A Chunk Of Cheese

PREACHING OUTLINE

FAITH LIKE CHEESE

PHARISEES, SADDUCEES, AND ESSENES.

Retreat vs Relevance vs Renewal.

Personal Renewal Proceeds Corporate Renewal

“A little leaven (good and bad) leavens the whole lump.”

Change in culture - 1873, more than half of all Victorians were attending church members.

2 Corinthians 2:14-16

English Standard Version Chapter 2

14 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. 15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, 16 to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?

You are meant to smell.

Sometimes we think, “I just want to smell good to them! I want them to like what they see and hear.”

But Notice, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. The same smell is stinky death to one, and fragrant life to others.

You are meant to smell and you cannot control how others perceive that smell.

If you’ve been so homogenised by the world that you are basically indistinguishable from them, that’s a problem.

In our day, it’s getting easier to smell funny.

ethics about sex, family, money, death are all changing.

Your morals, your choices, your way of life are meant to be a little stinky.

In some environments, there’s enough Christ in the air that you don’t notice a little fragrance.