Fragrance of Christ in Living

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:06] Speaker B: Welcome to Roots of Faith, where we journey together from spiritual infancy to maturity in Christ. Today we join Pastor Gimme as we dive into a powerful message from Ephesians about living as a fragrant offering for Christ, whether in our homes, our workplace, or our daily walk with Him. Have you ever wondered if your faith truly impacts those around you? In today's episode, we explore how our love, obedience and daily actions reflect the aroma of Christ, bringing glory to him and encouragement to those we encounter. So grab your Bible, open your heart, and let's dig deep into God's word. It's time to grow in faith and walk in the light of his truth. [00:00:51] Speaker A: This morning I want to take you to Ephesians and I want to start by going back and revisiting a couple of verses In Ephesians chapter 5, verses 1 and 2 in the New King James translation. It says, therefore, be imitators of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ also loved us and given himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God as a sweet smelling savor or aroma. We're supposed to imitate God by walking in love. And it's the fragrance of Christ, our lives that should permeate our family, our relationships, our work. You know, there's many people today, whether it's in parenting or work or just in everyday relationships and in leadership, we struggle with burnout or we feel like we're not seen or appreciated. We begin to wonder, does it ever matter? And when you start looking at that, the truth is God sees and he calls us to be faithful in the roles he has placed us in. There are no insignificant roles in life for the Christian. He puts you in a place where he has you so that you can be the fragrance of Christ showing out in your life. Does that make us stinky Christians? I don't think so. It makes us a sweet smelling savor. And when we come to the book of Ephesians, we come to chapter six that we now look at the last two pictures, word pictures of what it means to be spiritual as a Christian. Last week we looked at the relationship of husband and wife, the most intimate relationship that you can have as to how we are to portray Christ, how Christ is to be seen, how the life in a marriage or the life of a Christian is to be a living sermon. In chapter six from verses one to nine, he takes two other examples and the commands there change from what he said in chapter five about the husbands and wives and talking about our submission to the headship of Jesus Christ. And now it moves and he changes the words. And I love this because as I go back and look through chapters four, chapter five, chapter six, which is all the practical application, it's peppered in the original language with commands. Now, commands are not something that your wonderful master sergeant or staff sergeant love to communicate you with. What is it in the Navy, Dave, equivalent to chief? Oh, yes, the chief. My sons talked about their wonderful chiefs. Commands are not something that are just go do this, but rather a command is the strongest appeal to your will and to your mind and heart. And the word changes here because when we go to look at the first part, it is changed to the word obedience. And the word obedience very literally means to listen under. That's the very translation of the word listen under. There are many times I would have loved my children to listen under. At times, especially when we had guests or we were out someplace, you always wanted to listen under. Never achieved that fully. But you see, that is what Christ is saying and what Paul is repeating to us as part of being spiritual. And he takes the example of the parent and child relationship. The because in verse one of chapter six it says, children listen under. Obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment, with promise that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on earth. That's great. Do you ever notice how the Spirit of God also keeps pulling it right back to us? Because the next verses say fathers and it says, fathers, do not exasperate your children. I always thought it was the opposite. My children exasperate me. It says, no, fathers, do not exasperate your children. Instead, bring them up in the training and the instruction of the Lord. Now that's the first word picture that the Spirit of God communicates here in Ephesians, chapter six. And it's really to be the fragrance of Christ in the parent, child, child, relationship. Now I want to remind you of something to stick in the back of your mind when we talk about this. What did John say in the Epistle of John? That we are the children of God. Children, obey your parents. So not only does this passage apply to our relationship and how we are the sweet smelling savor in the greatest charge that you can ever have. The psalmist even said that children are a treasure from the Lord. Sometimes they were more treasures than at other times, but they are treasures and how you interact with that child. My favorite story about the wonderful parents God supplied me with was the day that I wrapped the front door of the Galaxy car that my dad had. I wrapped it around the front fender because I had the door open. And I did it at a policeman's house, so it was the right place to do it. And my foot slipped off the brake and hit the gas and there was a tree that decided to move the door up front. And I remember going home, knocking on my parents bedroom door and I said, dad, I had an accident. I did it at Officer Wenworth house. I said, my foot slipped off the brake and hit the gas and the front door kind of wrapped around the front fender. You got to understand the house. My parents bedroom looked out over the driveway and it was kind of up two stories. And dad went over to the window and looked out, turned back to me and he says, we'll take care of it in the morning, go to bed. Didn't understand how my father could say that. I was dreading it. But you know, that's the parent and how they relate to the child. And it's the sweet smelling savor of the Christian parent to their children. When it says in the imperative obey that listening under means an active engagement of that child. If you look at this passage from verse one through verse four, what it's talking about, you look at the child side of that and it talks about a child who has the consciousness of listening. He's able to understand. And it says, listen, obey your parents and the children of God. Listening under is the very design of God, even for his church. So this passage has kind of a dual function because what it's saying back in Ephesians 5, 25, 27, we were looking last week, it says, husbands love your wife, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up on its behalf that he might sanctify it. Notice this cleansing it by the washing of the water in the word. Where was that obedience to come from? It's to come for the believer as a child of God, to obey, to listen and obey. Every time I hear about a railroad accident at a railroad crossing, you know, it's somebody's truck gets stuck on the tracks and the train comes through. There's no more truck or there's no more car. I keep remembering when I was with the railroad museum, one of the things we used to always do for the schools, go out and teach them about stop, look and listen. Maybe we ought to start teaching those lessons in the church. Stop, look, listen under, obey. And the only way we can do that is by the washing of the water of the word of God in our lives. It's taking the word of God and applying it in our daily living. But I was even more appreciating this because in Revelation chapters two and three are the seven churches of Revelation. Someone asked me, well, is that church ages or is that, you know, actual churches? I said, goes both ways. But each one of those churches at the very end repeats the same statement seven times. It says, whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. It means listening under, to obey. When we think about that statement, Scripture says in verse one that we're to obey. But verse two says, honor your father and mother. That also is a command. And it means to have a reverence that's to be shown to the parents with heart, mouth and hand, in thought, word and deed. That was the definition that was given concerning the Old Testament statement that this comes from. This is found all the way back in the book of Exodus in Deuteronomy, where in the giving of the Torah, the law, it said children were to obey their parents and to honor them. And this is why it says that in that honoring. What's it say? It says, which is the first commandment with promise. Now it kind of stopped me when I was looking at that because what's, what's the promise? Well, when you start going back and looking in the Old Testament and what Paul writes here, the promise comes out to be that it may go well with you, that there might be prosper in obeying. Now I'm going to use that wide paintbrush and say again, hey, we're the children of God, and so we are. Do we honor Christ? It goes back to being that sweet smelling savor in our lives. Are our lives the testimony of honoring Christ? What do we say in the Lord's Prayer? Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be your name. How often do we say that and fail to realize that we're talking to the One who is a very father to us. From him we have all the gifts that he gives. To us. From him we have salvation through Christ. My father may have given me a pass for wrapping the door around the fright fender, but how much more has the Lord forgiven us and gave His Son? That's the gift of a father. Now it has the very practical application for those of us as earthly parents to teach our children. And it says also that you may enjoy long life on the earth. I actually like the word because it means literally that you have long days. Long days. Matter of fact, it even says great days. And I looked at that and I thought, you know, what is the promise that's given here, there is to be that practical picture of the sweet smelling savor of a child to a parent. And when you look at this, it says that the reason for this is the expected duty to be claimed as a right. God's righteous order is that we are to honor our parents. Well, children, even adult children, sometimes feel stifled under authority. That's that, you know, being the controlling parent. I can remember sometimes wanting to put my hand on the head of my younger child and say, this is the way were going. That's really directive. But you see, that's the loving Father who directs us. And God's not trying to limit your future, but he's trying to set up the child for lasting success. But you know something? Many times as a parent you feel like, oh, am I ever going to get through to them? You think about, how did I fail? And you sit there and say, oh, but you know what? Even when you don't honor your parents perfectly, maybe you weren't a perfect parent. But you know what? God's grace can restore those earthly relationships of parent and child. Were my parents perfect? I thought they were, but I'm sure they didn't feel like they were. Sometimes I don't feel like I was the perfect parent, like I have to make up for it. But you know what? God's grace gives us a relationship so that I get these morning notes from my daughter and she loves to sit there and say, have a blessed day. That's a precious thing to me. I get to call her by her favorite nickname. I say, thank you nuts, because I love my daughter. But it also calls parents to nurture in Christ all of those things that it says concerning the father, where it says, fathers, do not exasperate your children. Instead bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. It has the idea of do not take the child to the point of irritation or anger. I'm sure I did that sometimes with my kids. Good thing there's grace. But also it's saying bring them up. And the three phrases that are there, bring them up and to discipline them. So it says bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. When it says bring them up, the word actually has the idea of feed them very carefully. How am I feeding my children? But then it says in discipline. And the word for discipline here literally takes itself from the word that's used for child. So it's child rearing. Forget Dr. Spock, throw his book out, but go and look. Although I did study very well the book about the it isn't the stubborn child, I forget the name of it, but the strong willed child. I had a couple. But you see, that's also us. The Lord lovingly, perfectly, as our heavenly Father treats us that way. And then when it says in training and instruction of the Lord, the word instruction actually carries with it the idea of confrontation. But it is a milder form even of the word that says child discipline. And one of the writers said that the admonition of the Lord is verbal correction. Heart discipleship. As an earthly father, I still, even though my children are grown, have a responsibility of discipleship to them that will never stop. And as earthly fathers and mothers, we do disciple our children. And our relationship with our children needs to be more and more of that. You know, we may feel like we fail, but God is bigger than our past mistakes. He is the one that makes things perfect. As we learn from him as children of God, so we learn to disciple our children. And the worst thing is that the culture outside wants to educate our children so much more. How much more then do we need to be discipling our children so that they know what it means to follow the Lord? I want to very hastily go to the second part of this because there is a second picture here. That picture is the fragrance of your life at work. It says, slaves obey your masters. But you know what? That influences the way you work. And I want to hasten to this because it's so important. It says that we're to obey those that have the authority over us. And there are four things that are listed here. It says with fear and trembling, which means a deep reverence for God's authority in singleness or sincerity of heart as to Christ, not with eye service. In other words, when I'm at work, I'm not looking to just get by to do the least amount. I am serving Christ. I'm not looking for outside praise. It's nice when you get a good review, but that's not your purpose because we are to be working as unto Christ. Now when we think about that, it comes back to this at work. Is your work ethic an act of worship or is it just for the paycheck? Do you serve only when you're being watched or to give your best knowing Christ is your true master? Why do you think they're having such big hang ups about people who remote work? I think of that Dilbert comic where Dilbert's in a meeting and he's sitting there with a shirt and tie and what you don't see is him sitting down in his pajama bottoms at work because he's in a zoom meeting. When we're on our own, how do we serve? You see, actually I don't care whether you're retired or whether you're working full time. Wherever it is, you still are serving your Master and your life is to be that sweet smelling savor even in your work. It also turns it around says employers treat your employees as Christ would treat you. So whether it's living as a fragrant offering, a sweet smelling savor in your home or in your workplace, it's actually to be places of worship. What's worship doesn't mean singing hymns. I'm not telling you to go singing songs around work. Some of us that might be better for than others, but worship is worth ship that Christ is worth what I'm doing as I serve Him. So that the final encouragement comes when we hear Christ say, well done, thou good and faithful servant. How are you serving today? [00:31:47] Speaker B: Thank you for tuning into this episode of Roots of Faith, a ministry of Lawn Evangelical Congregational Church in Lawn, Pennsylvania. We hope today's message has uplifted you and deepened your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, whether you're new in the faith or have walked with him for years, God's Word is always fresh and powerful to transform. If you were blessed by this episode, please share it with friends. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an update. We would love for you to join us on Sunday at 10:30am at 5566 Elizabethtown Road, Route 241 in Lawn, Pennsylvania. As always, stay rooted in the Word, stand firm in faith and keep growing in Christ.