1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
Tom Shrader opens 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 by grounding the passage in Paul's shift from commending the Thessalonians to addressing practical holiness in daily life. He focuses on sanctification as God's revealed moral will, arguing that sexual purity — defined as any sexual activity outside heterosexual marriage — is not Tom's personal opinion but God's direct command. He closes by connecting the rejection of this teaching to grieving the Holy Spirit, and warns against a merely rule-based response, emphasizing that holiness flows from acceptance by God rather than toward it.
“My problem isn't that I don't know enough — my problem is I don't do what I already know.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: In Light of His Coming
Recorded: 2011 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 50 min
Themes: sexual purity, holiness, God's will, obedience, self-control, temptation, the Holy Spirit, grace, struggling with sexual temptation, young adult, new believer, single person, married couple, feeling condemned by rules, questioning God's standards, seeking God's will
Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8, 1 Thessalonians 1:2-3, 1 Thessalonians 2:7, 1 Thessalonians 2:11, 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13, Philippians 2:12, Philippians 3:8-14, Hebrews 11:6, Colossians 3:2, Ephesians 4:29-32, Ephesians 4:30, Romans 13:1, Psalm 78:40-41, Isaiah 63:9-10
Theological Themes: sanctification, becoming holy, God's moral will, sexual ethics, pneumatology, grieving the Holy Spirit, biblical authority, justification before obedience
Full Transcript
Introduction
Open your Bibles to First Thessalonians chapter 4. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand and they will bring you one. If you get a Bible from us, it is page 640.
I would say this is my assessment of the way I teach. It is fairly unorthodox in the sense that I rarely have an introduction or a close. I rarely have something scripted at the beginning or at the end. It kind of just works its way through. My friends will say constantly, "I could never work that way," and I say, "Why? I couldn't do what you do."
We had our study group getting ready for this session, and this is one that lends itself to some introduction. There are three or four or five ways to really introduce this section. You can introduce it with the idea in verse 3 of the will of God, and you can make a big thing about that. I will make reference to it, but that is not necessarily where I am going to start. One of the guys had written in his notes "great starting point: will of God," because we get that question all the time. Someone wants to ask questions, they will ask whether Bono is the Antichrist, who is the Antichrist, can I lose my salvation, and then there is always the question about how do I know God's will.
In verses 3, 4, and 7 you also see the word sanctification, so we could talk about being set apart for God's use, God's purpose, and God's way. That word may be brand new to some of you, and others of you may say you are kind of familiar with it but do not quite know what it means. All of us need to understand what we are talking about there. Then in verse 8, connecting it with verse 2, he is talking about authority, and verse 8 says that if you reject this teaching you are not just rejecting the human messenger — you are rejecting the Holy Spirit. Depending on time, I want to talk a little about what it means to reject the Holy Spirit.
A Restaurant Conversation
I was in a restaurant the other night by myself. Sometimes I suppose that must be a pathetic sight, a person eating alone — there I am, eating alone, checking my messages, nothing there, lonely man. The owner came over. I know the owner a little bit, so we started talking, and then he asked how Susan was. I said she was doing great, better than me. He said, "Oh wow, that's cool." Then I said she is in heaven. So that started a conversation. He would not be a Christian in the way I think Scripture defines a Christian.
He said, "Can I ask you some questions?" I said no problem. He said, "Give me your view on the sanctity of life." I said I would be pro-life, and right away — this is a classic — right away he said, "Even in rape and incest?" I said, "Let me tell you a story." I was teaching on the sanctity of life one Thursday, and a man came up afterwards and began to show me a series of pictures of his daughter — here she was when she was born, here she is at one, at three, at five, here she is now as a young lady. He said, "What no one knows is that we were away on vacation and my wife was raped. This is the product of that rape." So I have my rape and incest case right there, but who am I really penalizing? The baby.
I am also pragmatic. So if I were president — which by the way would make this a far better place to live — if you brought me a bill that said we are going to outlaw abortion except in cases of rape and incest, I would be strongly opposed to that exception, but I would sign the bill in a nanosecond, because it would wipe out over 90% of the abortions that occur.
He then asked, "How about homosexuality?" I said, "Well, let me talk to you about that." I am going to save the detailed answer for the lesson today, because it is part of what we are covering. Then he asked, "What do you think about just living with a girl — what do you think about that?" So I answered the question, and then I asked him, "What do you think about Jesus?" He said he believed Jesus lived and that Jesus was a great teacher and all that. I said I believe that too, but I believe more.
The Real Issue: Whose Authority?
Now here is why I told that story. Number one, this is the kind of conversation I encourage you to have, and I want you to know that I have them too. Number two, there are not many variations of that story. Number three — and here is the point I want to press on today — he kept saying, "What do you think? What do you think? What do you think?" I would answer and say, "Here is what I think the Bible says," and then, "Here is what the Bible says," and then, "Here is what the Bible teaches," because in reality it is largely irrelevant what I think. I am not that interested in what I think. What he was really doing, and he is a —
The Bible as Our Final Authority
Everybody has a theology — everybody is a theologian. But where do you get yours? From Rush? From Oprah? From the comics? From Charlie Brown's Christmas? Charles Schulz told you something about Christmas. We all have to get it from somewhere. For us, this is 101. This is the basics. This is why, when we had a chance to name this church for the first time, it was East Valley Bible Church — because the Bible is our final authority.
Think of it like the Supreme Court of the United States. Take the healthcare bill. Go back and forth, argue about it, take it to the Court of Appeals, take it to the next court, and finally it reaches the Supreme Court. Whatever comes out of the Supreme Court, that is it. No more appeals. That is the final verdict, the final decision. For us as Christians, we can go back and forth, but once we look at what it says and God says it, that is the end of the discussion. We can nuance it, we can argue, we can say, "Well, that's what it means to you" — but that is what it says. When Jesus said there is no way to the Father but through Me, how are you going to interpret that?
Look at verse 3: "abstain from sexual immorality." You might want to say, "Well, abstain in the Greek means..." — abstain in the Greek means abstain. That is just it. So that is what we have to come back to, over and over again, in this book. We don't study the Bible because we're obsessed with understanding it for the sake of information, but for the sake of understanding how we are supposed to live. If you will allow a simple illustration: it is the owner's manual written by the manufacturer, telling you how to get maximum efficiency out of this life.
Maybe you are here today as a first-timer, someone new to this, and your life feels like it stinks and you are trying to figure it out. That same night I was talking to a young lady who was saying everything seems so dark, everything is a little fearful, and she just did not know how to figure it out. Here is the answer: the Bible. What does God say? When we studied that series on doctrine, the story was: God creates, man breaks, God restores. Past, present, future. We come back to this book. That is where I come from by way of introduction.
Looking Back at Chapters 1–3
As you look at chapter 4, verse 1, the first word is "finally" — actually the second word is "then," so it reads "finally then." You sense that there is a change. In chapters 1, 2, and 3, Paul has been looking back. Remember, Paul was at Thessalonica with these people for about three weeks, and then he left. He sent Timothy back on a reconnaissance mission — go find out what is going on there. Timothy comes back with a wonderful report. That is what we saw in week one.
Chapter 1, verse 2: "We give thanks for you." Why? Verse 3 — and I love verse 3 of chapter 1 — "for your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope." In chapter 1, Paul defined each of those. The work of faith was that they turned from idols. The labor of love was serving the living God. The steadfastness of hope is waiting for Christ to come again — not passively waiting, but actively waiting.
So Timothy arrived back with his report. Apparently that report contained at least two other subject lines. One was the criticism leveled against Paul. We saw a lot of that in the first three chapters — Paul responding to those who said he was just in it for the money, those who said he spoke in a cavalier way, all of those accusations. And apparently there were also some questions. Timothy came back saying everything is great — not meaning everything is perfect — and here are some things that are lingering. The accusations are all false, and the people also had questions about how they should live, and especially about Jesus coming again.
So Paul writes this letter — the first of the two letters to Thessalonica that we have, hence the title First Thessalonians. He commends them for all they have done, he answers the critics, and he begins to deal with their questions. In chapters 1, 2, and 3 he looked back. In chapters 4 and 5 he deals with the present — the challenges, the issues they face, practical matters of how they should live, motivation for living that way — and then he deals with future events.
The Bridge from Chapter 3 to Chapter 4
Here is what Tim taught and closed with last week. Look at the end of chapter 3, verses 11 through 13: "Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. And may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another and for all people, just as we also do for you, so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints."
Paul is saying: you have done great, but don't quit. Everything has been amazing — that work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope has been incredible, and you have grown, and we have seen that. But be careful, you have not arrived yet. Keep going. Those are the words: "increase and abound more and more." What he is saying to us — and by us I mean us here, in Gilbert, in 2011 — is this: those of us who come in repentance and faith, with that work of faith, that labor of love, that steadfastness of hope, are followers of Christ, as certain of heaven as the saints who are already there.
So just like yesterday — Sarah sent me a text. Sarah loves Christmas. She plays Christmas music all year long.
Sanctification: A Lifelong Journey
Timmy stayed up the other night — this is an act of love, honestly — and put up the Christmas tree. He stayed up until one o'clock to put it up. So Sarah began decorating and sent me a picture of it yesterday. She sent me a text with the picture and said, "I wish mom could see this." I texted back and said, "Maybe she can."
Here is what I know. I am not entirely clear on exactly what Susan is doing right now. I do not know if she can hear me. I do not know if she knows what I am thinking. But I do know this: absent from the body, present with the Lord — she is there now. And I will be there one day too, not based on who I am, but based on the truth that He who began the good work in you will continue it to the day of Christ Jesus. So I am as certain of heaven — and so are you, if you know Christ — as the saints who are already there. Nothing can change that.
But until then, He said, "I have left you here for a mission." Though you are as prepared for heaven as you will ever be — you cannot be any more saved than you already are — there is still this process of sanctification: of being set apart, of being conformed to the image of Christ. That is a lifelong journey with no finish line but death. And even when I arrive at death, I still have not arrived in the sense of being sinless.
Please God, Control Yourself, Love One Another
So what we are going to look at this week and next covers two sections: this week, verses one through eight, and next week, verses nine through twelve. Paul is going to write to them and to us and tell us three things: we need to please God, we need to control ourselves, and we need to love one another. In this process of waiting faithfully, he says, this is what I want you to do — please God, control yourself, and love one another.
He opens with, "Finally, brethren." Brothers and sisters — the relationship here is one of spiritual DNA, not physical DNA. He says, "We request and exhort you." The word "request" carries the idea of a gentle, humble suggestion among friends. It is not a military command. "Exhort" means to come alongside.
Remember what we looked at two weeks ago when we were talking about authority. Back in chapter two, verse seven, Paul said, "We proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children." Then in verse eleven: "Just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children." So he says, listen, my relationship with you is like a parent with a child in the best sense of the word — a mother who nurtures, a father who encourages — and there is discipline associated with this as well.
The Cake Illustration
I got the idea — not entirely sure where it came from — that for Thanksgiving I would bake a cake. Susan always made the turkey, so Sarah was taking care of that this year, and we had decided to scale back a lot. But I was sitting there on Wednesday morning and I thought, I am going to make a cake from scratch. So I Googled what kind of cake I would like. My favorite is a spice cake, but I knew the girls would say, "We just made that for you." So I searched for chocolate cake, printed out the first recipe that came up, and headed to the store.
This was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and I was essentially the only man there. I learned a great deal from this experience — among other things, there is a difference between baking soda and baking powder. I got everything I needed, went home, read the recipe, reread it, and came up with a plan. I did not know a lot of the terms and did not have all the blending equipment I needed. The recipe said to bake it twenty-five to thirty minutes, but at thirty minutes it was still liquid, so I baked it for forty-seven minutes. I did not taste it myself, but the kids tasted it and said it was good.
A Parenting Illustration at Fry's
While I was at Fry's, I witnessed something. The pulpit here is the shopping basket with a child in it, and here is the mom. The child is screaming. The mom comes up and begins counting: one, two — and I could not handle it. Now, for those of you who are new, let me illustrate how this should work. One — that is it. I know, that is all the older folks clapping right there. I showed grace by counting to one. It should have simply been immediate. This is not primarily about parenting, but here is a basic principle: delayed obedience is disobedience. If you count to ten, they will stop at nine. If you count to eight, they will stop at seven. If you do not count at all, they will obey.
As a parent, I had a harder time with Sarah because Sarah is a lot like me. I had to be careful, because when pushed, I would punish Sarah in anger rather than discipline her in love. What Paul is saying is this: as a loving, nurturing parent, I want to encourage you. I want to be your cheerleader. That is what he is doing.
The Authority Behind the Exhortation
Paul says he wants to exhort them "in the Lord Jesus Christ." There are two possibilities in that phrase. He is either saying that because you are in the Lord — that is, a Christian — this applies to you, or he is saying that this admonishment and encouragement comes in the Lord's name and carries His authority. Frankly, both readings work. He is saying, because you are a follower of Christ, here is my encouragement for you, and this is Christ's encouragement to you. You have received instruction on how you ought to live. He says, I am going to tell you these things — and in a way, I have already said them.
The Familiar Ground of Repeated Teaching
Already in verse 1 Paul says, "these are the things you received." In verse 6 he says, "these we also told you." In verse 11, "as we commanded you." This is not new material. It can feel, if it feels this way to me it probably feels this way to you, like the same things are being said over and over again. I find great encouragement in that, because Paul is essentially saying, we already talked about all this.
Samuel Johnson said, "I need to be reminded more than I need to be instructed." He was not teaching against teaching. He was saying, in my own words, my problem is not that I don't know enough — my problem is that I don't do what I already know. So I have to go back over this again and again. That is exactly what Paul is doing here: returning to what was already taught, and grounding it in how we ought to walk and how we please God.
Holiness in Everyday Life
This idea of "walk" is a code of conduct — how we behave ourselves in everyday, ordinary life. One quote on holiness puts it this way: "Holiness is the everyday business of every Christian. It evidences itself in the decisions we make and the things we do hour by hour, day by day." When we think of holiness, we tend to picture a monk or a cloistered group set apart from the world. That is not, in my view, what God is calling us to.
Jesus prayed, "Father, as You sent Me into the world, I am sending them into the world." God's desire is not to remove you from the world but to place you into it. Why? Because you are salt and light in the middle of it. There is another quote worth holding onto: "Any idiot can face a crisis — it's day-to-day living that wears you out." Almost everyone I know rises to the occasion when a crisis hits. That is not usually where people struggle. It is the ordinariness that gets them.
I read a wonderful book on Richard Nixon a few years ago, written by a Brit named Jonathan Adkin. He came to the project intending to write a critical account of Nixon, and by the end of it he found himself admiring him. He spoke with Henry Kissinger about Nixon, and Kissinger said that Nixon was remarkable in a crisis, but it was the day-to-day matters that wore him down. That is true for most of us.
This holiness is not a mountaintop experience. It is every day. It is how you react at school, how you take a test, how you work, how you make a presentation. I had a long conversation with a businessman this week, and he was drawing a distinction between generations — specifically between the fathers in business and their sons. His observation was that the fathers seemed far more willing to compromise on ethics than the sons. He described watching Christian men enter the business world and set their faith entirely to one side. That is precisely what Paul means when he calls us to holiness: your work matters. How you live matters.
The Impossible and the Essential: Pleasing God
Paul says the goal is to please God — literally, to strive to please God. I love the idea that I can know God, love God, and please God, because it speaks of genuine relationship with Him. Hebrews 11:6 says it is impossible to please God — and then Paul here is saying he must please God. The author of Hebrews completes the thought: it is impossible to please God without faith.
What do we mean by faith? We mean believing that God is who He said He was, and that we are who He said we are, and that the world is as it is. It is the understanding that He is in control. When I have that faith, I rest in the truth that He will never leave me, never forsake me, never abandon me, never desert me, never neglect me. That is who He is. And so this walking, this striving — it is grounded entirely in that relationship with Him.
Paul's Resume and What He Counted Loss
Keep your finger in 1 Thessalonians and turn to Philippians chapter 3. Paul is writing here and sharing his spiritual pedigree. He is giving his résumé, and if I could condense it into a phrase, he was, and I mean this without any negative connotation, a super Jew. He did everything. Circumcised on the eighth day, everything that went with it — matters of family, matters beyond his control, full compliance.
And then he says all of that is loss compared to, as verse 8 puts it, "the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." Verse 9: "being found in Him." Verse 10: "that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection." He is saying that is what life is about — not religion, not ritual, but knowing Christ.
Pressing On
Right after that declaration, Paul writes this in verse 12: "Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
That is the same language Paul uses throughout all of his writings — striving, reaching, pressing on. It is not casually crossing the finish line. It is diving across it. That is what it means to pursue the very reason Christ laid hold of us — and that pursuit is the heart of everything Paul is calling the Thessalonians, and us, to.
Sanctification and the Ongoing Work of the Spirit
There is a sense in which, in the whole spiritual life, I never arrive. God is continually exposing my sin to me, and the closer I get to Him, the more I see my sinfulness. The more I begin to see God as He really is, the more I see the gap between Him and me. That is what Paul says — you cannot microwave this. It takes time, and we strive for it.
I talk and teach a lot about contentment in terms of earthly things. I think God calls us to be content, but in a spiritual sense, while I find satisfaction and fulfillment in Christ, there is a sense in which spiritually I am always a little bit discontent. The more I know Him is the more I love Him, and the more I love Him, I want to know Him more — it is a cycle that I can never complete. It is the Holy Spirit who does that work in my life.
Working Out What God Works In
Look at Philippians chapter 2, verse 12: "So then my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation in fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure."
I was once having a discussion with a man from the Catholic Church, and he came to this verse and challenged me, saying, "Listen, this says I am supposed to work out my salvation." What Paul is saying there is not that I should work toward my salvation. What he is saying is that my works and efforts should demonstrate the reality of my salvation. You cannot earn it.
We come back to this over and over, and if there is one person here who has never heard this, it is worth going through again — and yet for all of us, this is sweet sound in our ears. There is nothing I can do to make myself good enough for God. In that discussion, the man was saying he believed it was about doing the best you can. All you have to do is ask the question: what if your best is not good enough? How good do you have to be, and how much of the time?
I came across a great Martin Luther quote this week. He said, "Good works are not important to God, but they are to your neighbor." What he means is that good works are not important to God in terms of your salvation, but they demonstrate — and that is what Paul is saying — they demonstrate to the whole world that you are in fact a new creature. There is no person people hate like a hypocrite, someone who pretends to be something they are not. Paul is not calling anyone to hypocrisy here. He is saying, because you are a Christian, I want you to act this way.
The Authority Behind the Call
The authority Paul has in verse 2 to call believers to this is grounded in the fact that it is "a commandment we give you by the authority of the Lord." This is God's call, not Paul's own. I would be deeply uncomfortable standing here on a Sunday calling you to this if it were my idea — but it is not. That is what he is saying.
Paul lays down the principle and then shows how it works. He says he wants to call them to the way they ought to walk, the way they should conduct themselves and live, and that they should please God. The natural question that follows is: well, what would that look like?
The Will of God and Sexual Sanctification
Verse 3 answers that directly: "For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that is you abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God."
We get the question all the time: what is the will of God? When someone asks that, what they are typically asking is, "I want to know God's specific desire for my life — where should I live, where should I work, where should I go to school?" Let me put that in a category. What we are really saying is, "God, I want to know your single, knowable desire for my life in a particular situation." I do not think that kind of specific singular directive exists, and I find great freedom in that.
Practical Wisdom on Marriage
Take the question of who to marry. Scripture gives us categories: wives submit to your husbands, husbands love your wives. Ladies, if you are going to be a biblical wife, you are going to submit to your husband. Here is what I try to tell women when they ask. One big thing: do not marry a man who is not as sharp as you are. That may be difficult if you are very sharp, but if you marry a man you cannot respect intellectually, you will find it very difficult to submit to him — especially when he makes the inevitable mistakes. If you are going to submit to this man, he needs to be someone you know genuinely cares for you, nurtures you, and loves you.
Men, if you are called to love your wife, you had better choose someone you can actually like. I would find someone I could like and trust that love would grow from there. The feelings and emotions are wonderful, but they are not the whole picture. Susan and I were married 33 years. She is not here, so I can share this freely — she was not always lovable. And I will tell you her secret about me: I did not always make great decisions.
Fixating on finding the one perfect soulmate only creates frustration, agony, and anxiety. Find someone you can submit to or love — someone you like, someone who is a good friend.
God's Moral Will and Sexual Purity
Once you say "I do," you have found the one God has for you. That is why I would not rush into marriage. Questions like "Where should I go to college?" or "Where should I live?" are different matters entirely. The will of God we are talking about here is God's moral will.
I had a guy — I'll call him PL — who wanted to meet with me. I did not like him when he walked in. I did not like the way he was dressed, did not like his watch. I make fast decisions, so I had to confess, "God, I could be wrong, but I doubt it. Let's see." He talked and talked, and I asked him to tell me a little about himself, which turned out to be his favorite subject. But the way he talked about his girlfriend sounded odd, and I asked whether he was living with her. He said yes.
Then he told me why he had come: he wanted to know God's will for his life. I told him I could help with that. I asked whether he was sexually active with this girl, and he said yes. I said, "This is real easy — God is good." Then I read him 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 3: *"This is the will of God, your sanctification — that is, you abstain from sexual immorality."* I told him he needed to move out. Even then he did not quite get it. He wanted to talk about where God wanted him, whether God had ministry for him. I said, "I don't know about all that. I know this: He does not want you to be sexually active with this girl."
Sexual Purity Is Not Age-Graded
The way this man rationalized it — he was about thirty-five — revealed something I have noticed when dealing with Christians. It is as though sexual purity is really important if you are fifteen, but less important if you are twenty-five, as if this part of the Bible is age-graded. That is not what God says. That is God's will, full stop.
Let me go back to the homosexuality issue. Because it is so explosive — far more explosive than abortion, and the one that draws the most reaction from me — I want to say this as lovingly as I can. The Bible condemns homosexuality. Let me finish the sentence: just like it condemns premarital sex, or sex when you are married with someone other than your spouse, just like it condemns gossip and being drunk. So it is a sin. It is not the unpardonable sin, but it is a sin.
Is it a perversion? Let me put it in context. If you are here today, not married, and you are having a heterosexual sexual relationship, that is perverted. Anything other than man, woman, permanent, monogamous marriage — anything other than that sexually — is a perversion of God's plan. To me, that framing takes a little of the sting out of singling one sin out and puts everything in its proper perspective.
The Greco-Roman World and Paul's Direct Challenge
Paul picks this issue out primarily because it was fairly universal — meaning it was a problem in his own time. The Greco-Roman world was perhaps one of the most promiscuous cultures that has ever existed. Even though Rome had outlawed polygamy by this point, men were making regular visits to prostitutes. If they owned female slaves, they were having sex with them. It was far more pervasive than what we face today, even with the added tools the internet provides.
So Paul is writing, and these people are essentially saying, "Wait a minute — Paul, it's 55 AD. This is who we are." In the middle of a discussion the other night, a gentleman said to me, "Tom, it's 2011." That is exactly what they were saying to Paul. His point, though, was never that this was his perspective. His point was that it is God's perspective.
How the Cultural Stigma Shifted
I want to stay on this because I think it has a great deal of application. I graduated from grade school in 1964, high school in 1968, and then went to college right in the middle of the seventies — there were no rules. I had what I would say was about 220 kids in my senior class, and I was somewhere in the middle socially. I knew most of what was going on. I knew two kids who were sexually active.
You would not hear numbers like that today, and the reason is straightforward. First, a guy could not easily find a girl who would. Second, if a girl started sleeping with a guy — or more than one — she became "that kind of girl." There was a social stigma attached to it, and there was the very real possibility of pregnancy, which was no small thing.
The Stigma Reversed
Fast-forward to 2011, and the stigma has completely reversed. Now the stigma is not if you do, but if you don't. Think about Tim Tebow. How can anyone hate Tim Tebow? I am awake a lot at night — I fall asleep, then I am up after about forty-five minutes and I listen to sports radio all night. These guys hate Tim Tebow. He does not even push his religion; he answers questions when asked. Meanwhile, there are guys in the NFL who have killed people, shot themselves, beaten their wives — and the hate is directed at Tim Tebow. The stigma now is not if you do, it is if you don't.
And then medicine comes along and gives you the pill. So if your reasons for not participating in premarital sex were social or...
Sanctification and Self-Control
God's purpose in your life is that you would be sanctified — set apart from sin to live a holy life for Him, sexually and in every other way. Paul is clear in verse 5: do not live in lustful passions, feelings that are out of control. There needs to be a restraint, so you are not controlled by every impulse. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. That is Paul's whole point: you do not have to live like that anymore.
This is not to say that it is not a struggle. Whether it is sexual temptation, money, or whatever your particular battle happens to be, the point is that through the Holy Spirit you have the power to begin to engage in that battle. There may even be times when you fail, but you go back and start over again. Colossians 3:2 says to set your mind on the things above — you begin to look upward.
It is very hard in the world we live in. There are things on television, on the internet, in movies, in discussions, in jokes, in conversations, in the way people are dressed — all of it is there. Sin starts in the mind, so that is where it has to be stopped. Do not let your mind go there.
The person who does not know Christ is not restrained, nor would you expect them to be, because they do not have the power in them that you have in you. Verse 7 makes this plain: "For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but for sanctification." God's purpose for your life is that you would be set apart from sin to live a holy life for Him.
Replacing, Not Just Restraining
It is not enough simply to stop. If you are a reader and you fancy yourself a student, go home and look up the name Thomas Chalmers — C-H-A-L-M-E-R-S — and his work "The Expulsive Power of Affection." What Paul is saying is that there are things you will restrain yourself from, but they must be replaced. If you simply take something away, you create a vacuum, and that vacuum has to be filled with something.
A simple illustration makes the point. When a grandchild is playing with something he should not be playing with, simply saying "stop it, stop it, stop it" does not help him, does not help you, and does not help the situation. The better approach is to walk over, take away what he was playing with, and give him something you want him to play with instead. The Christian life works the same way.
It is not just about abstaining from sexual immorality. It is about replacing those things with a passion and love for God and for Christ. The call is not only to turn away from something, but to turn toward something greater.
Rejecting This Teaching Is Rejecting God
Now look at the final verse. If you are sitting here today and you are rejecting this teaching, you are not rejecting a man. You are not rejecting Paul, and you are not rejecting the preacher. You are rejecting God, who gives His Holy Spirit to you. Paul is clear that the authority behind this instruction is not his own — it comes from God.
Ephesians 4:30 connects directly to this point: "Do not grieve the Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." That phrase "sealed" points to the security of your salvation. But how do you grieve the Spirit of God? The answer is right there in verse 8 before us — it is to reject.
Two passages reinforce this. Psalm 78:40-41 says they rebelled against Him in the desert and grieved Him. Isaiah 63:10 says the same thing: "They rebelled and they grieved the Holy Spirit of God." The pattern is consistent. How do you grieve God? By doing the very thing Paul is addressing here in 1 Thessalonians 4 — rejecting His teaching and rebelling against Him.
Direct and Delegated Divine Authority
Here is a definition of rebellion that is worth holding onto: to reject God's direct or delegated divine authority. When we think of rebellion, we tend to think of the obvious case — God says in 1 Thessalonians 4:3 to abstain from sexual immorality, and we do not do it. That is rejecting God's direct divine authority.
But God also exercises delegated authority. Romans 13:1 says, "Every person should be in subjection to his governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority" — resists what God has put in place. Rebellion is not only refusing God's explicit commands. It also includes refusing the authority structures He has established and delegated in this world.
Living Under Delegated Authority
When someone opposes the ordinance of God, Paul's point is clear: when I disobey the government over me, I have disobeyed God. That direct authority flows downward from God Himself. A practical example of this came up at Susan's memorial service, when someone asked why the church doesn't put up a bigger sign out front so people can find the place. The answer is simple: the sign outside is the largest sign the town of Gilbert will permit. If a bigger sign were put up, it would mean grieving the Holy Spirit and rebelling against God, because the governance of the town of Gilbert has set that boundary. That is how seriously we must take delegated authority.
Some people will immediately ask, "But what if you were in Nazi Germany?" That is a separate and complex question for another time. The principle Paul lays down remains: I grieve God's Spirit when I reject the authority He has delegated, just as I do when I reject His direct authority.
God's Call to Holy Living
This is what Paul is telling us in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, in those first eight verses. God has called us to live holy lives, and how we live matters. There should be a clear distinctiveness about the way we live.
There is, however, a danger in this. The danger is that it becomes very legalistic — that it suddenly becomes all about rules. But that is not what Paul is saying. He is not telling us to live this way in order to gain acceptance with God. He is saying that because we have already been accepted by God, we should live this way.
Looking Ahead
If this were a video, it would say "to be continued." Next week we pick up the second part, beginning with verses 9 through 12, along with a brief summary to connect the two sections.
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Father, thank You that You love us and care for us. God, we pray and confess that there are times when we grieve Your Spirit, and the way we do it is very simply to reject the things that You have given us — direct and delegated. God, I pray that as we read these words and listen to this teaching, it challenges us. God, I pray that You would draw us closer and closer to You every day. We pray that in Christ's name, amen.