your Christ, or this is interesting I want to hear more and become a follower. “Who is sufficient for these things? For we’re not, like so many, peddlers of God’s Word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.”

 

Now, I’m going to use a word here. I’ve already used it in the subtitle, and if you see that on the bulletin you know this is a word you might think of in other ways. You might think about, oh, he’s going to talk about stewardship and that’s going to be a sermon about giving. Well, this is the sermon about giving, but it doesn’t have to deal with your wallet. It’s not about your bank account. This is about your life as a steward. A life as a steward that you have being a part of a parade in this particular analogy, fulfilling several characters in this illustration, as both one who is now captive, one who is like a soldier now reaching out to bring more captives into this parade, worshiping the general a lot like the musicians, and then being like the priest, making sure everyone hears the message of Christ through us. This is a great and multifaceted illustration that’s far from us inviting someone into our lives to make our lives better. It starts with the conscription that begins when God draws us to himself and says you were slaves to sin, but now I’m going to make you, just note this now, Romans Chapter 6, I’m going to make you a slave of God.

 

Now what were you gaining from being a slave of sin? Nothing, just destruction. But as Romans 6 says in verse 23 what do you get now? But this sanctification, this being set apart as a part of the general’s army, you know what you’re getting now. It ends in eternal life. What a great line. And I can’t help but think, and I often quote it, I know, I’m sorry, but here it is again, Matthew 25 when Jesus says in that judgment of the nations he says enter in “you who are blessed of my Father,” into “the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” This parade ends at a temple, not a temple named after a planet or not a planet named after a Roman god, but it ends at the dwelling place of God that he brings on the new earth. And according to Psalm 16 verse 11, “At his right hand there are pleasures forevermore. In his presence there is the fullness of joy.” Everything you could possibly want, as we said two weeks ago, is all given to us in Christ. And he says this is going to end well for you. But your job here is to be a part of my parade. I am the general. And I’ve done all the work to win the battle and I’ve called you to myself.

 

I know slavery in our culture is always interpreted as some ethnic enslavement. It’s called kidnapping is what it’s called, right? To be able to take someone against their will and conscript them, certainly based on ethnicity, is something that our country talks a lot about. But oftentimes, as you’ll see in biblical history, when armies come into a nation, usually as an extension, if it’s Israel, of the judgment of God on a pagan nation, oftentimes killing their children, a lot like our culture does now, killing our preborn, this is often an act of mercy to not kill you but to conscript you and to make you a part of the nation that is victorious where you can live and have all your needs met, but you serve. And in that service and in the illustration of service throughout Jesus’ teaching, he often talks then about stewardship. And stewardship, we often think about money, because sometimes Jesus’ illustrations about stewardship talk about money. But it’s always in relationship to you being a slave and God being the master. And we are conscripted into his army, or you want to put it more domestically, we are adopted into his family. But it’s clear that he’s the father and we’re the child. He is the master and we are the servant.

 

Everyone, you might want to note this passage, First Corinthians Chapter 7 verse 22, everyone who is free and becomes a Christian becomes Christ’s slave. We’re all enslaved to Christ. And there’s nothing better than that because the general is the most benevolent general who’s going to take us down a rocky, narrow path to our eternal home. And he’s going say to us one day, enter in “you who are blessed of my Father,” into “the kingdom prepared for you,” I’ve been thinking about this, planning this, strategizing this “from the foundation of the world.” It’s an amazing truth. This parade ends well. But when you become a part of this parade, when you’re a part of the triumphal procession, if we’re being led by the general in a triumphal procession, you are a steward and your life then is at the disposal of Christ. And I can’t say this strongly enough. Christ has not come into your life to bless you. You have entered into God’s life really to be a blessing to him. You are to serve him. Your job is to glorify him. His job is not to glorify you. Will he? Of course he will. He’s going to bring to you amazing things and the great servant of Christ is now going to be the object of his service. He’s going to now, as it says in Scripture, take an apron upon himself and serve the servants. But Christ doesn’t exist for you, you exist for Christ. And that is basically a definition of stewardship. It’s founded on the fact that he owns you.

 

Now he owns everyone. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,” Psalm 24 verse 1. “The earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof, … and all those who dwell therein.” It’s kind of old-fashioned language in the English Standard Version, but there it is. “And all who dwell therein.” Everyone on this planet who is born, God owns the pink slip on every life. But then he rescues some of you out of your sin, draws you to himself, you repent and put your faith in Christ, and now he says you’ve been bought with a price. Oh, yeah, you are owned by God by virtue of him being your creator. But now, if you’re a Christian, you’re owned by Christ by virtue of a purchase. You were purchased with the precious blood of Christ, as Peter put it, as Paul put it. You are his. This is his body. These are his hands.

 

And there are two things in this that are very helpful, actually three. Look at verse 14 again. “Thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.” Verse 15, “For we are the aroma of Christ.” Now here are two interesting words, the direct object here of being the aroma of Christ, “to God.” Now I thought I’m supposed to let everyone know about Christ. Well you are, but you’re “the aroma of Christ to God.” And that takes us back to the picture of sacrifice. Did you read your Daily Bible Reading this week? Smile at me if you read your Daily Bible Reading this week. Here was Solomon dedicating the temple and about the construction and the dedication of the temple. This was a picture of something amazing where at the centerpiece on the outside, where the common people like us could go and see it, was where the sacrifices were with all those steps. You’d bring your animal up and here it was, it would be barbecued in front of the people.

 

Now, God picked something that he knew, unless you’re fighting and suppressing this desire with your diet plan, few things smell better than driving past In-N-Out Burger or Outback Steakhouse or whatever’s blowing the smoke from their barbecue. You go to Texas and you go by a barbecue place, I mean, they don’t even hide it. It’s not coming out of a chimney pipe in the middle of the building. They’re out there in front. And I could just sit in the parking lot and gain weight. (audience laughing) It smells so good. And God said, when you go to worship here’s what you’re going to smell. You’re going to smell something savory. You’re going to smell something good. It’s going to make your mouth water. And then God says this to us, even in the Old Testament the allusions are there, but in the New Testament he says in Romans Chapter 12 verses 1 and 2, YOU are living sacrifices. “Present your bodies,” to God, “as a living sacrifice.” Even Paul talking about people serving Christ, he says you’re a savory aroma and a sacrifice to God.

 

This is what God calls us to be, a steward who is giving this act of worship not to people, although it doesn’t make much sense to sit around in my bedroom talking to myself about God. It’s going to be before those who are perishing and before those who are being saved. But I am “commissioned,” look at the last line in verse 17, “by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.” Who are we speaking to? People who will be saved, people who will reject us. This is a long intro to the first point, but jot it down this way, and all these words may make sense now. You need to “Embrace Your Stewardship Before God.” You’re accountable to God, you’re owned by God, you are a servant of God. Let’s use the real word, “Doulos”. You’re a slave of God. He’s commissioned you with an assignment. And then he sets you on your path to do all of this before him. It’s going to affect people, but it’s all before him, “Quorum Deo.” Have you heard that phrase quorum deo? If you’re a Sproul fan and you read his books, he kind of re-popularized this. He liked to talk about Martin Luther’s use of this, but he goes way back before that. You got to go back to Jerome’s translation of the Hebrew text into the Latin text and Jerome would find this phrase, these are two words in Latin, “Quorum.” Quorum is a word that is usually translated “before.” And it can be quorum Moses, that someone came before Moses. But quorum deo, “Deo” is a Latin word for God, it’s “before God.” And this translates directly out of the Vulgate, that oftentimes quorum deo is that you just need to know you’re living your life before God, everything you do is before God.

 

And you think you’re working for your employer. But we know this from the New Testament, you know that your ultimate boss is not your employer, Colossians Chapter 3, it’s God. Because from him you’ll get your reward. Well, from your human boss you will get your paycheck. But you’re working for something bigger than that because all of this is saturated throughout the Bible. And it’s put well, and if you want to sound fancy with the Latin words, quorum deo, it is all before God. And even your evangelism, if you’re going to influence people for Christ as salt and light, which is your job and your task, all of us are ambassadors of Christ, you’re doing it before God, which changes, I hope, the way that you do that. We’re trying to do something for God. I want God to see that I’m faithful to do what he’s called me to do. As a priest or before people representing God with that censer and the chains, and you’re swinging it there as a Roman priest, a priest of Diana or a priest of Jupiter or a priest of whoever it is. If you think about that picture you’re doing it in view of the emperor who’s riding back a few lines in his chariot and a few ranks back, you’ve got the emperor smelling all of this. It’s before him. He sees it. Now that wafts into the crowd and everyone who’s seen a triumphal procession remembers the smell of it all.

 

We do this before God, quorum deo. It’s not a bad way for us to think about this. We live before God. And it’s all over the New Testament, right? Think about Acts 17 when he says, “In him we live and move and have our being.” Everything you do at work, everything you do on your computer, everything you do on your phone, everything you do in every conversation you have, every kind of phone conversation you’ve had, it’s before God and that should elevate everything that we do. This is why the Puritans were so good at trying to remind us that the Christian work ethic is one that is ultimately always focused on the fact that we’re doing this quorum deo. We’re doing it before God. God is seeing it all. And we want to have God say, that’s good. Paul says, yeah, you helped me on a missionary journey to the Philippians, but he says, you did this as a savory sacrifice to God. It’s a sweet smell in his nostrils. Well, God has no nostrils. This is an anthropomorphic way to talk about the fact that just like it smells good to you when you smell, you know, a rack of ribs on the grill, unless you’re weird, then… Sorry, I know, you’re just trying to lose weight, but you’re missing out. Ah… God feels good about it, we are created in his image, intellect, emotion and will. There’s something happening in our lives with that wonderful smell. And when you do something right, when you stand up in the workroom for him, when you say I’m going to “Not be ashamed of the gospel,” of Christ, “for it is the power of God for salvation … to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Well, we’re way into the Greek phase here. We’re way into this on the other side of the planet. I’d like to save every Jew I meet, but I’m all about indiscriminately sharing the gospel. There’s no Jew or Greek in this present dispensation of the Church.

 

But I am right now recognizing that that is my job to do it with a sense of stewardship before God. Everyone’s a steward in this room to be salt and light. And Jesus says, “If salt loses its saltiness,” what’s it good for, Sunday school grads? “Throw it out,” to be “trampled under feet.” It can make for a nice pathway and people can just walk on it. Salt needs to be salty. Light needs to shine. You don’t put it under a bushel. You let it shine. You “put it on a stand,” so everyone can see it. So, “Let your light shine before men, so that they can see your” deeds and one day glorify God. They’ll join our procession. They’ll say, yes, I want to be taken captive by Christ. He’s our boss. Every opportunity you have. You have work, right? I like to meet our people and ask what they do for a living. And, you know, where do you live? I ask these questions a lot. Well, because that’s your sphere of influence. I don’t have that influence, you do. I’ve got this influence here. And whatever gift I have, according to First Peter 4, and whatever gift you have you need to steward it well, “as those who will give an account.” Be a good steward of the very grace of God. There’s not a person in this room who lives in a monastery, nor should there be one. All of us have an effect on people, and we should be that fragrant aroma of “the knowledge of him everywhere.”

 

The Master has given us a message to disseminate. Let me give you one cross-reference on this, then we’ll move on. First Thessalonians Chapter 2 verse 4. Some of you thinking, ah, you got a microphone, you know the Bible, I don’t know, that’s not me. The middle of this discussion in his trying to at least defend his integrity in verse 3, in First Thessalonians Chapter 2 verse 4, he says, but “we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man,” that would be wrong, “but to please God who tests our hearts.”

 

Now, here’s the thing, Paul spends time as he writes to Timothy in Ephesus and says I can’t even believe I am an apostle. I can’t believe it. I was a persecutor of Christians. I took all this knowledge about Christ and I didn’t want to connect the dots to Jesus of Nazareth. Even though I knew it all, I was a scholar as an up-and-coming Pharisee. I persecuted Christians who bought into Christianity. I can’t believe I did that. But God saved me to show his infinite patience, his amazing grace to save people like me. And he’s saying, you know, we’ve been approved by God. It doesn’t matter what you are, it doesn’t matter what your past is, it doesn’t matter where you live, it doesn’t matter what you do, it doesn’t matter your IQ. If you put your trust in Christ, he called you to become a fisher of men. “Follow me, and I’ll make you fishers of men.” Come, follow me. And then I’ll have a task for you. You’re my representative, you are my ambassadors in this world. You are, to put it in terms of our passage, you are to spread the fragrance of Christ everywhere. And in this room, think about this weekend, all throughout this weekend at Compass Bible Church, people are going to disseminate, get in their cars and they’re going to go into all these different crevices of South Orange County. May God never send us to an isolated place. May we always be around people because we’ve got a job to do to disseminate this message of Christ. You’ve been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. No matter, you could be the most biblically illiterate Christian in the room. You’ve been approved by God with this message. If you know enough to be saved, you’ve got enough information to pass on at least the gospel. And you do it to please not man, you do it to please God, you do it all quorum deo, before God.

 

It would be nice if everyone was very happy to hear our message. Go to our text now, verse 15. After saying we’re in a triumphal procession, we’re in one of those Roman general victory tours, and we’re like the priest spreading the fragrance, we’re also like the captives now. Now we’re slaves of God. And we’re also like soldiers in this army. We’re also trying to get more people into this parade. He said but let’s just talk about your influence here. You are, “We are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death.” My dad was a cop. I remember him talking about the cop stories which he’d never tell directly to his kids. But I’d hear him, overhear him with his donut in his hand talking to other cops or other people about going onto a scene, a lot of you first responders know what this is like, go to a place, go, I haven’t seen this guy for days. And I remember my dad always saying the smell of death, you’ll never get that out of your head. To say that we are the smell of death to people, this is a big deal. I mean, you wonder why the ancient world, without the kind of embalming at least that they had in Egypt, but the kind in Israel. I mean, you’d pack them in all these spices, pounds and pounds and pounds of spices because you didn’t want to smell that smell of death. It’s really the smell of death to people. And the others, though, who are not perishing, who are being saved from perishing, we’re a fragrance from life to life. Join this team. Join us. Come be part of this.

 

“Who is sufficient for these things?” Why would that be the way it is? Because back in Luke Chapter 1, the promise to Mary about who Jesus would be is “a sign that is opposed” “for the rising and the fall of many in Israel.” That’s a great line, at the end of Luke Chapter 1 or the middle of Luke Chapter 1. Christ was going to be this sign that everyone was going to attack and then in the attack, some would rise and some would fall. The attack would mean certainly he’s the center of attention and Christ is still the center of attention. You can’t get through a week, even in popular culture, without something, usually disparaging in the media at least, about Christianity and Christ. But what it does is it separates people into two groups. Matter of fact, when I preached that passage eons ago in Luke Chapter 1, I said he’s bifurcating all humanity. When the message of Christ comes it splits people into two camps, and now he’s gone, he’s ascended. He said, “You’re my witnesses in Jerusalem, and all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.” “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.” And now he says, look we’re doing that work now. We come into an office, we come into a neighbor, we come into a profession, we come into some group of parents watching their kids play soccer and we start influencing people about Christ. We do the same thing Christ did. Separate people. It’s just natural, it’s what happens with the message of the gospel. It’s either, wow, that smells good, I want more, or it’s I can’t believe you’re bringing that up. You don’t believe that old book. You’re not telling me that the sexual mores of the Bible are true. It’s either a smell of life or a smell of death.

 

If you want to smell life, come by my office on Fridays. You don’t even need to come to my office, just come near my office. Now listen, I don’t own a tie-dye shirt. I’ve never smoked pot. I have never taken any illicit drugs. But for some weird reason, years ago, I got into incense. Can you believe that? So I burn incense. I know that’s weird. I don’t do yoga, I’m not a vegetarian. I don’t do keto, obviously. I burn incense though and I like it. Now it was hard back in the day because I had to go to head shops and smoke shops. It was weird. Now I’m so thankful for the Internet. At least I can order my incense online to be discreetly delivered. But it’s unlike spraying Lysol in your office. It’s not like a plug-in, right? This thing wafts all throughout the aisle. They know, when Pastor Mike’s studying there I can smell him five offices away. There’s something about it. All the way back to the Old Testament, those Levites, they had that special incense that would be burned. And of course, the sacrifices were a fragrant aroma. And here they were in Rome, many of these cultures, right? What’s the thing that can waft and stay and smell and it hangs heavy like a cloud? Incense. And I found the stuff I like so don’t buy me anything weird by the way if you’re thinking about my birthday or whatever. But I found the few I really like, and to me it’s like, ah, it smells so good. I’m ready to study now.

 

And the Bible says that when we share Christ with some people, they hate it. When we share a Christ with other people, they love it. We’re supposed to cast the seed. And God’s all about the preparation of the soil. I can’t determine the soil and for some they reject it. For some, they don’t really understand it. They think they do. They cling to it for a while and they say, forget this. I don’t like it. I don’t like what it’s doing. It’s bringing persecution and suffering. But for some, the good soil, man, it germinates, and it takes root, and it bears fruit some 30, 60, 100-fold. But Jesus warned us, will there be more people who accept it or more people who reject it? The latter. You should expect resistance. But God says this, you just never, never give up. You never retreat. Number two, “Expect Resistance and Never Retreat” and by that, I’ve got to clarify. So put an asterisk by this so you understand what I’m saying. Maybe it’ll help you if we just go to the book of Acts. Acts Chapter 13 would help us with this. When I say never retreat, I never want you to do what so many Christians do. And I’ll bet there are plenty of Christians in this room who have tried to, maybe early in your Christian life, I’ve tried to influence people and talk about the Bible, talk about church, talk about Christ. But when I brought it up I got my hand slapped. So I don’t bring it up anymore. Do you know what non-Christians always say? They say don’t shove your religion down my throat. And what I want to tell you, when I say don’t retreat, I’m not telling you to shove religion down anybody’s throat. I’m not telling you that you keep talking about Christ to people who say, don’t talk to me about that anymore. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying you never stop shining your light. You never stop being salty. You’re salt. You never stop smelling up rooms because you are a Christian, “the fragrance of the knowledge of” Christ to God. You’re supposed to spread that knowledge everywhere.

 

Acts 13, go near the bottom of this passage. I know it’s going to be a stinky experience for many. Verse 44, “The next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were…” so thrilled that people had a renewed interest in theism. And they said, praise the Lord, praise Yahweh for all this interest in talking about the Old Testament. I know Paul and I, we don’t agree perfectly, but he’s a good guy. Highlight all that in verse 45. Is that what it says? No. “When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and they began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him.” Now, you can fill in the blanks. When people find you sharing the gospel, and if there’s anybody taking interest in it all, they won’t be, I don’t know, maybe jealous, maybe they’ll be something else. Offended because, I don’t know, you’re going to end up talking about a book that’s going to condemn their lifestyle. I don’t know what it is. But it’ll probably have the same response and that is that they will contradict what you say and they’ll revile you. Reviling you are ad hominem attacks. It’s one thing to attack my argument which they always do but they’ll also then attack me personally. Which is a pretty good sign by the way because they know they’re losing the argument when they start attacking me as a person. But this is going to happen.

 

So Paul and Barnabas, verse 46, got their hands slapped, so they were really quiet. They didn’t talk about Christ anymore. Highlight that in verse 46 interactive 9 o’clock crowd who missed their coffee, apparently, this morning. “Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying,” we’re going to jam this down your throat and keep talking about this until you absolutely want to punch us in the face. No, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first. Since you thrust it aside and judge yourself unworthy of eternal life, behold, we’re turning to the Gentiles.” We’re leaving now. We’re not going to talk to you anymore about this. If someone tells me to shut up about Christ, I’ll shut up to them but I’m not going to shut up about Christ. And you want to use this line, it’s a little snarky, but you can use it if you want. “Since you thrust it aside and you judge yourself unworthy of eternal life,” you don’t want to join the general’s army, you don’t want to go to a place where “there’s fullness of joy,” where there are, “pleasures forevermore at his right hand.” If you don’t want to go there, okay, you’re not worthy to join our ragtag team, okay. You don’t want eternal life? Okay, we’re going to move on then, but we’re not going to retreat.

 

Look at verse 50, drop down to verse 50. “The Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city.” This often happens. You’re going to get tattled on. There are going to be people in positions of power, people of influence, people who people like, and they’re going talk to them about you. And they’re going to try to get them to shut you down. They’ll “stir up persecution,” like they did, “against Paul and Barnabas, and they drove them out of their district.” In verse 51, they bought a big box of Kleenex, they cried together for days. No, “they shook off the dust from their feet against them and they went on to” another city. That’s all I’m asking you to do. You never retreat. You don’t want to talk about Christ anymore? Fine, fine, fine, fine. I’m fine with that. But I’m not going to stop talking because I’m supposed to spread “the fragrance of the knowledge of God everywhere.” I’m supposed to tear down every “argument … raised against the knowledge of God. If you don’t want to hear my response, I’m going to talk to someone else to tear down the thing that you said in contradicting what I said. No problem.

 

Expect to be stinky to many people, but also savor the victories. You should expect some. Go back up in this text, verse 47. “The Lord has commanded us, saying, ‘I’ve made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’” This is what Isaiah 49 says, right? You know that the message is supposed to go to everyone. And so they’re going to say, I know that the Jew first but also to the Greeks, so I’m going to go to someone else. And here’s the great thing about living in a county of close to three and a half million people, is that there are a lot of people who have yet to hear a logical, rational explanation of the gospel’s diagnosis of the problem of sin and the solution in Christ and what it means to repent and put our trust in him. A lot of people haven’t heard that. They haven’t heard it clearly. They haven’t had someone answer questions for them. So we got a lot, we’re in a target-rich environment to spread the message like a fragrance of Christ. So this still applies to us. This message is supposed to go everywhere, indiscriminately, so go. “When the Gentiles heard this,” verse 48, “they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many,” underline this, “as were appointed to eternal life believed.” Do you think there are still some people in South Orange County, let’s just think here about the 800, 900 million people within reasonable driving distance of this church, do you think there is anybody here who is appointed to eternal life that’s yet to hear this message? I’ll bet there are. Well, they’ve heard something about Christ. They haven’t had it clearly explained in our biblically illiterate culture.

 

So this is our job. “And the word of the Lord,” verse 49, “was spreading throughout the whole region.” My prayer for this church from the beginning was it was spread throughout this whole region. And in my study and my research and my estimation, both by reading the Bible, the book of Acts, and studying it in the modern era, is planting churches. And you heard about this morning in the announcements. If we can keep on planting churches, hey, I don’t care if we run out of parking spaces or chairs here, we’ll just keep planting churches. If we have to plant them a mile away, we will plant them one mile away. We want the Word of God to spread throughout this whole region and beyond. We started overseas in the Middle East, we went down to Guatemala, then we started our domestic church planting. We want to see people reached with the gospel. We are not settlers. We’re pioneers. Christ is not here now that we’ve got a church together. Well, you know, we got all we need for our kids’ ministries and our youth ministries, it’s great now. I just want God to keep blessing my life. You are a captive, a priest, a soldier, a musician in the triumphal procession of Christ driving through the entire planet. Never retreat.

 

Did you read, I know many of you looked at me with a blank stare when I talked about did you read the Daily Bible Reading this morning, but you read through the book of Judges with us, didn’t you? Isn’t it amazing how much time was given to Gideon? Do you remember that? In Judges Chapter 6 we meet Gideon as he’s hiding in a hole in the ground, basically. And if you don’t understand the agrarian culture, if you’re going to thresh wheat you do it on a threshing floor where there’s a breeze, usually on a mountain. It’s like if you’ve been to Israel, you see the Dome of the Rock Shrine up there. That’s where the temple was. And that used to be Araunah’s threshing floor. We just read about that at the end of Second Samuel. And that’s because the breeze was there. But where there is the breeze up on the top of the hillside, you know, on the ascending slope of the Kidron Valley, it’s also very visible. Well, the Midianites are attacking the Israelites and Gideon is hiding in a crevice. He’s hiding, verse 11 of Judges Chapter 6. I mean, he’s in the shadows. And the Lord shows up in verse 12. Hey, “Yahweh is with you, O mighty man of valor.” It’s like the most ironic thing you could say to this man hiding in the shadows. And Gideon says what a lot of us would say, well, you know what? “If the Lord is with us,” why in the world is the world the way it is? “Why then has all this happened to us?” All the stuff that you did back in another generation isn’t happening now. I mean, it’s not the great revivals. I don’t see, you know, this sweep of evangelism in the Whitefields and the Edwards doing their work and the Wesleys doing their work. We don’t have any of that. We’re just here barely hanging on in this cultural battle that we have with a bunch of perverse thoughts and morality. Well, if God is with us, where is God’s mighty hand?

 

And I love God’s response, “Go in this might of yours,” it may be very small, “and save Israel,” because I’m sending you. I’m sending you. And here’s the thing about some of us. We sit here today knowing God has commissioned us to speak in the sight of God and we just haven’t done it. And I love the way he said, go in this might that you have. What might do you have? Do you have the might in your volition to say I’m going to do that this week? I’m just going to be influential for Christ this week. He, a lot like Moses in the early part of Exodus says, here’s what Gideon says, verse 15, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I’m the least in my father’s house.” Do you even know what you’re doing here? One day, the same thing would happen to David, the smallest in the family would be exalted to the most powerful warrior Israel had ever seen. And here is Gideon saying, you know, have you seen the tribe of Manasseh? We’re weak, man. And we’re cross-eyed and we can’t throw a rock in a slingshot and you should watch us in archery. We’re terrible. And then you come to me. Have you seen me and my family, my tribe? Terrible. Go find someone else. And I love this, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”

 

And you know the story, I hope you know this story. He takes people who drink like dogs, and he says, okay, that’s just a few hundred people. And then in Chapter 7, Gideon comes with a hundred people. They come to the outskirts of the camp beginning in the middle of the night, they’d set a watch, they blew trumpets, they smashed the jars that were in there. If you’re going to go and take the Midianites who have been ransacking and attacking your nation, you don’t go with trumpets and jars and torches. And the three companies did exactly what God told them to do. They blew the trumpets, they broke the jars, they held in their left hand the torches, in their right hand they blew the trumpet, and they cried out, a sword for the Lord and for Gideon. I love that because they’re not here with swords. They’re with pots and candles and trumpets, bugles. You know, the weapons of our warfare are not earthly weapons. Islam wants to advance their religion with the sword. They don’t apologize for that. Their leader was a warrior with literal swords. Jesus says, “My kingdom is not of this world.” If it were, I would come with an army. But I’m coming with an argument, not an army. And we’re tearing down everything that raises itself up against the knowledge of God. We are to dialog with people. We are to reason with people, just like Isaiah 1 says, “Let’s reason together … though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow.” We need to talk this through. That’s why we come to church. I hope it’s one of the reasons you come to church. We got to be educated and trained and ready. That’s why we have a bookstore here. You got to read, you got to know what we’re talking about so you can sit down with a non-Christian and influence him accurately.

 

“A sword for the Lord and for Gideon.” That’s a good line, and “every man stood his place.” And the Midian army, they ran, “they cried and they fled.” That’s so good. This church, without lifting a weapon in the advancement of our religion, Christianity, can turn this county upside down if we just had enough people who had the valor and the courage to say, okay, torches and pots and trumpets, okay. You say that’s going to work. “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.” We have tools. We have the living and abiding Word of God that does not go out and come back without doing what God intends it to do. For some, they’ll go, ooh, that stinks, that smells like death. To others, it’ll change their lives. Expect resistance, but never retreat.

 

One last verse, verse 17, Second Corinthians Chapter 2 verse 17. If you’re not getting the response you want, I know the temptation is to adjust what you’re saying. It’s not an option. We are not like so many peddlers of God’s word. Peddlers. That word peddler you should look that up sometime or let me do it for you. I’ve already done it. This is the word that is used in ancient ancillary Greek, not biblical Greek, although that’s certainly the reference here, to describe someone who’s in the marketplace, but they’re not the honest person with honest scales and honest weights, and they don’t even have an honest product. So you’re trying to buy cologne on Amazon, right? Don’t. Go to May Company or whatever is out there. What are the stores now? I don’t know what they are, I never go to the mall. May Company? No. Zody’s, what is it? (audience laughing) Fedco? I don’t know. What is it called? Macy’s. That’s what it’s called. They still have the parade going on every year, do they? This is the equivalent. I mean, let’s just skip over Amazon, trying to buy your cologne there. Don’t do that. I’ve wasted my money there. This is like buying speakers out of a white van in the parking lot. Old-timers? No? Anybody? Don’t do it. Don’t do it, man. Those aren’t good speakers. This is what a peddler was. He just wants to make the sale. That’s all the peddlers want to do. Make the sale.

 

You know, there are a lot of people filling auditoriums, filling arenas today making the sale. They’re getting people to join their troops. They got people yelling, right? Sword of the Lord. A sword for the Lord AND also for our leader. And you know what? They’ve changed the message to get that. We don’t change the message. We can’t. Number three, “Keep Our Entrusted Message Intact.” You have to keep it intact. Starting with the gospel, we can’t change the gospel. The gospel is about things right now. The things under attack in the gospel, number one, are sin. Number two, judgment. Number three, conviction. We don’t want you to feel any of that, but that’s exactly what the Spirit was sent to do. Convict people of sin, righteousness and judgment. They don’t want to talk about hell anymore. They don’t want to talk about sin anymore. They just want to talk about how God can be your life coach and he can help you through life. Then, if we’re going to talk about Christ, he just became a perfect example of love. That’s all. He loved everybody. Well, have you read the gospels? I mean, that’s not what he came to do. He came to give his life as a ransom for many. He came to fulfill all human righteousness. The divine second person of the Godhead took on humanity so that he might redeem humanity. That’s what happened. And then he died on a cross as a substitutionary atonement, just like Leviticus Chapter 1 verse 4 says about those animals as a symbol of substitutionary atonement.

 

People don’t believe that. People right here in Southern California are writing books that are selling way better than any book I’ve ever written. And they’re all talking about the fact that’s just cosmic child abuse. God did not punish his own Son. Well, if you’ve got the gospel of all that then you’re done. You’re done. You don’t have a saving message. And then if we’re supposed to, as the next part of our commission, are you ready for the next part? “Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” Do you know what Christ commanded? Let’s just talk about what’s in the news every single day. Men are men, women are women. That’s one thing God said. As a matter of fact, it takes a man and a woman not only to procreate, which one day they’ll catch on to that’s how that works, but to be married. That’s what marriage is. You can’t marry a tree, you can’t marry a dog, you can’t marry yourself, and you can’t marry someone of your own gender, sorry. And we could stop talking about that and we could decouple ourselves from the Old Testament and we could grow this church because the world will be very happy that we stop saying what God said. But guess who’s over our shoulder riding in the gilded chariot with a scepter in his hand? The king, the general, the ultimate general. We do this all in the face of God. “Not like … peddlers of the God’s word, but as men of sincerity,” we’re being sincere, “as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.” We’re speaking in line with everything that Christ said, and God the Father is watching. We do it in the power of God’s Spirit, and we do not in any way curtail, tailor, or edit the book that the Holy Spirit wrote through the apostles and prophets. We can’t. And that’s not going to make you popular in the workroom with everyone, but there are going to be some people appointed to eternal life who are going to go, that smells right. That smells good. That smells like what it should be.

 

It’s really a shame that some people are turning to false religions that are absolutely unyielding about certain things the Bible is unyielding about and they’re winning people over just because people are looking for something that’s not going to compromise. We got a lot of people doing that in our culture. Christianity needs to be an uncompromising delivery of the message. Christianity needs to be an uncompromising delivery of the message. Now you’re going to tell me to stop then I’ll stop, but I’m not going stop with other people. Do you want me to stop talking to you? Okay, well, I won’t address you. Be aware of God’s watchful eye every time you open your mouth to represent him.

 

One last passage, Jeremiah 23. There’s a verse I love in this text just for the simplicity of its logic. The real gospel that changes people’s lives is God’s message, it’s not ours. We can’t decouple any parts of it, we can’t pick and choose it. I mean, if you think about the things that are now being retreated upon in terms of God’s Word, it’s like, well, why didn’t you see it that way 50 years ago or 500 years ago? All of a sudden now what God said about gender-specific pastorate, that’s not right anymore. You’ve figured this out now? Why would you figure it out? Because it’d become a social pressure point? I’m sorry. Where was your brain just three decades ago? You couldn’t see these passages correctly then, but now you can because somebody’s hassling you about it. It’s dishonest. It’s not sincere.

 

Jeremiah 23, look at verse 22. These prophets, and he just castigated the prophets who were just telling lies. Matter of fact, when you look at verse 21, “I did not send these prophets, yet they ran; I didn’t speak to them, but they prophesied.” They’re not telling you the truth. “But if they had stood in,” look at the personal pronoun, this possessive pronoun three times, “if they’d stood in MY council, then they would have proclaimed MY words to MY people.” God has the pink slip on every human life, every non-Christian and doubly so for every Christian. Everyone’s “appointed to eternal life.” Christ shed his blood for that person. And I’m giving God’s people God’s message because I’ve stood in God’s council. Now the prophets bringing new revelation many times are very different than us because we’re not prophets. The Church was built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Ephesians Chapter 2 verse 20. But we now are reiterating what the prophets and apostles have written. And so I’m bringing you that message. So to stand in his council is to open the book, understand the book, read the book and be able now to deliver God’s council, in God’s words to God’s people. My job in this, I’m just the mailman.

 

“Am I a God at hand,” verse 23, “not a god far away? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him?” All of this is done before God. Everything that we speak is before God! “Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord. I’ve heard the what the prophets,” verse 25, “have said,” these prophets, “who prophesy lies in my name, saying, ‘I’ve dreamed, I have dreamed!’” Yeah, I get that. Verse 26, “How long shall there be lies in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy lies,” they’re not sincere, “and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart.” They may have even been deceived themselves. They’re deceiving and sometimes they’re actually deceived. Some of those guys on TV are actually deceived themselves, most of them are not. Most of them are charlatans. Most of them know and they’re just deceiving. “Who think to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, even as their fathers forgot my name for Baal.” They’re just worshiping at a false idol. “Let the prophet who has a dream tell his dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully.” Do you have his word? You’ve got it right there on your phone, on your tablet, on your laptop, in that printed book. Speak it faithfully. Spread the knowledge of God everywhere. Speak it faithfully.

 

“What has straw have in common with wheat?” Well, they look a lot alike. That’s why we have so much religious broadcasting, religious radio, religious television, and it still gets broadcasted by a lot of people sitting there as program managers thinking, well, this seems pretty religious, this seems biblical. They’re using the name of Christ. We’re not talking about Buddha. They don’t see the difference, but God sees the difference. Verse 29, “Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” By the way, that’s a great image from Ezekiel, that our hearts are like rocks and they need to be turned into flesh. Well, the Word of God does that. It’s strong. “Therefore,” verse 30, “behold, I’m against the prophets, declares the Lord, who steal my words from one another.” All it takes is for one peddler to pick up a new way to talk about God is to listen to another peddler who’s making the sale. That’s the way to do it. We’ll just steal those words from that guy. His church is growing.

 

Now, I care about church growth because I want to see people reached for Christ, but on the other hand, I don’t care about church growth, because I don’t care. At the end of the day, all I care about are people who are appointed to eternal life believing. And I don’t know when the harvest is going to run out here, but I don’t think it’s run out quite yet. So what we need is those who have the word to speak it faithfully. Now it’s not fun to be rejected, I get that. It’s not fun to be misunderstood, it’s not fun to be mocked because of our message. But what if that’s our assignment? What if that’s the only way to be on the right side of history is for you to be in this parade, walking through hostile territory with people saying, I can’t believe you’re a part of that. What if your whole life, not just your church life, your whole life, even your secular workplace is really all about a sacred calling to be influential there? What if you’re in that office for one basic reason? Oh yeah, you got to make a paycheck, I get that. That’s secondary. But it’s to be light, it’s to be salt. That’s what God’s word teaches. It’s the lens of the Apostle Paul spreading the fragrance of Christ everywhere and I hope it becomes yours this week. In the end, it is the most fulfilling and satisfying way to live your life because you’ll hear from him not only enter into “the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,” but you’ll hear this, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Way to go steward. Not because everyone applauds or approves, but because the ultimate general will dismount his chariot, he will gird himself with an apron, and he will serve the faithful servants. That day’s going to be great.

 

Pray with me. God, please give us more passion to simply have the courage and the valor to say we want to talk about what’s most important to us. We want to talk about the Bible. We want to talk about the truth. We want to talk the Church. We want to talk Christ. And while our palms might sweat, even like Paul said coming to Corinth in much trembling, Macedonia with a lot of fear, he wasn’t ashamed of the gospel. So I pray, God, that we would be men and women of valor and go in the strength that we have, not because we go by ourselves, but because we’re part of a triumphal procession with the general riding just over our shoulder.

 

In Jesus’ name. Amen.