Graham used a mock powerpoint presentation this morning, you can see it for yourself here.
It is in open format. MS Office users may need to install the Plugin.
Notes are below. The material is made available so that any may use it, adapt it and preach it.
“Fragrance”
This letter to the Corinthians is written in an age of the Holy Spirit, to a church who placed the work of the Spirit in a position of prime importance, and it is follows a letter which made the Holy Spirit a main topic.
See:
1 Corinthians 1:18 where Paul speaks of “power”.
1 Corinthians 2:4 “demonstration of the Spirit’s power”
1 Corinthians 2:10 where Paul speaks of revelation by the Spirit
1 Corinthians 3:16 the Spirit living in a believer
1 Corinthians 4:20 “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.”
1 Corinthians teaches about gifts imparted to the believer by the Spirit’s and the use of the gifts in chapters 12,13 & 14.
Now in 2 Corinthians, the letter’s grand opening in chapter 1is teaching concerning the work of the Holy Spirit, this time in his role as as the Comforter.
Why then should a reader of this matter of “the fragrance of the knowledge of him” interpret it as merely meaning some sort of communication of information or knowledge, like some sort of Bible study?
What then can it mean, this “fragrance of the knowledge of him”?
Death. To some it will aggravate as we bring the smell of judgement. Don’t be intimidated by their conviction.
Life. I think this fragrance to others is a whiff of life and hope eternal, resurrection and new life.
See Acts 23:6Â Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, My brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. I stand on trial because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead.
And, 1 Peter 1:3Â Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
It is more than any of our good moral deeds, it is the impartation of the Holy Spirit, and the things he carries, into the lives and circumstances of others we come in contact with.
An illustration (the spoof presentation)
Do we strive to learn the umpteen steps to bringing someone to Jesus Christ or is there a better way. I suggest we offer to pray for them (then and there) and we encourage them to pray to God themselves. Either this stuff works or it doesn’t!
“The world is not impressed that people attend church on Sunday mornings. If anything, such a habit is viewed as a quaint waste of time. But imagine if every Christian in the world were living as a little Christ.” From “The Gospel According to Starbucks” page 50.
