Do You Smell Like Jesus?

Introduction

When I was a young lad I had a weird habit. I would always smell my food before I ate it.

In fact, I would smell many things. I don’t know why, it was just something I did

Smells were important to me

Our sense of smell is very important and helpful for life.

ILLUST - The Smell Challenge

Call up two volunteers to smell different items and guess what they are

Orange

Cinnamon

Banana

Garlic

Oregano

Perfume

(Peanut Butter, Peppermint, Onion?)

Our sense of smell is very important and helpful for life. It can:

remind us (Spring, people)

warn us (skunk)

make us hungry

Smelling something in our nose often brings something up in our minds.

You should smell like Jesus.

“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

ILLUST - Christine’s perfume reminds me of her

fragrance - osme

neutral term of a general smell.

aroma - euodia

sweet smell

sacrifice - Jesus made himself as sweet smell through his sacrifice

Ephesians 5:2 ESV

2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

In addition, in Paul’s day, the sweet smell of incense was an announcement that a deity was present.

In this way, Paul is saying that we who know and follow Jesus give people a “whiff” that God is near through the way we live and the gospel we share.

**You smell like Jesus when you love Jesus and live like Jesus.**

You smell like Jesus when you love Jesus.

Isaiah 64:5–6 NLT

5 You welcome those who gladly do good, who follow godly ways. But you have been very angry with us, for we are not godly. We are constant sinners; how can people like us be saved? 6 We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind.

We have all sinned, and our sin is like filthy rags.

ILLUST - oil change - hot oil all over me.

or skunk spraying me. It felt like it wasn’t just my clothes that stank — I STANK!

Isaiah 61:10 ESV

10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness. . .

Galatians 3:27 NLT

27 And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes.

(Plug for baptism)

1 John 1:7 ESV

7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

Religion = body spray after a gym workout

Coming to Jesus = shower

The closer you come to Jesus, the more you smell like him - meaning, the more you begin to be like Jesus.

ILLUST - when I give my wife a hug goodbye in the morning, I will usually get some of her perfume on me - Good that i can smell her - bad that everyone else thinks I smell like a girl!

**You smell like Jesus when you love Jesus and live like Jesus.**

You smell like Jesus when you live like Jesus.

ILLUST - when do you smell better, when you are dirty or clean?

When do you think you smell more like Jesus, when you are dirty with sin or clean?

Philippians 4:18 ESV

18 I have received full payment, and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.

When you live like Jesus, you give them a “whiff” of what he is like.

when you help that guy at school that everyone laughs at, you smell like Jesus who loves the outcast

When you refuse to go along with everyone else at work or at school doing the wrong things, you smell sweetly of the holiness of Jesus.

You can smell like Jesus everywhere.

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. 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.

Paul is explaining to the Corinthians that he left them, went to Ephesus, then to Troas, saw and opportunity for the gospel yet goes on to Macedonia.

Everywhere he goes Paul is loving and living like Jesus and preaching the gospel.

You can smell like Jesus anywhere and everywhere.

School - pray at your lunch table

School - What would Jesus do if he attended your school?

Work - pray at your lunch table

Paul and Silas in prison.

Nothing can stop you from smelling like jesus “everywhere”

**You smell like Jesus when you love Jesus and live like Jesus.**

You smell like Jesus to help people know Jesus.

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. 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.

We should smell like Jesus so much that people cannot stay neutral

ILLUST - like a teenage boy wearing AXE, you either love it or hate it

For those of us who know Jesus, it is a familiar and comforting smell.

For those who do not, it is an interesting and even irritating smell.

**You smell like Jesus when you love Jesus and live like Jesus.**

You can smell like Jesus because he helps you.

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.

Some say the triumphal procession symbolizes when soldiers would bring back captives

Some say the triumphal procession symbolizes

Leading us in triumphal procession - Palm Sunday

How smelly are you?

Do people know you love Jesus?

Do you smell like Jesus at all?

Have you asked Jesus to be in your life? Trusted him to take away your sins?

Where does your life stink?

areas of your life that are not like Jesus.

sin you’re hiding? It will grow and stink.

Do you need to ask God to wash you and make you clean?

What do you need to change this week so you don’t wreak, but that you smell sweetly of Jesus?

**You smell like Jesus when you love Jesus and live like Jesus.**