"Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place" (2 Cor 2:14).
When you see the word "darkness" in the Bible what do you think of? I used to think of darkness as "evil" or "bad." I suppose we could use the word in that context at times. But many times the word means something else. The way the word is used in the Bible can often mean "ignorant" or "lacking in knowledge."
The Apostle Paul preached words that helped bring light into dark places. In other words, he preached knowledge - knowledge of the Person, Jesus Christ - and his words shined the light in the darkness. Where there was once ignorance in regards to Jesus, his words shined the light and "diffused the fragrance of His knowledge in every place."
It wasn't Paul's lifestyle that the Gentiles were interested in. It was his Jesus. It wasn't the law that he had formerly preached. It was Jesus. The sweet smelling aroma that attracted people to Paul was really the knowledge of Jesus, and when Paul shined the light on the truth of who Jesus really was, people came running to him, and not away from him.
It's been a while since I shared a message from my pastor in the late 90's, "Pastor Mark." Tonight I was listening to a message from him from 1997 that I just couldn't help but share! I believe you will be highly encouraged by this, as he speaks of how the "light," in many cases in the New Testament, is really referring to the knowledge of Jesus, and darkness is referring to being ignorant of Jesus. When the light shines in the darkness, ignorance is diffused and people come to know the One who God gave as a gift to mankind.
Download it, give it a listen, and let me know what you think! It's almost an hour long, and well worth it if you listen to just part of it or the whole thing. I love Mark's sense of humor and his excellent preaching of Christ.
Excited to listen to this one! I LOVED the sermon about the gospel of change and how he revealed the meaning of the story of Lazarus and the rich man. I was absolutely blown away by it, and afterward, I showed my Church the meaning, and Suzanne, who is a wonderful sister of ours, loved it too.
ReplyDeleteMatthew,
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot in this message that I didn't mention here. It takes a short while before he really gets into the meat of the message, but I'm really encouraged by the whole thing!
I just downloaded this, Anne and I are really looking forward to listening. We have the other two that you posted previously and listen to them off and on. Our favorite one is "Gospel to the poor", I have that one on my MP3 player lol (along with a couple key Growing in Grace episodes) :-p
ReplyDeleteRon,
ReplyDeleteI have a handful of these that I've recorded from tape to mp3, and all of those are on my mp3 player. I listen to them while I'm out on the road for my job. In total I have about 60 tapes, and I hope to get them all digitized eventually, and my desire is also to post them here bit by bit... but just a little more often than I've been doing!
Post 'em up! We wants them, precious!!
ReplyDeleteOk, so I finally got this downloaded and listened. You are right it did take a while for him to get to his message, but it was very good. I especially enjoyed his quote "that outside of Christ we are all just actors", "trying to put on a good show". That kind of spoke to me. Also "that people come to this church" (now for me that means this church as in me...because I am the Church..sorry had to slip that in) "not because it is my job straighten anyone out", "but because of the knowledge (the light) of this Christ that I know". He alludes to one of my favourite images from Scripture that "we are releasing the fragrance of Christ"...which is close enough to seeing Christ in us....so much that that fragance is released...goosebumps...so again it is nothing that we in ourselves do but what Jesus does in and through us that they see ...Him, and Him alone, and that gives me some great comfort that in and of myself....nothing...only Him. May the actors now leave the stage!
ReplyDeleteICA... yeah there really is so much great stuff in this. Mark always taught for about an hour, and a lot of the times it's a full hour of solid stuff, but this time it just seemed to take about 15 minutes for him to really get started with where he was going. Many times he never would get to where he intended... LOL... but yet it was always good, and he would just say, "all we have is time," meaning that we could get to it next week, or the next week, or whenever... :)
ReplyDeleteYeah, that "acting" quote really stuck out to me as well. So very true. And your quote sticks out to me as well, in a very big way.. "May the actors now leave the stage!"
Great stuff!