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1 Thessalonians 4:3-8, For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; [4] that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, [5] not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; [6] and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. [7] For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. [8] So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.
This passage is amazing. Paul wrote it not only for the Thessalonians but for our times as well. To say we live in a culture obsessed with every conceivable perversion of sex is an understatement. The further we get away from God, the more vile, perverted, and violent people become. In 1980 Martyn Lloyd-Jones preached a sermon on Psalm 2 describing the world like this, “It’s an age of vileness, an age of raging. It’s an age in which men and women are breaking every rule and law and the entire world is in a state of confusion.” This was 35 years before the Obergefell Supreme Court decision that gave same sex couples the legal right to marry. We’ve come a long way since then – the wrong way! And just like the Thessalonian church, no church is immune from the strong temptations and seductions toward moral impurity. Whether it’s pornography available with a few clicks on a phone or the normalizing of homosexuality and all kinds of sexual deviancy, even including changing one’s gender, our culture is swimming in a moral cesspool. I don’t know much about Bad Bunny, but the pictures I’ve seen assure us he is not the moral role model we want for half time entertainment at this year’s Super Bowl. That’ll be a good time to turn off the TV and open your Bible. Maybe re-read Romans 1.
Are you fighting the battle for moral purity? Every man under the age of, say 110, deals with this to some degree. If you deny it, you probably have another problem – lying. Or you’ve already died. Women battle this whole area also, though in different ways. In general men struggle with lust; women struggle with wanting to be lusted after. Part of a mother’s calling is to teach her daughters the gender differences, how to dress modestly, and what happens when a girl touches a boy. As one wise pastor said, “When the physical gets involved, passions are aroused, and reason flies out the window.”
When Timothy returned from visiting the Thessalonian believers, he informed Paul how they were struggling with moral impurity. God’s call to moral purity slammed headfirst into the Greek world of sexual license, even using prostitutes as priestesses in temples as part of the religious rituals. And so Paul turns his attention to solemnly addressing the issue. We’re going to take at least two weeks to work through the passage and pull in other Scripture to help us apply the teaching to our lives.
GOD’S WILL IS VERY CLEAR
1 Thessalonians 4:3, For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality;
Let’s look back to verse 2 where Paul reminds them of the authoritative instruction he had given them while he was with them: “You know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.” These are not suggestions; they’re commandments straight from Jesus. Verse 8 says if you ignore this teaching you aren’t ignoring man but God. Paul is emphatic, “Listen up, people. You need to hear this. If you’re going to walk and please God, this teaching has to get a grip on your heart and direct your behavior.”
Paul begins verse 3, “Here is God’s will. Here is what God wants for your life.” This isn’t God’s decreed will – this is God’s moral will and we have a responsibility to obey it. So what does God want? He wants your sanctification. That’s one of those 16-cylinder words we assume everyone knows, but many don’t. What does it mean? It means set apart. Our words holy and holiness comes from sanctification. You see the word “sanctification” in verse 4 and 7. Jesus used that word when He prayed in John 17:17, “Father, sanctify them through Your truth. Your Word is truth.”
YOUR REDEMPTION
Let’s review how God saved you. He loved you and chose you in Christ in eternity past: “knowing, brothers and sisters, beloved by God, His choice of you” (1 Thess. 1:4). Then He sent His Son to purchase and redeem you from the slave market of sin by satisfying God’s wrath against your sin on the cross. That’s propitiation. God made Jesus to be sin for you. He defeated death and the devil for you through His resurrection. That was 2000 years ago.
Now come to our time. God sent the Spirit to convict you of your sin and give you a new heart. That’s regeneration. You heard the gospel, you repented, turned from sin, and believed in Christ alone to save you from God’s wrath. You were born again. When you turned to Christ, God instantly justified you or declared you righteous because Jesus’ righteousness was imputed to your account before God. Not only that but He adopted you into His family. He united you to Jesus Christ and you are now a joint heir with Christ and are headed for the Celestial City, and nothing can stop you. You’re in His hand and nothing can snatch you out of His hand (John 10:28), nothing can separate you from His love forever (Romans 8:38-39). This all happened in the past when you were saved.
YOUR SANCTIFICATION
Let’s go back to the great doctrine of sanctification, which literally means “set apart from sin to God.” There’s a positional sanctification that also happened when you were saved. Hebrews 10:10, “By this will (God’s will or plan) we have been sanctified (set apart from sin to God) through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” First Corinthians 1:30 says Christ is our sanctification. If you are a genuine believer, you are in Christ and set apart in Him from the condemnation of sin once for all. That’s positional sanctification.
Then there’s progressive sanctification, which begins the moment you were saved and united to Jesus Christ and continues throughout your Christian life. You are in the process of being sanctified or being transformed into the image of Christ, all the way up to when you go to be with Jesus. This doesn’t mean you’re perfect. You’re a new creation in Christ but you still have the remainders of sin in your body, as Paul describes in Romans 7. That’s where your battle with sin comes in. But you should be growing in sanctification. It’s that process of putting off the deeds of the flesh and putting on the fruit of the Spirit. You see it all over the epistles. Ephesians 4:31-32 says, “Put off all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, along with all malice, and put on kindness, tender-heartedness, forgiving one another just as God in Christ forgave you.” This is the process of progressive sanctification and something God calls you to throughout your Christian life. (Are you with me?)
Now, God’s will in verse 3 is your sanctification, or your being set apart from sin to God in your thoughts, will, motives, words, actions. You are in a life-long process of growing in holiness, godliness, and Christlikeness. What aspect of sanctification is Paul calling you to? God’s will for you is to be set apart from all moral impurity. The word for impurity is pornefia. Does that sound familiar? He says, “Abstain from sexual immorality.” Abstain means to stop, to quit, to cut clean from it, to keep clear of it. To add some punch from Matthew 5:28 Jesus says, “If you look at a woman with lust for her you have committed adultery in your heart. So to avoid it if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you.” We call this radical spiritual surgery. Do whatever it takes to keep from committing porneia, sexual immorality of any kind. God doesn’t say “try” to stop. He doesn’t tell you to “gradually” stop committing fornication or adultery or any other sexual sin. Second Timothy 2:22 says, “Flee youthful lusts and follow godliness.” When you are tempted, you run and take off like you would run away from a poisonous snake. Or as Keith Carter taught us, “Look away and walk away.” Remember Joseph. He ran away from the seductress Mrs. Potiphar.
Listen how radical Paul is in Colossians 3:5. After he reminds us of our new life in Christ he says, “Kill those temptations.” King James uses the word “mortify” – consider your body dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desires, and greed.
Colossians 3:5-6, Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. [6] For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience,
In 1 Peter 2:11 Peter says, “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul.” This isn’t a picnic; it’s a war. Satan wants to use your moral impurity to ruin your testimony for Christ and bring disgrace to Christ.
GOD’S PLAN FOR MARRIAGE AND SEXUALITY
Before we go any further let me give you a little graphic to help you remember God’s plan for the two genders. Today’s culture wants to turn this upside down and have the intimacy of marriage first. No, God’s design is to begin with marriage. He made two genders in Genesis 1; He made the first couple male and female. Every human born is either a male with XY chromosomes or a female with XX chromosomes. God made them male and female. It’s bizarre and flagrant rebellion to try to change your gender and being “trans-affirming” is just as wicked. I like the old Norman Rockwell type magazine picture of a boy telling his mom, “Sometimes I feel like a girl.” Mom’s reply is immediate and final, “Well, you’re not!” End of discussion. No therapy; no visit to the doctor.
Then God gave directions for what marriage is to look like in Genesis 2. A man is to leave his parents and cleave to his wife and then the two weave their lives together. They become one flesh. How long is this marriage to last? “Til death do us part.” Marriage is a sacred covenant between a man and a woman. Jesus said in Matthew 19:6, “What God joins together don’t be ripping apart.” The responsibility in marriage is love. That’s agape love – not a feeling but a responsibility as Paul described it in 1 Corinthians 13. It’s self-denying for the blessing of the other. Husbands are to love their wives like Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her (Eph. 5:25). And then you have the intimacy and enjoyment of marriage. Ecclesiastes 9:9 says, “Enjoy life with the wife of your youth.” First Corinthians 7:5 tells married couples, “Don’t deprive one another sexually so Satan doesn’t tempt you.” And Proverbs 5:19 says husbands should be madly in love with their wives; even intoxicated or ravished with her love.
This is God’s plan for marriage and sexuality. Any sexual behavior outside of a man and a woman united in sacred marriage is porneia, and God says, “Abstain from porneia.”
Hebrews 13:4, Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.
Premarital sex, extra-marital sex, homosexuality, pornography, and perverted, deviant sex are all clearly and strongly prohibited by God. Picture a yard with a fence around it. That yard is marriage. All sexual activity outside the fence is porneia. Or picture a family room with a fireplace. As long as the fire is in the fireplace, you’re safe. But if you start a fire in the middle of the floor, you’ve got a problem. When two people are in a dating relationship and want to honor Christ, they need clear physical boundaries. It’s not how far can you go but how you can honor Christ in your relationship.
This is God’s will – your sanctification, your holiness, your sexual purity. You don’t have to ask God if He wants you to be sexually involved with that person you are dating, or if you should go back to those videos online, or if having same sex attraction is okay and maybe hooking up with that person will be fine. No, no, no! Confess your lust as sin and ask God to help you conquer your moral impurity.
SEXUAL IMPURITY THEN AND NOW
Man’s sin nature perverted sex from the very beginning. Men used God’s gifts to please themselves. In Genesis 4 you have polygamy. Homosexuality, rape, incest, bestiality soon followed. The Canaanites were a sexually defiled people. God brought judgment on their iniquity through the Israelites and warned the Israelites not to be defiled by their pagan practices.
The Thessalonians were living in a culture where there was no shame attached to immoral behavior at all. Author William Lecky wrote, “There has probably never been a period when vice was more extravagant or uncontrolled than it was under the Caesars.” So it isn’t surprising that the New Testament epistles made such a big deal about it. By the way, contrary to some preachers’ view, God doesn’t whisper about sexual sin. I don’t think He could have made a bigger statement about immorality than to rain fire and brimstone down on Sodom and Gomorrah. These fledgling Thessalonian believers would face strong temptation. They needed these admonitions. One young man in Corinth got involved sexually with his own stepmother and the church arrogantly defended him. Paul said he needed to be removed from the fellowship of the believers. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. Then Paul added in 1 Corinthians 5:9 not to associate with immoral people who claimed to be Christian. Listen to Paul in 1 Corinthians 6.
1 Corinthians 6:9, Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,
AMAZING GRACE HOW SWEET THE SOUND
Then Paul adds…
1 Corinthians 6:11, Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
Isn’t that good? God’s mercy and grace reach down to the vilest of men. Like John Newton said, “Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.” This is the glory of the gospel. No matter how far down in the pit of human moral filth, God’s grace is sufficient. There is forgiveness in Christ. Jesus came to save us from our sins. And He does. He radically changes people who come to Him. If any man or woman is in Christ, they are a new creation. Paul says, “Such were some of you…” But you’ve been saved. You are now on a path of sanctification, pursuing moral purity, pursuing holiness, walking and pleasing God.
Paul goes on in 1 Corinthians 6 to remind us of who we are, whose we are, and what we are to flee and pursue. The whole notion that it’s my body, my choice, and I have a right to use my body however I want, whether sexually or with an abortion, is wrong. No, it is not your body. Your body belongs to God. Paul tells us here that whenever a Christian commits sexual sin with someone not his wife he is taking Jesus Christ right into that sinful activity.
1 Corinthians 6:15,18-20, Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be!18 Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. [19] Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? [20] For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.
If you are battling impure thoughts and habits, you are not alone. First Corinthians 10:13 says, “No temptation has taken you but such as is common to man.” And know that God and His grace are sufficient to restore you to walking and pleasing God. Maybe you’ve been engaging in immorality that would make you ashamed if other people found out. You are dealing with guilt. Never forget, Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He said tax collectors and prostitutes would get into the kingdom before self-righteous religious people. He told the adulteress, “Your sins are forgiven.” But then He added, “Go and sin no more.” Bring your guilt and shameful heart to Jesus and let Him clean it up. If you repent and confess your sins He is faithful and righteous to forgive and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Then go and sin no more.
We’ll look further into this passage next week, but if your goal is to walk and please God and you want the power to win the battle for purity, you need to cry out to God in prayer and saturate your heart with God’s Word. Remember David’s heart-felt prayer.
Psalm 51:1-2, Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions. [2] Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
Also, review these great short verses for God’s help to overcome temptations.
Psalm 119:9-11, How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word. [10] With all my heart I have sought You; Do not let me wander from Your commandments. [11] Your word I have treasured in my heart, That I may not sin against You.