Every pastor knows that not everything they learn over the course of study makes it to the sermon. Some of it is just are not mentioned while a host of it is left out. In this year I am attempting to shorten my preaching time to between 35-40 minutes. That, in itself, is a task but added to that is the process of preparation that always yields more than I can say in fifty minutes! So, this will be an ongoing work in process this year and there will be much that "does not make the cut!" Each Monday I will flesh out one additional thought.
Sunday's message was from John 1:1-18 and was titled "The Confrontational Compassion of Christ." I will not review it here but if you would like to hear it you can do so HERE. Anyone remotely familiar with this passage knows that it is jammed packed with themes and theology that would take a lifetime to unpack. Even then there would remain much more to be uncovered so, attempting to preach this passage in one Sunday leaves the preacher, after his study, with notes upon notes to try to piece together into a coherent whole. He seeks to leaving nothing "important" out but he knows that, at the same time, he will leave much out.
So what did I not say? I did not mention the connection between Christ's ontological divinity and His ethical divinity. That is to say that the essence of who Christ is (ontological divinity) flows into the life that Christ lived - His holiness (ethical divinity). Jesus as light (John 1:4) not only conveys the truth that He is one with the Father but also that by His holy and distinct life he offended the world filled with ethical darkness.
Imagine a man whose life is perfect and whole lips speak the truth about your imperfection. Would that not make you angry enough to try to find out something negative about him? Of course it would because sin never wants to be discovered "by itself"; it always wants company. This is why Christians who are committed to being followers of Christ will become like "a fragrance of death to death" (2 Corinthians 2:16). One version reads "the stench of death." As Christians, it is fair to say that we must stink to the world!
One early evening I worked out in my garage and then walked three miles and I smelled like it! I then had to take Josiah, my youngest son, to basketball practice. When he finished he got in the car and, let's just say that two people who smelled like us should not have been in the same car at the same time. It was so bad I not only turned on the air conditioning but I rolled down every window! In a word, it was offensive. So offensive that I knew I had to leave the windows cracked a bit that night because it was my wife's car and she would not have been happy.
The truth is that followers of Christ must pattern and model the ontological and the ethical Christ. While we cannot be the essence of divinity we are in the essence of divinity by being in Christ. That is why Paul uses this phrase often to described the Christian life. Therefore, as witnesses "sent from God" (John 1:6) to "bear witness about the light" (John 1:7) we are able, through Christ, to model an ethical life of divinity because we share on the ethical life of Christ (See 2 Peter 1:4).
What we see in the book of Acts is exactly what happens to such people who stink the stench of glory: they experience ridicule, beatings (sufferings), stonings, incarceration and death. The church, when we model the ontological and the ethical Christ, will be a stench to the world such that they will wrestle with us as the world wrestled with Jesus. When we live holy lives and proclaim truth (holy words) we will be called intolerant, arrogant, do gooders, know-it-alls, and will be assigned every kind of "phobia" all because we fail to own and endorse the systems and thinking of this world. Jesus was called a demon a glutton, a blasphemer and a liar all because he lived for the Father and spoke for the Father. We should never expect less.
DO YOU STINK?
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