Neighboring (Week 2)
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Last week, we began a new series titled Neighboring. We began be looking at some of the differences in the neighborhoods I grew up verses the way we neighbor today.
Romans 12 gave us jump start on the framework for not only how we allow our love to be sincere, without hypocrisy, as we love with a familial kind of love (philadelphia), but we also are called to love the stranger (philazania).
The foundation for neighboring comes with a revived understanding of the Greatest Commandment: to love God and love your neighbor.
We talked about the importance of loving and building relationship with our actual neighbors. I gave you a simple assignment of going home and writing down on a rough sketch of your neighborhood and those you knew.
VIDEO
This series is really important for the life of our church. If we did it, it will change the nature of our personal lives and should have a direct impact on our church.
We have other commands in Scripture that we could focus our lives on, and they all have importance. But I am asking the Lord the remove the trivial nature that can sometimes accompany the inundation and repetition of things we have heard, especially as it comes to the Greatest Commands according to Jesus.
We should be focused on fulfilling the Great Commission, that as we GO we would be making disciples of all people (every nation, tribe and tongue), but the Great Commandment is what propels the other. It is the chicken and egg analogy. It is the cart before the horse. How do we understand the difference between the Great Commandment vs the Great Commission.
1. The Great Commandment is about serving neighbors through loving works.
16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
EBC: Jesus drives the metaphor home. What his disciples must show is their “good works,” i.e., all righteousness, everything they are and do that reflects the mind and will of God. And men must see this light. It may provoke persecution (vv. 10–12), but that is no reason for hiding the light others may see and by which they may come to glorify the Father—the disciples’ only motive (cf. 2 Cor 4:6; 1 Peter 2:12).
6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
MOTIVE is key in keeping the Greatest Commandment. This is simply another evangelism strategy, that we love with agendas to convert. DON’T MISUNDERSTAND ME. Do we want those far from God to come to a knowledge of Him and to walk in His truth? ABSOLUTELY! But do we ‘love’ others only when it is leading towards what we assume is a conversion? NO! We love because Christ first loved us, and He loved us while we were still His enemies. He loved knowing that some even closest to Him would betray Him to the authorities. We love because He has called us to walk in the way of love. Because He is love. PERIOD. Motive is key.
STORY: this week I had a friend contact me with an opportunity that his wife’s non-profit wanted to bless some of our families at KICKO…SLOW DOWN. TAKE TIME TO SAY THIS RIGHT.
We love because we walk in relationship with God and want to walk in relationship with one another, including our neighbors, those we work with, those experiencing hardships and lack, those experiencing injustice and anyone that we are around that they may see the light of Christ shining through us, a light that points towards the Father in Heaven…that His Name may be glorified. We live to make Him famous.
To let one’s light shine is to live in such a way as to manifest the presence of the kingdom.
Thus the kingdom norms (vv. 3–12) so work out in the lives of the kingdom’s heirs as to produce the kingdom witness (vv. 13–16).
1. The Great Commandment is about serving neighbors through loving works.
2. The Great Commission is about making disciples through the Gospel.
18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
15 He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.
16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues;
18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”
19 After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God.
20 Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.
3. The Great Commandment put into words says, “I love you.”
4. The Great Commission says, “Let me tell you about God’s Love for you in the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
5. The Great Commandment consists of good deeds that we do for our neighbor.
6. The Great Commission consists of a good message about what God did for the world.
The Great Commission is hindered when the Great Commandment is disregarded. If the Great Commission is the goal, we have to confront the obstacles that keep people from hearing the gospel (2 Cor. 10:4–5). We don’t need to recreate church; we need to live out the church’s calling in light of what Jesus has done (1 John 4:19–21). The world will know we are Christians supremely by our love.
Charles Spurgeon said this:
Love and self-denial for the object loved go hand-in-hand. If I profess to love a certain person, and yet will neither give my silver nor my gold to relieve his wants, nor in any way deny myself comfort or ease for his sake, such love is contemptible; it wears the name, but lacks the reality of love: true love must be measured by the degree to which the person loving will be willing to subject himself to crosses and losses, to suffering and self-denials. After all, the value of a thing in the market is what a man will give for it, and you must estimate the value of a man’s love by that which he is willing to give up for it.
Now, to what I want us to add to what we have talked about up to this point about Neighboring. Are you still with me? This is going to be a slow boil. God’s going to warm this up from within us to where our lives begin to reflect the Greatest Command.
Let’s jump into our text for this week.
14 But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere.
15 For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.
16 To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task?
17 Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, as those sent from God.
vs. 14 Paul likens the irresistible advance of the gospel, in spite of temporary frustration, to a Roman triumphus (“triumph”) in which the victorious general, along with his proud soldiers, used to lead in triumphal procession the wretched prisoners of war who were thus exposed to public ridicule.
The metaphor is certainly suggestive: Christ undertook a battle not rightly his; we share in a triumph not rightly ours.
This is a passage that is thick with theological nuances. We could spend a very long time just dissecting these verses. Instead of doing that, I want us to look at the most obvious statements Paul is conveying to us.
Finish reading vs.15-17.
God uses us to spread the knowledge of salvation to the world by smelling like Jesus.
We are going to talk about how you smell today. This might seem a little odd, but we are going to talk about it A LOT.
Scientist have discovered that of the five senses, the one that is most connected to memory is smell. There are entire systems of psychotherapy that will use certain smells to draw out surpressed memories. Long after someone forgets what something tastes, looks, etc. like we remember the smell.
EXAMPLES:
The smell of wipes...
Smell of a cigar...
Smell of a specific kind of Victoria’s Secret lotion (Love Spell)...
Smell of alcohol on someone’s breathe...
One scent really can last a lifetime, make a lifetime impact…and it is not by accident that Paul uses this as his illustration of how we spread the aroma of Christ.
2. Smell is limited to location (it is about proximity).
If we are going to be the aroma of Christ, we have to be around people. We have to occupy the same space as people; we have to breathe the same air as other people. Jesus was constantly with people. He would pull away to recharge spiritually, but He did this because He was with people all the time. He was around people that loved Him; He was with people that hated and wanted to kill Him. He was constantly with people.
They knew what Jesus smelled like. Literally, He was in such constant and close proximity to people that they could recall what He physically smelt like.
That’s the thing about smells. You don’t get to choose which smells you leave at home and which you take with you. You may try to give yourself a better smell, but that smell is going with you too. You don’t get to turn them on or off, up or down. You can try to mask them, but...
If you smell a little funky, you can’t just add Axe body spray. Now you smell funky with Axe body spray on. You know what I am talking about. After I eat onions because I have had some street tacos for lunch, I can brush my teeth before I get home…but it is just going to smell like minty onions.
The smell of Jesus on us isn’t something we have to make a big strategy, it is simply going to be the result of us choosing to spend time with Him. When we get in His presence, spend time in His Word, worshipping and focusing our senses on Him…we can’t help but begin to smell like Christ.
It will affect everyone we come into contact with; this is the hope of the world. And if we take this seriously, it will be a screaming clarion call for authenticity and sincerity. Because we can’t adjust our smell. It will be the natural odor we exude and put off to everyone around us. You can’t turn it up for those that like that religious talk and down for those that aren’t quite ready to smell Christ (so to speak). It has to be real, genuine, and authentic.
They don’t make a Axe body spray that smells like Jesus. You can’t pretend; you can’t fake it. It is our aroma. It just goes with us. We have to be legit.
3. Smell like Jesus. Share space with people.
So what’s the grand plan? What our big strategy to winning our neighbors, our co-workers, even close friends and family members? Get around Jesus. Then get around them. Get near them and let them smell Christ on you. There is no other agenda. There is no bullhorn. There is no finger waging, no Bible thumbing, there is no fear mongering. It is an authentic display of who you are and who you are in Christ.
You don’t give a smell away. I don’t want this any more; you take it. But if you spend enough time with people, they can’t help but start to smell like what they have been around.
STARBUCKS/SUBWAY: When I worked at Starbucks…I didn’t need my apron on for you to know that I had just left work. Same with places we eat. Subway. Sushi. You can hold your breathe and try to reject the smell…but it will be on you because you were around it.
If you smell like Jesus and get around people long enough, they will start to get that smell of Christ on them too. You don’t have to smear it on people, rub it in their face, or make them take the smell. All you have to do is be sincere, be genuine, be authentic, and it will begin to seep into their lives as well. For some, it will become the aroma of life and will change their lives forever.
There are folks in our church that I hear about how they are encouraging those around them, people love to be around them, they get invited to help people with any type of need…the fruit of their salvation is all around them. Their genuine love for Christ comes out in their pores and gets on those they are around, and for some it is life and hope and joy and peace.
4. Smells can be weak and they can be strong.
You can smell a little like Jesus, where it is subtle and people aren’t quite sure what that smell was but…Or you can smell profoundly like Christ and put off a poignant aroma that fills the atmosphere of the spaces you occupy.
Bed, Bath, and Beyond/Bath & Body Works: I could go into these stores and it not bother me, but I don’t have the same allergies as my wife. I think she literally has to mouth breathe if she doesn’t want to have a headache for the rest of the day.
House Hunting: recently looking at a house…smoker…on our clothes, causing Jo to cough and difficulty breathing.
BUT...When we come together to worship the Lord, we sense His presence is a deep and meaningful way. It is because the aroma on so many of you is thick, and it begins to fill the atmosphere as our Christ-like aroma combines and can’t help but get on us. I need it so much.
Two things will work together in unison: the time I spend with you in this place (smell like Jesus). It is not about the sermon, the songs we sing, but it is about the air of the Kingdom in this place that gets on you. AND the time I spend with Jesus (on my own, day after day). This is what can’t be faked.
You can’t smell like Jesus without spending a lot of time with Him. This broken world we live in wreaks of hopelessness, pain, hurt, agendas, brokenness and it gets on us…and causes us to need to be around Jesus where His aroma can replace the smells of this world.
I have to be with Him in order to smell like Him.
Then we have to be that aroma to other people.
14 But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere.
15 For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.
16 To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task?
POINT: if you want to be a great neighbor, want to see them drawn to Christ (center of being a great neighbor)…you don’t have to cook elaborate meals, host expensive parties, have a large home, spotless floors, preach elaborate sermons, give chapter and verse, overwhelm with your profound wisdom. You just have to smell like Jesus and be with people that God has placed around you. You will be life to those people. Life-changing life to those around you. Put in the time to be with Jesus and put in the time to be with others.
Not one idea: It doesn’t have to look like something specific.
COMMUNION
