All right, it is exciting to be here and we're going to be in the book of 2 Corinthians during those four sessions from chapter 2 through chapter 5. And if you did get one of those booklets from Mike, then you'll be able to follow along in the outline as we go. Of course, you can take your own notes or do what you'd like, but those are available for you to use. So we're going to be looking at pictures of us as Christians while here on earth. Have you noticed the signs? While here on earth. You guys know that's not a long time, right? I mean, we just finished 20 years in Papua New Guinea. And it has gone very quickly. And it affirms those verses that say life is like a vapor. And our time here on earth is limited. And what can we do while we're here? And second Corinthians is full of awesome pictures. There's about seven of them of who we are as Christians. And we're going to dive into four of them this week. You already heard a little bit of introduction about us and our family. And I just want to, here's a picture you'll see us through the week. My wife gets to be with the puppets tonight. So she's out in the puppet room with the youngest two. My oldest two are right back there. But when we went into Papua New Guinea, we first of all had to learn the trade language of New Guinea, because in Papua New Guinea there are over 860 different languages. And that takes a while to pick up all those, so we actually had to learn the trade language first, and then we moved into a tribe called the Pop-Tart. Not the Pop-Tart, okay? Pop-Tart. And we moved into that. It's on this long, skinny island. And there's a mountain range in between. If you take a look at this picture, there's the ocean. Here's the coral reef that's all exposed when it's low tide. And the little strip of the beach here. And then these villages that run along the coast. And then if you go back behind the village, it goes straight up into the jungle. About 1,500 foot up, where they do all their gardening, and then back down the other side, same thing on the other side, flipped around. That's the Popitar tribe. There are 10,000 people there that speak their own language, their own culture. We moved into that area, into a village called Bon. Now, when we were in Bohm, each village is about 500 people or so, we were first going in and asking if there's any place where we could maybe locate and build a house among their village houses there. And they said, now you're from America, right? Yeah, we're from America. OK, we have a place for you. It's called Cabejero. And looking in from the ocean, you can actually see our house there straight ahead and then the mountain in the background. And we were able to go in. I didn't know what Cabahiro meant when I went in. I didn't know anything about Papatari, the Papatari language. A few months in, as I was doing language study, I realized Cabahiro, place of hero, Cabahiro, place of tragedy. So I started asking around, why is this place called Place of Tragedy? You guys are Americans, right? Yeah? Well, back in the war, World War II, the Japanese came in and they took over this whole area. This was their center of operations, right here in Kabahiro. And two Americans came in to try to spy out where they were, to give the locations to the Allies. And they got too close, and they got captured, put in bamboo cages like pigs, and were never seen again. They were captives. That's why we gave you the spot. I don't know what that means still today. But we ended up in Caballero. And our story in 2 Corinthians 2 actually starts out with a story of captives. Now, it was different. in the Old Testament time and in Jesus' day than it was during World War II on New Ireland. So we're going to take a look at that. 2 Corinthians 2, verses 14 through 17. But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For we are a fragrance to Christ, to God, among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things? For we are not like many peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God. If you have your notes, you'll notice that this session one is that while here on earth, we are His fragrance. What does that mean and how does that fit in these verses? It actually starts with this idea of being captives. So let's look at the setting here, starting in verse 14. I'm going to back that up one time. During this time, kings or captains or generals would go off from their town, oftentimes their walled cities, their walled towns, and would go to another kingdom or another town to invade, to take over. And if they were triumphant, if they were victorious, on their way back they would get the captives and they would lead them. And the king or the commander or the general would lead the captives back into the town. And when the king would enter the town with all the captives, there would be a parade to celebrate their victory. The people of the town would line the streets with palms to exalt the king and the captives that he had taken. And the captives would follow their new king, sometimes to their doom, sometimes to their destruction, sometimes they would be taken into servanthood, sometimes they would be killed. Verse 14 says, but thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. Take a look at this video clip. of a reenactment of one of those triumphal processions. Here you see coming in to the town, the army, the people all around them celebrating. You see the confetti, the leaves, the flower petals being strewn, the music coming on, and the captives. And there's the general coming in, leading his captives. And what we have in 2 Corinthians 2, verse 14, is this idea that we are actually these captives following Christ, who is the victorious King. Jesus is the King that defeated Satan. See, we were in this kingdom of darkness, this kingdom of Satan. And through the blood of Christ, through him as the conquering king, he has led those who have trusted him out. We were under Satan's realm, but Jesus defeated him and captured us back. We're like those captives who are led by the king, which exalts him and shows his strength. So you first fill in the blanks there. In Christ's triumphal procession is this. We are captives of redemption. servants of the king, the trophies of God's triumph over Satan. We are like the captives led by the king, and the king is being exalted and shown his strength. There's another group, though, those who refuse to trust in Christ, those who fight still in Satan's camp, Philippians 2, 9 through 11 tells us the end for them. It says, for this reason also, God highly exalted him and bestowed on him a name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. The fact is, your next blanks, those who refuse Christ will one day bow before being led to destruction. See, in that line of procession, some would end up being destroyed and others would be servants of that king. And while here on earth is our chance to be captivated by the king, become his, in his perfect kingdom, or to wait and eventually one day bow and say, yes, you were king, but be led to destruction. That's how 2 Corinthians 2 opens up. That's the setting for this fragrance. And now all of a sudden this picture In the end of 14, in the beginning of 15, it changes. Remember that video with all those people lined up on the side celebrating, throwing confetti, throwing flowers, excited their king has come? Now, in 2 Corinthians, we are suddenly not those captives, but are in the crowd celebrating the king. Into verse 14 says this, It manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God. See, when the king would enter the town, the people would line the streets with palms and with cloaks and with fragrant flowers and objects of fragrance. And they'd throw these things into the streets. And when the horses and the armies and the captives would march over them and crush them, the smell would come up. And the people in the crowd, they would rub these flowers and these fragrant oils on their body. And as the king came in, you'd hear the celebration and you could smell the aroma of victory through the town. And that smell, everybody knew when that happened, the king was victorious. And in verse 14, this picture is now switched from us being captives, being led by the King, to now us being this fragrance. It switches us from being bondages to being the free ones celebrating the King. And that is what we have in Christ. We're captives led into His kingdom, but then we're switched to be free in Christ to celebrate our King. And 2 Corinthians says this, while here on earth, that we get to be a fragrance of Christ to God. What does that mean? We are fragrance of Christ. Some of you, I'm having a hard time naming perfumes. I asked Laurie earlier, there's like Calvin Klein, It's a kind of perfume, right? Elizabeth Arden. Are there any other famous names that you can get their fragrance? Anybody? I don't know. Janelle? Chanel? Is that a person? That was a person? I don't know. So you get to wear these fragrances of these people. And I imagine some of you may have put that on and maybe your husband comes along and say, hey, you smell good. Well, this is Chanel. But guess what? In Second Corinthians, it says we get to be a fragrance of Christ. Not of Calvin Klein, of Christ. To who? To God. After we moved into the Bapatar, we had a team from Sioux City, actually, that's where I grew up, a church group come over to the tribe and help build our house where we were gonna live for the next 14 years. So they were over there, and these were a bunch of farm boys from Iowa. And I don't think many of them have even seen the ocean up to that point. And they pulled in on a boat, and they got out on that coral reef that you saw, And they were tripping all over the place, stumbling up on this coral reef, and I was on the shore, waiting for them to arrive, watching them come in, and I was with some of my Popitar friends. And one of them looks at me, looks at them, and says, They're not from the coast, are they? I said, No, they're not. They eat pretty good, don't they? Yeah, they do. And from that point on, they were called the Fat Boys. For the next eight days, we had our own sitcom there on the shores of Popitar. These farm boys, the fat boys, would get up in the morning and they would work all day long on this house. And all around them were the Popitar watching, commenting, laughing, A few years later, after we learned the language and were able to start teaching, present the gospel, one of the first ones that got saved, as we were walking down the road, he asked me, he said, do you remember those fat boys? I said, yeah. He said, this message about Christ, that he came to pay for our sins so that we could trust him and have a right relationship with God. Did they know that too? Yeah. I said, that's why they came. That's what was different. I knew there was something. You see, those guys, they couldn't speak Papata, they didn't know the culture, but as they were being studied and watched, they knew something was different about these guys. There was some aroma, some fragrance that even beyond the body odor that these guys had and that we needed. In the Old Testament, fragrance was a huge deal. In the temple, they had the altar of incense. And as part of the daily duties of the priest, he would have to take incense from all these precious oils, leaves, flowers, put them on hot coals, bring them to the altar of incense, and as they would smolder and smoke, the prayers, the aroma, would go to God. All through the Old Testament, there's pictures of God enjoying these sweet aromas. And as you see this going up, you get to the New Testament, and Ephesians 5, 1 and 2 says this, Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. See, in the Old Testament, these prayers from the incense would go up to God. In the New Testament, it was Jesus Christ sacrificing Himself as an aroma to God. And what are we supposed to do while here on earth? Sorry, there's the verse. He gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. What are we to do? We are to smell good, like Christ, with sacrificial love. Because here's the thing with aroma, with fragrance. It requires sacrifice. And as we go on to verse 16, we see that we are actually two cents, your two cents worth. What are your two cents worth? To the one, an aroma from death to death. To the other, an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things? Fragrance is a powerful thing, right? When I walk into the house and I'm not that hungry, but suddenly I smell what my wife is cooking, My mouth starts to salivate. My stomach starts to growl. You ever smelt something that took you way back in time to another time you smelt it? When I was 15, my parents adopted a sibling group from Costa Rica. And we got to go down to Costa Rica, and we got this fruit platter. And there were these weird kind of orange fruits that I ate. And it left a peculiar taste in my mouth, and I had no idea what it was. That was when I was 15. Nearly 10 years later, when I got to Papua New Guinea, I'd forgotten all about that taste, that smell. But I was given a papaya. And I cut it open, took a bite, and all of a sudden, I was back in Costa Rica. That smell, that scent came back. Aromas are powerful things. And what is God, what is His fragrance? The sacrifice of Christ that we now get to wear. What are the two fragrances? Tomb and Doom perfume. How would you like to wear that one? And the Lifebloom perfume. Because here's the difference. For those of us who know Christ, and when we sacrifice and show Christ through how we respond, they get excited. But to the world, when stuff happens, hard things happen, and we respond in a Christ-like way, what have they got? How can they respond that way? When they go through tragedy, and the world watches how you Love sacrificially, in spite of everything you're going through? I don't have that. What's wrong with me? I need something too. And we should be an aroma of Christ that to those who are perishing, it's a sweet smell, but it doesn't make sense. We had a tourist actually come through the tribe of Poptar, through our village, and she was wearing quite a bit of perfume when she walked through. And as we went out and talked with the guys in the village later, that's all they were talking about. And this is how they described her. Man, that lady, she was walking down the road. If you walked by her and went like this, she smelled like death. Really. Yeah, it was terrible. We had to, like, walk around, because she smelled just like a dead person. Because, you see, impoverished people, they don't wear perfume from the store, but when someone dies, They put them in this customary house over the next day or two, and the body will start to deteriorate. So one of the first jobs they do is send someone way into town to buy a spray deodorant. And they come back, and every hour or two, they spray down the body. And to them, that sweet smell is the smell of death. But guess what guys, we have a chance to be a sweet smell to the world that'll say, wait a second, there's more to this life. I don't have that. It's a warning to those who are perishing. Just like in the parades during this time, the captives, that they would walk down this road to their doom and they would smell the sweet aroma. They had a choice then. Do I turn and be a servant of this new king? Or do I continue on to destruction? And guys, we have the aroma of Christ to God. Last thing, the application. We are like a fragrance of three dimensions. The fragrance of Christ to God, the smell of death, the smell of life. It's difficult to do all that. So how do we do it? The thing about perfume is it's got to be extracted. That's your fill-in-the-blank there. What is done to a flower or a leaf or a herb that has fragrance in order to give off the smell? Well, it's rubbed, it's ground, it's squeezed. In Papataria, they don't have perfume in bottles, but when they want to smell good, they collect leaves. Sorry, I got these from the church display there. And right before a custom or a time when they go in for a big feast, you'll see them outside going like this. Not that part. And then there's a big mess, but it's on the ground outside, so it's okay. and they'll walk in, and a lot of my pictures of people at these feasts, they have little pieces of grass, or not grass, but plants and flowers, and it's all over them. What did I have to do? I actually smell pretty good, if anybody wants to... What happens? It's suffered, it's squashed, it's ground. Think about the woman that brought the perfume to Jesus. What did she have to do with that bottle first? Break it. What do you have to do with a tea bag if you want to get the full flavor? Put it in hot water. What do you do with an orange if you really want the smell to come out? Slice it and squeeze it. The task of being a good fragrance is difficult because, listen to this guys, it comes with suffering. It's got to be extracted. Second thing is it's got to be rubbed on. has to be rubbed on the person if that person is going to be fragrant. When the woman broke the bottle and then poured it on Jesus' feet, what did she do? She rubbed it in with her hair. Here's the thing, you have to get close enough to people to rub off on them. Are we doing that, brothers and sisters? Are we getting close enough to people to rub off on them and show them Christ's sacrificial love? The task of being a good fragrance is difficult because it demands that we are near to people so that the smell rubs off onto them. We need to spend time with people, talk with people, be near them, telling them about Christ, showing them Christ's love. Finally, it's got to be the real deal. In Popitar, they will put it on before those feasts, rub it in. They know which flowers it is. They know which grass to avoid. We have to do it from sincerity. It's got to be the real deal. Verse 17 says this. For we are not like many peddling the Word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God. How do we handle God's Word? From sincerity and from God. This is about Him and exalting Him. How do I boil this down to the end? It's this. The way you are going to exemplify Christ and show His aroma to the world is through responding like Him in difficult times in your life. That is when the smell comes out. When the difficulties come up, you get to be a fragrance of Christ to God and to the world. That is your opportunity. In Matthew 2, the wise men came in with their gold frankincense and myrrh. Two of those things, a fragrance. Symbolic. But they traveled from afar to worship the king with this fragrance. Guess what we get to do today? Switch it. We get to take the fragrance of Christ to people afar so that they can worship the King. We have the privilege to do it all around us, and I hope you're responding right when difficult things come up. But some of us need to take this aroma and go beyond our comfort zone, someplace way, way beyond. Outside, on the two tables, there's a pack, there's two bowls of these. On your way out, go ahead and grab one and pray about this. Where can I be a fragrance of Christ to the world? How do I respond when things are difficult? And am I willing, just like the wise men that came from afar to worship the King and present this fragrance, can I take the fragrance of Christ to the nations beyond?