was closer than any man had ever been to the South Pole, yet he was 97 miles away. Bad weather, lack of provisions forced them to turn around and go home. There in those last days, while they were amid the snow and the ice, they had nothing to eat but hardtack. Now hardtack is a very hard biscuit that was kind of the bare bones minimum of survival. And these travelers got down to their last ration of hardtack. Some melted snow and made some tea to eat with their hardtack as a ceremonial offering. Others hung on to their hardtack for that last minute desperate pang of hunger. As they went to sleep, the fire was burning there and Shackleton was struggling, trying to go to sleep. All of a sudden, he looked out of the corner of his eye and he saw his most trusted man opening up another man's food bag. And he thought to himself, have we come to this? And he saw at that moment that this man placed in this other man's food bag his own last heart attack. That man's doing was an extension of his being. How he acted was simply an expression of who he was. He was, in tangible form, the sweet aroma of Jesus Christ. This morning, I want, in the few moments that we have together, I want the Lord to get a hold of your heart in such a way that you are eagerly looking for those ways and those opportunities to demonstrate the fragrance of Christ to other people in need around you. I've got two other secondary goals. One is to encourage you to trust our sovereign God to a greater degree, and to inspire you to praise and thank our God for whatever kind of circumstances in which you might find yourself. The world will typically respond with anger, with bitterness, but God afflicts his people not that we turn against Him, but that we respond back to Him in praise and thanksgiving because of His special work in our life. We're back in our study of the book of 2 Corinthians, that wonderful book where Paul describes with great personal detail the cost the privilege, the opportunity for ministry. Now, 2 Corinthians chapter 2, at the end of that chapter, we looked at that last time, but this morning I'd like to look at it from a different vantage point. If you're looking at the second chapter, I want your eyes to glance down at verses 12 and 13. We considered those last time. Paul is wrestling here between preaching through a door of opportunity there in the city of Troas or going over to Macedonia where he hopes to find Titus. If you turn over to chapter seven, verse five, as I pointed out last time, Paul again talks about going over to Macedonia. So between chapter two, verse 13, and chapter seven, verse five, there is an excursus, a footnote, if you will, that describes Paul's heart. Here's where he is very personal about the nature and the depth, the demand of ministry. We're going to look at verses 14 through 16 again this morning. Let me read those out of the New American Standard Version. 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 of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing to the one an aroma of death to death and the other an aroma of life to life and who is adequate for these things. As we talked last time, I pointed out that at the very core of who we are, let me back up, our ministry flows out of who we are. How I give to someone else is an extension of who I am in Christ. And so from verse 14, last time we looked, we looked at two images that Paul leaves with us that describes who am I in Christ, out of which flows my service to God, my giving to other people, my investment in their life. First, I am a slave to Christ. We get that from that image of Christ leading us in triumph as His captives. We are His slaves. We have been purchased by Him. We are owned by Him. I am His slave. The second image He uses, also in verse 14, is that I am the savor of Christ. That is, I am the aroma, I am the fragrance, I am the perfume of Christ. Now I want you to notice who the actor is in verse 14. It says that God always leads us in triumph, that God always manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Christ. God is the actor. He is the one that is doing the work. He is the one that manifests through us the fragrance of Christ. That's the image that I want to stick with tonight, or this morning, and I want to look at it from a different vantage point. God is the actor. He is the one who creates this fragrance in us, but that's not to say that we have no responsibility at all and that we are simply to sit on our hands and that God does everything else. No. Though I am the fragrance of Christ that describes my being, because of my identification with Christ, I can still put the stopper on top of the perfume bottle. I can co-mingle with the aroma of Christ the aroma of foul, sour-smelling sin, such that when my perfume bottle is open, people of the world smell nothing different about me. No, this passage does not say we are to simply sit on our hands and allow God to do everything. It is speaking of my identification with Christ, because that's where everything starts. Who I am in Christ, that's where it all begins. I am the savor of Christ. I am the fragrance of Christ that describes my being simply because of my identification with Christ. Now, last time, we concluded by asking the question, what can I do to be a sweeter smelling fragrance to God among other people? And I completed my message that Sunday, looking at verse 12 and saying there's two things that we must erase and two things we must embrace. I must erase compromise and greed. I must embrace sincerity and faithfulness. Now that is what I can do to be a sweeter smelling fragrance to God among other people. but this morning I'm looking at it from a different vantage point and I'm asking a different question. Not what can I do to be a sweeter smelling fragrance, but what does God do to make me become a sweeter smelling fragrance? You see, God has identified with me in Christ to such a degree that I wear his clothing and I smell like Jesus to God. But just as God brings us along a path of salvation, beginning with justification, through sanctification, all the way to glorification, God is interested in making me more and more like Jesus. He's interested that I smell more and more like Jesus throughout my life. My responsibility, my role, verse 17, erase compromise, erase greed, embrace faithfulness and sincerity. What's God doing? What does God do to cause me to be sweeter smelling? What I'm trying to do in my message here this morning from these verses is to marry chapters one and two together of First Corinthians. I think the answer to that question is very simple. What does God do to cause me to be a sweeter smelling fragrance? He crushes me. God crushes me in order that the fragrance of Christ might emanate profusely. If you ever go over to Doug and Linda Baton's house sometime in the summertime, you'll find in their garden a little rosemary. Well, no, not a little rosemary, a rosemary tree. The thing is huge. And a number of times, they've cut off a little sprig and given that to us. We can hold it in our hand. We can put it on the floor in the car. By the time we are home, the whole car smells with rosemary. But what does Marianne do when she is going to use some of that rosemary in one of her culinary creations? She crushes it so that the essence of that rosemary is released even more. I get together this last week for lunch with a pastor who experienced a death very recently. It wasn't the death of a family member or a friend or someone in the congregation he serves. It was the death of a dream. In 1997, he responded to what he believed to be the will of God for his life. And by faith, he started a new church. And he worked and he poured every ounce of energy and effort into that work. Two months ago, they closed the doors. And he and his wife carry $40,000 of personal debt because of that work and all of the energy they expended to see something new flourish for God. Broken, poured out, crushed. Why? Why does God do that? Paul tells us two reasons why in the book of 1 Corinthians. The first you'll find in chapter 1, if you look back at chapter 1, verse 8, Paul writes, for we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively beyond our strength so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, we had the sentence of death within us so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead. Why does God crush us? In order that we might not trust in ourselves, but that we might trust in Him. God is much more interested than our simple, our well-being physically, He's interested in our spiritual well-being. He's interested that we trust Him. And He will knock out the supports, knock out all kinds of props upon which we lean in order to cause us to trust Him. I printed this in your notes, words from J.I. Packer in his book, Hot Tub Religion. He writes, God uses chronic pain and weakness along with other afflictions as his chisels for sculpting our lives. Felt weakness deepens dependence on Christ for strength each day. The weaker we feel, the harder we lean. And the harder we lean, the stronger we grow spiritually, even while our bodies waste away. To live with your thorn uncomplainingly, that is, sweet, patient, and free in heart to love and help others, even though every day you feel weak, is true sanctification. It is true healing for the spirit. It is a supreme victory of grace. The healing of your sinful person thus goes forward even though the healing of your mortal body does not. And the healing of persons is the name of the game as far as God is concerned. In the Oklahoma City bombing a number of years ago, there was a Marine recruiting office, if you remember, that was crushed underneath the weight of that falling building. One of the officers that was there in that recruiting station was a recruiter, Randy Norfleet. As a result of the accident, he lost 40% of his blood and had 250 stitches in order to close the wounds on his body. But he remained conscious all the way to the hospital through that long ambulance ride. He said, I was concentrating on praying. It was a prayer of thanksgiving, he said, thanksgiving for his survival. The doctor said that Norfleet would likely lose the sight in his right eye, and he said, losing an eye is a small thing. Whatever brings you closer to God is a blessing. Through all this, I've been brought closer to God. I've become more dependent upon him and less on myself. God will crush us in order that we not trust in ourselves, but that we trust in Him. A doctor by the name of Bernie Seigel, I don't know his relationship with the Lord at all, but as he works with cancer patients, he frequently asks them this question. Why do you need this illness? Now that kind of question has taken many of his patients aback. What do you mean? Why do I need this illness? And as he has explored that with a number of his patients, he has found that for many of them, those maybe last years have become far sweeter because they realize why or rather they realize that they have little time left and they have to make the most of the time that they have. Why do you experience the afflictions that you experience? Well, in part, it's to cause you to trust in Him. My friends, as we walk into a new millennium tomorrow morning, the stark reality of it is that a year from now, our church body will not be the same. some of us may be home with the Lord. The Lord may move some of us off to Spain or some other such place. What are we going to do with the time that we have now? Are we going to trust Him? Are we going to rely upon Him? Second reason why God crushes those whom he loves is so that his power might be seen in us. Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 13, last chapter in the book, and look at verse 4. Paul is speaking of Christ and his crucifixion. And he says, chapter 13, verse four, for indeed he, that is Jesus, was crucified because of weakness, yet he lives because of the power of God, for we also are weak in him, yet we will live with him because of the power of God directed toward you. Paul says, in our weaknesses you have seen manifest the power of God. And that power has been directed toward you. Our afflictions have brought benefit to you. Look over at chapter 12. And verse 12. No, verse 9. Middle of verse 9. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast, Paul writes, about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Verse 10, therefore, I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake, for when I am weak, then I am strong. Lazarus was sick. But it wasn't because of his sin. No, it was so that the power of Christ may be manifested in his body. Lazarus died. Well, that wasn't because of some specific sin that he did, the consequences he suffered for it. No, it was so that the power of God might be manifest in his life. Some of the things that we go through, some of the heartache, the difficulty, the burden, the affliction, the suffering that we endure is not necessarily because of our own personal sin, though sometimes it is. Sometimes God crushes us so that His power might be revealed, manifest, made known through us. Listen to the words of F.B. Meyer. He says, the child of God is often called to suffer because there is nothing that will convince onlookers of the reality and power of true religion as suffering will do when it is born with Christian fortitude. I love this quote by A.W. Tozer. It comes out of his book, The Root of the Righteous. He says, it is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply. Amy Carmichael was a missionary in India, Southern India, and she was there as a missionary serving faithfully for 56 years. Never once did she return to her homeland of England for a furlough. 56 years. I rather recently found out that it was the last 20 years of her life that she laid in a bed She was injured as a result of an accident. And so for 20 years, she was bed bound. But it was during those 20 years that she wrote some 40 books and has touched not only people in India, but people around the globe and even in our generation. God crushed her through an accident, forcing her to a bed for 20 long years in order that the sweet aroma of Christ might pervade the world around her. God visited me, and it became clear that God was calling Mary Ann and I and our little pint-sized nine-month-old to Rockland, California to start a new church. In six weeks' period of time, we had raised 50% of our support. And we knew that this was the hand of God moving. And I said, God, if you can move in six weeks time to raise 50% of what we need, I'm going to trust you for the rest. We packed and we were gone. We walked into town. Nobody knew we were there. Nobody cared that we were there. We didn't have another church that said, we want you to be our man, and we want you to have a handful of people, and here's the core that you're gonna start with. We started before there was even an itch for us to scratch. Three years later, having seen all kinds of ups and downs, we experienced the death of a dream. And we closed those doors and we moved to Portland, Oregon. One of the things that God was able to do through me this week was to empathize and share with this other pastor. God's power, I trust, was flowing through me to this other brother. Of course, in those kind of things, if you've experienced a failure in business or a bankruptcy or something like that, you know those kinds of emotions where You have all kinds of questions flooding your mind. Well, what if I had, or what if we'd done this, or turned this way instead of that way? What would have happened? There's always those feelings of letting God down. Oh, God, I've failed you. You've put this on my heart. But I've let you down. No, back in 1992, God crushed me. And here in the year 2000, God crushed this other pastor. Now it wasn't that we were a failure. wasn't that God was disciplining us necessarily. No, it was that the sweetness of Jesus might emanate from our life. Through the tears, the sadness, the mourning, there is joy when we realize God is in control. He is the sovereign, faithful Lord. He doesn't treat his servants carelessly. This is what Amy Carmichael wrote. A wise master never wastes his servant's time. A wise master never wastes his servant's time. He crushes for His purposes and His glory. And 20 years on a bed, three years, four years seeking to plant and establish a new church is not a waste. Raising a child and holding that child as they die That's not a waste. God doesn't waste his servant's time. For he is in the business of extracting from us the sweet aroma of Jesus. This year, There will be heartache and difficulty that at this point you do not know about. As you look back over this year, you can put your finger on a number of difficult, trying circumstances. Give praise to God for what He has done. Resolve to serve him through those difficulties and trust him. Trust him, for he is faithful. A good master never wastes his servant's time. Let's pray. Father, you are a good and gracious and merciful God, you love us with an undying love. So faithful, so consistent, so eager, so passionate is your love for your children that you will even crush us so that the best in us, that is Christ in us, might come forth. Father, I pray that as you bring those crushing experiences to us in the upcoming year, We pray that you would be merciful to us, to give us strength through us. And more than anything else, would you glorify yourself? We thank you for your work. You are so faithful. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.