I read an article awhile back on the popular new trend called “smell maxxing.” Have you heard of it? Its a trend where tween and teen boys are obsessed with expensive designer colognes. Boys are proudly bathing in the cologne wherever they are, causing one girl in the article to comment on how much her classroom reeks of cologne because of the boys. According to the article its not brands like Axe body spray or Stetson, its top dollar colognes like Jean Paul Gaultier, Paco Rabanne—and Bleu de Chanel, brands costing well over $100 and some several hundred dollars. The article goes on to say:
The trend of tweens and teens spritzing on designer scents is so prevalent, that the phenomenon has a name: smellmaxxing. According to a report on teen spending conducted by investment bank Piper Sandler, teen boys’ annual spending on fragrance skyrocketed 26% over the past year. While budget brands like Old Spice saw plummeting influence among Gen Z, costly colognes from Dior and Valentino gained market share with males under age 18”
The idea of smelling and aroma is prevalent throughout Scripture. God said in the OT that the offerings when burned would produce a pleasing aroma to Him. Right before he died Paul, knowing he was going to be martyred, said his life was being poured out like a drink offering. A drink offering in the OT produced a pleasing aroma to God. We are said to be the fragrance of Christ.
All of this comes to bear on Jude’s letter, and our sermon. When we are presented to Jesus Christ we want to be a fragrance to Him. We want to live our lives in such a way that we are “smellmaxxing” the cologne of Jesus’ righteousness and making ourselves smell so much like Jesus that when these lives are evaluated by Him, He finds them to be a wonderfully fragrant aroma.
REVIEW
Last week we saw that there is a certainty that we will all stand before Jesus Christ someday for a Christian judgment. That judgment will be for determining our rewards, not salvation.
We also saw that our presentation to Jesus on that day is determined by our sanctification now. In other words, how we live now for Jesus determines what that day will be like for us. Jude tells us that God is the one who is able to make us stand on that day faultless before Jesus and with great joy.
This led to two important points. First, our sin does not have to compromise that day. The solution to our sin now is to confess it as 1 John 1:9 says.
Second, we saw that God is able and is working to make us faultless, “Now to him who is able…” Jude says. Paul says the same thing in 1 Corinthians 1:8-9, “God will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful…” See how the NT teaches that God does this in our lives?!
But we also saw that the NT teaches our cooperation with God towards our own righteous living. In other words I do not sit back passively and leave it up to God. A synergistic relationship between our effort and God’s is required for us to live a sanctified life for Christ. “Continue to work out your salvation” Philippians 2 says about our effort. Then it continues by telling us God’s work: “For it is God who works in you to will and act according to His purposes”
And it is there we left off last week. And it is there I want to pick up today. So today we will finish the thought of how we work with God for our own sanctification. Then we will look at the joy Jude mentions, and then we will look at how all of this is doxological.
OUR SANCTIFICATION DETERMINES OUR PRESENTATION (continued)
God works in us to make us sanctified. But also, we work with God for our sanctification. Which means we are not puppets. We are to respond to those inner promptings from the Holy Spirit, or to our knowledge of what is right from the teachings of Scripture, or from our Bible-shaped conscience. We are to turn down temptation, and we are to say “Yes” to the right action, attitude or words.
But then we see our responsibility also, as we saw last week. And we described this as a synergistic relationship between us and God. God has a role and we have a role, and unless we both are doing our role then there is no faithful, God-glorifying, Christ-like living going on in our lives. It requires God and it requires us.
This is seen for instance in Galatians 5 when it says we are to keep in step with the Spirit and we are not to gratify the desires of the flesh. Its our choice to walk according to the leading of the Spirit inside of us or according to the sinful flesh inside of us. The Spirit is at work, and so is the flesh. Will we synergize with the flesh, or will we do what is right and synergize with the Spirit? This is seen all throughout the Bible where we are commanded to do right and obey God’s commands. “Come out from among them” God says, “and I will be your God and you will be my people,” says 2 Corinthians 6. See how God calls, and people are to come out of darkness and come to Him.
APPLICATION: Respond to what you know is right. What you know the Bible says, what the Spirit urges on you inside your heart, and what your conscience tells you. Obey what you know is right, and disobey the command of your flesh. The fastest way to Stumble” and be “at fault” as Jude says, is to follow your flesh. Listen to 1 Corinthians 10:12-13 instruct us here: If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you do not fall! No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” Which leads to a second application….
APPLICATION: Be encouraged to know that living for Christ is not left up to you to do alone. All the maturing, sanctification, growth, development in our faith is not ALL on our shoulders! We are not all on our own, trying all by ourselves. God is with us, God is at work in us, God does not abandon us, God is working for our continued maturity, growth and sanctification. And He is doing that because He has in sight the future day when He will present us to Jesus Christ. “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling…” Jude says. First Corinthians 1:8 says, “He will keep you firm to the end so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful to do it”
APPLICATION to the APPLICATION: See everything in your life as part of God’s overall plan to sanctify you. Every good and every bad, every joy and every trial, are all part of our Lord’s design for our lives, meant to conform us more into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ, and our presentation to Him. He is at work on the hilltops of life, and He is at work in the deep, dark valleys of our lives.
Paul learned this lesson, not right away, but later in his ministry – showing how Paul was a continual learner in the faith, and God was continually maturing Paul even further as time went on. Paul begged God to remove a thorn from his flesh (whatever that was). God told Paul “No” three times. Finally God said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.” Paul went on to describe how those words completely changed his attitude towards that thorn in his flesh, and he did a 180 degree turn. He no longer resented the thorn, but embraced it. He no longer saw his weakness as a liability, but as an asset that made him more aware of, conscious of and intentional about depending on God’s grace and God’s strength. What is done for God that is not done through Him?
As Romans 11 proclaims: “Oh the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God that God should repay them? For from Him and through Him and for Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen!”
May each of us submit to and cooperate with the Lord as he works to establish us and make us blameless and faultless on the day we stand before Jesus Christ.
Now, lets turn our attention to the other important goal we are living for that Jude mentions in verse 24: which is our having Great Joy. Look at how Jude states it in verse 24….
David said in Psalm 21, “Surely you have granted him unending blessings and made him glad with the JOY of your PRESENCE” Amen!
We see this idea of joy before Jesus from Paul too, found in 1 Thess 2:19-20. Turn there with me and follow along with him…
1 Peter 4:13 describes joy in front of Christ, but for a different yet related reason, “But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.” Suffering like Christ, which produces endurance and patience like Christ, all of which produces Christ-likeness, will result in being overjoyed upon seeing Jesus. How we handle suffering now determines whether we have joy in front of Christ.
Jesus Himself actually touches on this in John 15. Turn there with me. In that passage, John 15, Jesus was speaking of obedience to His commands, and fruitful living, and all in the context of suffering the hatred and persecution of the world. Then notice what he says in verse 11, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”
The idea of this joy is that all the sacrifice, all the waiting, all the faithfulness, all the suffering, all the hardship, all the dedication has a payoff. When you see Jesus you will know that everything you did to live faithfully for Him is then validated. Right now you have faith that it is all worth it. But when you stand before Him the Maker of the Universe will pronounce that your faithfulness was all worth it.
I think the moment we see Jesus there will be an immediate response in our spirits, in our hearts. But it will be one of two responses. Either there will be great joy and confidence, or there will be great fear and embarrassment. It all depends on whether we lived in our stumbling, lived with our fault against us our whole lives, or whether we lived faultless, whether we lived
APPLICATION: Secure your own joy. Live now to secure your joy then, when you see Jesus.
APPLICATION: Be willing to endure the loss of joy from worldly things in order to secure this joy in front of Christ
APPLICATIOn to the APPLICATION: let us learn that joy we can and do have in Christ, no matter what our circumstances. Whatever loss we suffer, whatever grief seizes us, whatever pain comes into our life, whatever setback, let us all learn the joy of our Lord Jesus that is always ours – especially in the loss of all other joys. “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.”
So the point here is this: Our sanctification determines our presentation. How we live now determines how it will go for us on the day we’re presented to Jesus. I urge you to live sanctified lives now, so that the result for you is that you may show up in front of Jesus “without fault” and with “great joy.”