Please be seated. Turn in your copy of the scriptures to 2 Corinthians 2. Today, we’ll be looking at verses 14 through 17. If you were with us last week, we looked at, I believe, verses 12 and 13, where Paul says that he was in Troas, in the northwest corner of Asia Minor. He was preaching. The gospel was bearing much fruit.
God had opened a door for the gospel, but Paul had sent Titus to Corinth with the letter to encourage them to get their lives, their Christian lives straight. And so Paul was both concerned about the whereabouts of Titus. He didn’t show up, but he was also worried. He was concerned about the way in which the Corinthians received that harsh letter of reprimand. And so while Troas was ripe for the pickings, as we might say, for gospel fruit, Paul was so troubled in spirit about Titus and how the Corinthians had received that hard letter that he had to leave, make his way through Macedonia.
We think he got to Philippi and as he ministered at Philippi, Titus came and relayed to him the good news, how the Corinthians loved Paul and wanted to reconcile with him, but how the Corinthians also loved Christ and wanted to walk with him in faithfulness. And so we looked at verses 12 and 13, where Paul says, I can’t preach at Troas. And then we skipped over to seven, chapter seven, verse five through 17, something like that, where we hear the rest of the story. So now we’re back to, Paul ministering in Troas, Macedonia hasn’t found Titus yet, and it’s not going to be all the way back to chapter 7, which we looked at last week, until he’s troubled.
So here you’ve got what’s called the great digression. Preachers never digress, right? R.C. Sproul used to say, you can say in conclusion three times. This is a great digression. It’s chapter two all the way through chapter seven. And so we have bits and pieces now of Paul’s thought, Paul’s emotions, Paul’s heart. And so we have today chapter two of second Corinthians 14 through 17.
And let’s now pause and ask for God’s help and his blessing to hear and receive his word. Pray with me. Father, you promised to water the hearts of those who love you and so pour out your blessings. Each of us has spiritual needs. Meet them now by your word and by your spirit. We pray that you would comfort and build up your saints in the most holy faith. And we also pray that you would bring those who do not yet know Christ, bring them to a saving knowledge of him gloriously. And by the power of your Holy Spirit, we pray in Jesus name, amen. Hear now God’s word, 2 Corinthians 2, beginning at 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. to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are 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. Amen. The word of the living God. Probably 45 years ago, I’m thinking, my sister played the character of Little Orphan Annie in the school play. This was at Burlington Christian Academy back when it was in the basement of the church building over there.
It was a little bitty school, and my sister had the privilege of being Little Orphan Annie, and she did not have red hair, so mom being the industrious mother she was, took a mop head. And I remember it being in the spaghetti pot. And it went in white and it came out red. And so the spaghetti mop head became little orphan Annie’s hair. And if you can remember way back, oh, what would that be?
1980, 1981, little orphan Annie. And you can remember the song. It’s a hard knock life. for us. And the song tells the story of how difficult it was for those orphans in the orphanage. I guess it was in New York City or somewhere and there was the mean mother of the orphanage and all the rest. But that song sticks in our heads. It’s a hard knock life for us.
We live life east of Eden. We live life outside the garden of Eden. We live life in a world that is bent and broken and cursed by the effects of sin. We live in a world where God promised to Adam and to Eve and even to Satan, there would be enmity, there would be pain, there would be toil, there would be fruitless toil.
And there would be this perpetual battle between those who love God and those who do not. And so we think of that little jingle, that little song that many of us heard so often way back in the 1980s. It’s a hard knock life for us. And we think of things that we go through from time to time and maybe we grumble, maybe we complain.
And here in our passage, Paul sets a wonderful example for us. He sets a wonderful example for believers that even in the midst of hardship, we can find not just the words, but the heart to praise the Lord. And we might overlook this, but when our passage begins in verse 14, but thanks be to God, we may overlook this and say, oh, it’s the apostle Paul. He was the great missionary. He always had success, but we remember the apostle Paul’s life.
It was full of hardships and not the, kinds of first world hardships we face today. The internet goes out. Netflix is buffering, right? The TV goes out when the field goal is about to be kicked or, and we could get into other things that don’t want to be insensitive or whatever, but we have so many first world problems. We think life is so hard.
Well, Paul on this missionary journey, remember is fulfilling the commission that God gave him through Jesus on the road to Damascus. When God stopped him in his tracks by the appearance of the risen Lord, he said, I will show you how much you must suffer for my name’s sake.
And so the life and ministry of the apostle Paul is one of immense suffering, one of immense hardship. He could sing with his fellow apostles, it’s a hard knock life. But you remember what Paul did when first in Philippi on the second missionary journey, preaching the gospel, people are coming to faith, the city is turned upside down, they’re arrested, they are beaten and they are jailed. And while they are in the stocks at the jail at Philippi, while their bodies are smarting from having been beaten by Roman soldiers with those infamous and terrible rods, which no doubt tore into their flesh and broke bones and injured them and bruised them and all sorts of other things, We find the apostle and his companions singing to the Lord. And so maybe to steal another little movie, instead of singing a hard knock life, we whistle while we work.
We praise the Lord while in the midst of hardship. You know, sometimes our hardships, whether they be like the apostle Paul’s or they be physical ailments or torments of our soul or our emotions or dealing with pain in our bodies, whatever they may be, relationships, all kinds of things do fall upon us. Perhaps we can find the words like the Apostle Paul, but thanks be to God, that word, but. In spite of it all, in spite of the pain, in spite of the hardship, in spite of not finding Titus at Troas, in spite of not being settled in mind or heart because of the Corinthian condition or response in spite of our.
Physical pain or physical suffering somewhere this week, a clip of John Piper, the Baptist preacher from Minnesota, the desiring Godfella, who I think now is in his 80s and still has still has the fire in him. He was. He was saying something like this, if all it will take to make you happy in God is for him to make you healthy. I think he was saying, maybe you no longer have cancer. That’s what will make me happy in God. He went on to say so boldly is you may not be a Christian. And I thought, man, what, what boldness to say something like that. If our happiness is for something in this life, and not for everything in the next. We may need to consider our thoughts. We may need to consider our attitude. We may need to consider our ways.
And so the apostle Paul sets this wonderful example in spite of it all, in spite of it being a hard knock life as a missionary of Jesus, you fill in the blank. It’s a hard knock life serving God in my body, in my soul, and in my condition. In spite of it all, we say, thanks be to God. who in Christ is always leading us in triumphal procession.
Now there’s a couple places in Paul’s writings and Paul’s letter where he brings up the image of a general, a Roman general who’s gone off to war, a Roman general who is returning from war victorious, And as he returns from war victorious, the streets on the way back to his city, the way the roadway on the way back to his home, his palace, his headquarters is lined with thousands of people.
And in their hands are sensors of fire burning incense. And so a rich and wonderful smell is being emitted from the streets lined with people. And as they return back to their city, behind them are soldiers. and with them are captives. In this victory march, long live the king or long live the general. In this victory march, there’s victory and there’s captivity.
And in a couple places, Paul uses this image. One such place is in Ephesians chapter four, where he steals an image from Psalm 68 and says, when Christ ascended back into glory after the victory over death and over sin on the cross, Instead of receiving gifts on that victory march, he gave gifts to the church. And that’s where in Ephesians 4, Paul says, we have the gifts of Christ of apostles and prophets. And now in the age of the church, the pastor and the teacher and the job of the apostle and the prophet, and now the pastor and teacher is to equip the church to do the work of the ministry. That’s one of those images. The victor and king gave gifts to the church. But here that image is a little bit different.
Paul sees himself as an afflicted man, a suffering man under the great hardships of the call of God on his life to be an apostle to the Gentiles. And so everywhere Paul goes, he’s in danger. Everywhere Paul goes, he’s in hardship. Everywhere Paul goes, he’s anxious for the condition of the church. Everywhere Paul goes, he’s in danger of homelessness or nakedness or a stretch of hunger or some other position of destitution, but he carries on in the gospel and he sees past all the pain and hardship and says, thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession. Paul sees himself as a dinged up, beaten and bruised and chained prisoner And as God is marching in victory back to heaven, Paul sees himself as an offering to God, as a fragrance of God in this triumphal missionary, Christ preaching procession of victory. He sees himself as a captor of God to spread the gospel to the far parts of the world. Now we live in a nation where we have elevated the gospel ministry as an opportunity to make money.
Just a couple of weeks ago, we probably all heard of the death of Jim Baker. And if you were alive in the 1980s and remember the Jim Baker and the Jimmy Swaggart scandals, I was a young kid, but I remember hearing about it. And I think I remember some folks in our church growing up had bought into the, was it the timeshare thing down there Whatever had the water slides with Jerry Falwell coming down it and all that good stuff. Yeah, I remember that.
Exciting times in Christendom. But you remember all these scandals and how it has to this day held a Paul or a cloud over the Church of Jesus Christ. You will hear people if you’re out and about and speaking to others and maybe being an evangelist, you’ll hear people say things like I could never fall in love with a God or a savior. who is attached to a church with people like that. That’s been the scandal of the last 50 years because there are people who believe that in order to be successful in God, you need a private jet to do ministry. You need a private jet to get you places and to keep you out of the, what is it? The demon tubes, a flying coach.
You’ve all seen the videos, I’m sure. Some of you younger and hipper people have shown me the Twitter handles like preacher sneakers. You know, the preachers wearing a different pair of Jordans every Sunday. I’ve got on wingtips today. They’re several years old. But there’s the preacher bling and all this good stuff. And what Paul is saying here is, I am a captive for God. I am a prisoner in his victory march. I am chained. I am beat. I am broken. I am defeated. And to the world, like he says in first Corinthians, I look like a fool, but to those who are hearing and receiving the gospel, it is wisdom and it is everlasting wisdom.
And so we get this wonderful picture of the apostle Paul who’s struggling and suffering under great duress and great hardship. And he’s able to say in the midst of it all, thanks be to God that I get to serve him. My mom had a towel in the kitchen and maybe you’ve seen the cross stitching or maybe seen it in a post somewhere at a gift shop or something. And it’s, I think it’s simply said, praise the Lord anyway. Right?
And that’s a great motto for life. Life this side of the Garden of Eden, life this side of heaven is not always rosy. It’s full of thorns and thistles and heartaches and hardships. But God in heaven is firm and fixed and final. He does not change and his ways are everlasting. And his reasons for putting us through hardships on this earth are often unknown to us and painful to go through.
But notice in verse 15, what the apostle says of believers, what the apostle says of himself. You find this in verse 14 at the tail end, but also in verse 15, through us, through apostles, through preachers, through Christians bearing witness, through us, we are spreading the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. Through us, God is spreading the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.
You know, sometimes us preachers, we get asked in conversation, what do you do? And you know, it’s the death of a conversation to say I’m a minister. And so in the light of the good Puritan answer, it’s good to say sometimes I teach people the science of living blessedly forever. Or sometimes you say I sell insurance. But here you could say, I am a perfumer. I am a purveyor of the finest and sweetest and most glorious and everlasting fragrance this world has ever seen. Oh, tell me. It’s Mother’s Day. I need to buy some. It’s my anniversary. I need to purchase a bottle.
No, this is not a fragrance that makes you smell good or seem attractive. This is a fragrance that in the midst of a dark world, a dying world, a crooked and depraved generation, it’s a fragrance that overwhelms the senses to those who have a nose for it. For you see the two ways to live displayed in this passage. We spread the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere. And to those who are being saved and to those who are perishing, it has two different responses. To those who are perishing, Verse 16 says, it is a fragrance from death to death. But for those who are being saved, it is a fragrance from life to life. Now, before we think of those fragrances, look for a moment back at verse 15 at the beginning, it says, for we are the aroma of Christ to God.
If you are a child of God and you are striving to live a happy, and holy and helpful and obedient and worshipful life, which is very difficult to do the spirit and the flesh and the world and the devil and all the rest. It is very difficult to live for God and to be able to say in the midst of hardship, thanks be to God. In spite of these hardships is very difficult, but our life as an aroma of Christ to God is that old Testament sacrifice that As we live a life, a Romans 12, one and two life, what is Romans 12, one and two, be transformed by the renewal of our mind. We are living sacrifices.
Our goal, our job is to seek, to find out about the will of God and to live the will of God. And then our lives will be the aroma of Christ to God. And part of that aroma of Christ to God is we seek to know him and love him and obey him and walk with him. And we get up and we repent of our sins when we fall and we rinse and repeat for the rest of our lives as we grow in grace. But one of the pleasing things before God that we can do is we can tell people of Jesus Christ. And we do so with our life. We live as examples, but we most importantly do so with our lips. We speak of the saving work of almighty God through Jesus Christ. People ask all kinds of ultimate questions all the time.
What happens when I die? What is the meaning of this life? What is the purpose of human history? What happens at death? What happens if I sin? Who makes up the rules? Who says what’s right, what’s wrong? You hear all kinds of, you hear these kinds of things in all kinds of discussions you get into and it brings itself up in different ways. But the ultimate question always comes, what must I do to be right with God? What must I do to be saved? What must I do to get to heaven?
And the most pleasing thing to God you can say, and the most pleasing answer that you can give is that God in Christ is reconciling man to himself through his everlasting son who became man. took on flesh and has lived and obeyed and suffered and died in our place.
And if we put our faith, we put our hope, we put our trust in him and in him alone for our salvation, he will forgive us. He will cleanse us. He will bring us to himself, adopt us into his family and he will save us and sanctify us and one day bring us into his glorious presence forever. This is the fragrance of the gospel. This is the fragrance, the aroma of Christ and us to God. But you will know there are two responses.
Some people will not be able to stand the sound of your voice proclaiming Jesus. It is true for ministers. It is true for ministers in the context of the church. I’ve seen it in my years of ministry. You have seen people nodding their heads and the few that still have a little Baptist in them, amening at least under their breath. But I have seen people with their arms crossed. I have seen people with an angry look on their face. I’ve seen people stand up and walk out. I’ve seen people say, I will never darken the door of a church again because you have drawn a line in the sand and said that there are people who are saved and people who are not.
And so you get various responses from people. It’s to them a fragrance of life or to them it is the stench of death. But notice how our passage moves on and Paul gives this wonderful question, who is sufficient for these things? Now that’s a bit of a goofy question for the apostle Paul. I mean, this is the guy that had the equivalent of two PhDs in Old Testament. He understood the law. He understood the moral law, the civil law, the ceremonial law. He understood the righteous demands of God on man.
And until he met Jesus, he knew it only from a Jewish perspective, but he bumps hard into Messiah on the road to Damascus. And somewhere after his conversion, we know he disappears into Arabia, maybe for a decade. And God is preparing him for this ministry. taking all his Old Testament knowledge and running it through the coming of Jesus and the realities of the finished work of Jesus on the cross. And so when we read Paul’s 13 epistles, when we read his wonderful work that the Holy Spirit inspired him to write, and we now have in our copies of the scripture, we see a man who knew everything there was to know of the old covenant and has been graciously and gloriously saved into the new covenant. And he weds that information and that knowledge. And we have the glorious doctrine of the gospel of Jesus for us in the new Testament.
And Paul, so when Paul says who is sufficient for these things, he’s referring to himself, not, not I, we’re going to get several chapters of his perspective. He’s going to say, we’re just jars of clay. We are earthen vessels and light emanates from us. We are a weak, poor pot with cracks in it, but the gospel is contained in it and it leaks out. So who is sufficient for these things? Of all people, it would be Paul. And he says, no, no, no, not sufficient.
But he is also combating the peddlers, the swindlers, the cheaters, the traveling speakers that come through Corinth, and they come through and they set up shop, they show their letters of commendation from other places, and they preach a gospel, not the gospel, and they pass the collection plate. Now, you know the saying, there’s gold in them, their hills. There is gold in them, their Christian hills.
How many people have put money into the coffers for St. Peter’s in order to get a soul out of purgatory. You remember the Protestant Reformation, the jingle that was noted from Tetzel, I think he was the money raiser for Rome, went into a coin, the offering plate doth ring a soul from purgatory doth spring.
I mean, wouldn’t you pay money if you believed in that system to have Aunt Susie out of purgatory sooner? That’s assuming you liked Aunt Susie. If you didn’t like her, maybe you’d let her stay there a little while and save your money for chewing gum or something. But there’s money in false religion, isn’t there?
There’s money. You send a little money into the TV man and he sends you a prayer cloth and whatever you touch is fixed. Yeah, try that on for size. You get the idea. There are charlatans out there. There are hucksters out there. In fact, Peddlers of God’s word implies that there are people who are insincere with waxen nose. You remember the image of the fully chiseled out marble statue except its nose had broken off and so they takes a little wax and you take it home and you love your new statue until the hottest day comes of the summer because of global warming, you know, and the nose melts off.
When you figured out you’ve been snookered, you’ve been taken, you’ve gotten a hold of something from Jimmy Baker or Jimmy Swagger. It’s the junk store mentality. It’s the quick profit mentality. It’s mixing water with wine and selling it as the good stuff.
And Paul says, who is sufficient for these things? It’s not the insincere people. It’s those with three characteristics. You find them in verse 17, men of sincerity, They’ve got pure motives. Men who have been commissioned by God, they have a divine commission. They really are sent by God. And it’s those who minister in the sight of God. You know, if God is not watching over your shoulder in ministry, if God is not going to call you to account someday, you’ll say anything, you’ll do anything, you’ll sell anything. And so Paul here says, speak Christ and we do it sincerely. We do it because we have been commissioned by God and we do it under his watchful eye.
So back to the beginning, just for a moment, Paul under great hardship, Paul under great duress, you have your own hardships, your own sufferings and the encouragement today from this message, but I hope also from holding in your hands very soon the body and the blood of Jesus. You will say, whatever has fallen on me is nothing compared to what I am and what I have in Jesus.
And as you hold in your hand the bread of life, as you hold in your hand the cup of the new covenant, and as you take them into your body by faith and you receive them with thanksgiving, Hopefully your heart will leap for joy and you will be able to say, in spite of everything, you’re gonna go out those doors back into that hard world. These moments that have been maybe surreal in the presence of God are going to fade when those doors crack open. The hardships that you are enduring will be there waiting to kick you in the pants again. But you’ll hold in the moment these things and hopefully your heart will say, thanks be to God. And you carry that with you out into your difficulties. And with thanksgiving out of your mouth, those hardships may fade into the background. God will fix them. He will repair them. He will see them through. Psalm 34 has told us so. Let’s now pause and pray and prepare to come to God’s table.
Our God, our Father in heaven, you are Our God, our maker, our creator, our sustainer, but you are also the savior of our souls. You know exactly what we need. You know exactly what we lack. You know our fears, our frustrations, our anxieties. You know every chain that is around our neck, every shackle that is around our wrist. You know every hurt, every heartache, every pain, every bit of suffering. And you know this in the life of your own son who was sent to seek and save the lost.
And so we can look beyond these hardships and see the long look, the everlasting look. And we can say thanks be to God for Christ Jesus, our Passover lamb, who has lived and suffered and died in our place in order that one day these hardships will be over. These thorns and thistles will prick us no longer and wear us down no more. And we will come into your presence and weep no more and find everlasting joy. So help us by the word preached, but also the sacrament received. Hold fast to these promises. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. We have the privilege.