1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
Holy Living in a XXX World
Introduction
Before I begin this morning’s message, I want you to know that this message is really not suitable for our younger children. If you would like to dismiss your children to children’s chapel you are perfectly welcome to do so. I think that any of the kids who are teenagers should hear the message. I’d like to add this also, that I preached this message several months ago on a Sunday evening. I have found that it is easier to deal with these subjects on Sunday evenings, but since many of you do not come I am compelled to preach it when you are here.
Today we are talking about holy living, or sexual purity. Peter wrote in 1 Peter 1:13-16…
"Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: but as he which hath called is holy; so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, be ye holy; for I am holy."
Peter said that it was written that we are to be holy because God is holy. He was quoting Leviticus 11:44, which says,
"For I am the Lord your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy: neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."
One thing ought to be very clear to you this morning – one of God’s chief desires for you and me is that we be holy, that we be like Jesus Christ in His divine attribute of holiness, and if we are to study our Bibles and be honest and open about what the Scriptures teach, then we cannot escape the fact that a key issue in holiness is the subject of sex. I am finding that this is perhaps one subject that Christian people like to discuss the least – at least in the light, and most don’t enjoy hearing it from the pulpit. It’s not that Christian people aren’t talking about sex or aren’t exposed to it. Quite the contrary! Everywhere you go it is a hot topic. Every evening most of you invite it right into your living rooms and don’t think too much about it. It’s in the papers, on TV, on the radio, in our schools and everywhere else you can think of.
Because sexual issues are confronting God’s people so frequently, and because it is a frequent subject in the Scriptures, it is necessary for us to deal with the subject today. It is an issue that effects both men and women, and more and more it is involving boys and girls. This is not a new problem. Sometime when you get home take a moment to read through Leviticus 18 and notice that God had to take time to spell out very specifically His desires for the Israelites concerning sexual purity. It deals with such things as pedophilia, incest, beastiality, homosexuality, adultery and so forth. God had to get graphic with those folk because He already knew what man left to his own devices would do. God’s desire for you as His people is that you be sexually pure in every way, both in the light and in the dark, both in public and in private, so that your character is consistent with your reputation. God’s people must be a people of sexual purity and integrity.
Let’s read our text in 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 and then I want to lead each of you to make some clear choices concerning your own sexual purity.
"Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more. For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor; not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: that no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified. For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit."
Now, whether you are 15, 18, 40 or 65 I want you to deal with your sexual purity. I want you to deal with your own sexual purity, because it is too easy to look around and point the finger and hope that so and so is listening. If you are going to maintain a high level of sexual purity throughout your life, then you need to…
Recognize Jesus as the sole authority on maintaining sexual purity.
When Paul began this section, he said, "Brethren, we beseech, or beg and exhort you by the Lord Jesus Christ (by His authority)…that as you have received from us how you ought to walk, or conduct your lives and please God, that you would continue to do so more and more." Then he goes on in the next verse to mention the teachings he gave them by the Lord Jesus. He doesn’t mention any teachings in particular, but we can see from the context that he had spent some time dealing with this subject of sexual purity to the Thessalonian believers. You see, Paul was saying to this church, "I taught you what I did by the authority of Jesus Christ. I left you those instructions because they were His instructions."
Why did Paul have to deal with sexual purity in their church? He had to do so because sexual immorality was a major problem. It was common in that day for men to take several wives. Temple prostitution was a common form of worship to the false gods of the day. It was an honor for a woman to serve as a temple prostitute. Homosexuality was common, as was using slaves for sexual gratification. Now for Jewish believers, these kinds of issues may not have been so difficult. Remember that they had grown up under a strict moral law, so the high standards of Jesus Christ, while still difficult, would have been easier to accept. On the other hand, you take these Gentile pagan converts who had grown up in a sexually immoral, anything goes culture and tell them to stop, that’s quite a different thing.
Aren’t we facing the same thing today? We’re living in a society where sex and sexual imagery is rampant. You can’t turn anywhere without being faced by it. Perhaps for a handful of Christian people who grew up in strict Christian homes, the problem is not so difficult, but that is the exception to the rule. Most of us grew up and have lived around people and ideas and images that have desensitized us to the sexually explicitness of our society.
Our favorite programs on television contain so much that we don’t even catch it anymore. I’ve mentioned this movie before, but I think it provides a good illustration of the fact. You remember the movie Forest Gump that so many of us enjoyed and laughed our way through. It was full of sexual imagery that we never noticed.
· Remember the scene at the beginning where Sally Field has sex with the school principal to get her son into the right school?
· Remember the bare breasts at the New Year’s party?
· What about the nude-on-stage guitar performance?
· Remember the end of the movie when Forest finally gets the girl in the sex scene and they conceive a child out of wedlock?
Listen, Forest Gump is just a mild example of the stuff that we are allowing to shape our lives and the lives of the ones we love the most in our homes. Enough of those kinds of images will begin to shape an individual. As individuals are shaped, homes and churches and even nations are changed. So the question now for you is, who or what is shaping you? Who or what is shaping your mind? Your attitudes? Your conversations? Your sexual habits and practices? You have to answer those questions – and here is the point – when you discover who or what is shaping you, then you have discovered who or what your authority is.
For many women in America, it is Oprah or Dr. Phil. You take a woman who sits around and gorges herself on soap-operas all day and you’ll begin to see ideas and attitudes formed. Schools have taken a more aggressive role in shaping attitudes, and certainly television does. Sometimes our authority is our own lust. We set our moral standards according to what we want to do and how comfortable we are with those things. The problem with all these standards or authorities is that they change. There has to be some authority that transcends all the issues to set the moral standard for our lives, and Jesus Christ is the only authority that can do that.
· Who decides if sex outside of marriage is right or wrong?
· Who decides what a real marriage is?
· Who can say whether homosexuality is wrong?
· Who can rightly decide on issues like abortion?
· What about adultery? Is it wrong? Who says, and in what cases?
· What about incest? What about pedophilia? What about all the fetishes that are running rampant today?
· Who says pornography is bad?
· Who says you can only have one wife or one sex partner?
· Is it wrong for me to lust after a woman? What harm have I done?
· Is rape always wrong? What if the girl was leading the guy on?
You may say those things are wrong, and the next guy says they are right, so who is right? You see, there has to be an authority that transcends you and me, one that transcends time and culture, one that transcends economic status and race barriers, because if there’s not, then anything can and will go.
I don’t care if you’re single or married, if you’re young or old, what your circumstances are, the Bible sets the standard for sexuality for all people in all times and it doesn’t budge. Paul said, “I exhort you, I beg you, by the authority of Jesus Christ that you walk, that you conduct your lives in such a way that will please God.” Notice in verse 1 that Paul says, “how you ought to walk…how you ought to please God.” Is he implying that they weren’t? Perhaps they were trying, but they could do better. Listen, I know that right here in our own church most people want to honor and please the Lord Jesus in their lives. Most of you want that – but have you applied Jesus’ standards for sex in your life?
Men, when it comes to your sexual desires, is Jesus your sole authority? When you are in private, does His Word dictate your actions and behavior and desires? If what you thought about and said and did were to be made public knowledge, would it honor the Lord Jesus? Would it please Him? You see, all of us are striving to please somebody. You may live in order to please yourself, or you may be trying to please your family. Ladies, some of you may be doing things sexually to please your husbands that violates the Bible or your conscience. Men, you may be doing the same. You may be demanding things that are in violation of the Bible. You may be trying to please your friends or trying to impress your coworkers, but when it all boils down, it is Christ that you ought to be aiming to please.
So, what is your authority? By what standard do you gauge whether your sexual desires are pleasing to God or not? Is that standard the Bible? Or is it locker room talk? Listen, let me plead with you the same thing Paul did. You’re doing well. You’re growing in God’s grace and you’re becoming more and more like Jesus, but have you been so quick to bring your sexuality, your ideas about it, your lusts, desires, your thoughts, your character, your conduct in private under the authority of Jesus Christ? Or have you been allowing some other authority to be your moral compass in this thing? Jesus Christ wants to be your sole authority even in this most sensitive area of your life.
Accept God’s will as it relates to issues of sexuality in your life.
God’s will is one of those hot topics in Christianity today. Everybody is looking for God’s will for their lives, which is fine, but what they usually mean is, what is God’s will in the big stuff? When people are looking for jobs or a marriage partner or a home or car, they begin to think about God’s will, but what about in the day o day quest for holy living? Does God express His will for us in that? Look again with me at Paul’s admonition in verse 3. “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification…” God’s will for your life is that you be sanctified. The word sanctify is a noun form of the Greek root word for holy.
What does that mean for you? It means that God’s will for your life is that you be holy, that you be sanctified. Sanctified has a two-fold meaning. One the one hand it means that we have been set apart from something, and on the other hand we have been set apart to something. Believers have been set apart from sin, but set apart to holy living, or holiness as a way of life.
Now, when Paul says that God’s will is your sanctification, he expresses that with three very practical areas of your life.
Abstain from fornication
First we are told to abstain from fornication. We know what abstaining means. It means not to have any part of, to keep our distance from. Don’t engage in it, but what about fornication? Usually when we see fornication, we think of sex before marriage, but as I’ve told you before, the word fornication is translated from the word pornea, from which we get our English word pornography. The word pornea actually involves most any sort of sexual immorality that you might think of. It is an all-encompassing term that takes in most of the sexual struggles that we face. When Paul says, “abstain from pornea,” he says, “Brother, you’d better keep your distance from anything that even looks sexually immoral.”
Are believers immune from sexual temptations? Of course not. Listen to this: A national ministry leader in a country outside the United States stated that over 50% of the pastors in his country have used Internet pornography. A confidential survey was conducted among 350 “Christian” men. Of these, 64% struggle with sexual addiction or sexual compulsion, including but not limited to using pornography, sexual self-gratification, or other secret sexual activity; 25% admit to having an affair at some point during their Christian life, and 14% admit to some other form of sexual activity outside of their marriage.
Here’s a little test you can take. You be honest with yourself before God.
· Do you lock on when an attractive man or woman comes near you?
· Do you secretly find yourself thinking about and longing for other men and women?
· Have you found your wife to be less sexually gratifying?
· Do you seek out sexually arousing articles or photo spreads in newspapers and magazines?
· Do you have a private place or secret compartment that you keep hidden from your wife?
· Do you look forward to going away or getting out of town?
· Do you have behaviors that you can’t share with your wife?
· Do you visit porn-sites on the Internet?
· Do you watch sexually charged movies, sexy videos, or the music channels for gratification?
Listen, that’s the tip of the iceberg, and that’s just the point. You see, you’re just fooling yourself if you think you can play around in any of those areas and not get burned. That’s why Solomon said in Proverbs 6:27-28,
“Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? So he that goeth in to his neighbor’s wife: whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent.”
What’s the answer? Abstain from pornea, from all sexual immorality; in whatever form it takes, whether it’s the pretty girl in the newspaper ad or the wife you’re married to. Sexual immorality will take you down.
Take control of your bodies
Paul goes on to say in verse 4 that “every one of you should know how to possess his [body] in moral purity and high regard.” It is worth noting that it is the believer who is held responsible for what he does with his body. No one can take control of your body but you. No one can dictate how you behave, what you think, where you go or any other thing but you! That’s why in Romans 6:12 Paul says, “You don’t let sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lusts thereof.” You alone can control your body. Not your wife, your husband, your girlfriend or boyfriend or anyone else, just you.
Paul said that we ought to take control of our bodies instead of following our lustful desires. Verse 5 says, “not in the lust of concupiscence…” In other words, “not in gratifying sensual passions…even as the Gentiles which know not God.” What a blow! Lost people act like that! Have you ever paid any attention to all the excuses we make for our sin? Hormones out of control. It’s just immaturity. Look, if you’re saved, if you’re really a child of God, then the Spirit of God lives in you and has equipped you and empowered you to take control of your body – I don’t care how strong the desire or how raging the hormones.
Did you know that less than 40% of Americans believe that premarital sex is wrong? How about this? Less than 25% of the 18-29 age group thinks it is wrong. Those numbers are from 1997! I won’t bore you to death with too many statistics, but the point is this: we have come to a day when people do what they want to do because they will not exercise self-control and because Jesus Christ and His Word are not the authority in their lives. I’m talking about believers. I’m talking about Christian boys and girls who are sleeping around. I’m talking about Christian men and women who are having affairs and are living together and don’t see a thing wrong with it. I’m talking about Christian men who don’t have the self-control to turn off the computer when they are caught up in pornography. Paul said to take control of your body!
Don’t defraud other people
The last thing he mentions is defrauding another person. The word brother here is used in a general sense, like the word neighbor. What does he mean that we shouldn’t defraud other people? In this context it means that we need to maintain a high level of sexual purity so that we don’t overstep our boundaries and take advantage of someone else. Judah defrauded his daughter-in-law when he slept with her. King David defrauded Uriah by committing adultery with his wife Bathsheba. Amnon defrauded his sister when he raped her.
When you believe it or not, sexual sins always make a victim of somebody. Somebody is going to get hurt. If you’re viewing porn or lusting after the women in those ads, then you’re hurting your marriage. The next time you’re viewing porn, think about your own daughters. Even sitting down to watch a movie with sexual immorality in it victimizes your family. Our kids, our families are the innocent victims, not only because moms and dads are doing them wrong by putting them in ungodly environments, but they are working hard to perpetuate an attitude that says it is all about me.
Choose to put your own sexual desires in their proper place
I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to apply this principle to sex or not, but I’m going to ask you to try it. What is the one characteristic that dominates the Christian faith? You might say love, and if you do you would be right, but how is that love expressed? By putting others first. Jesus put our needs before His own personal comfort. Paul told us to prefer one another. In 1 Corinthians 7, speaking to husbands and wives, he said that our bodies don’t belong to ourselves, but rather to our spouses. In other words, their needs come first.
How would that apply in this message? We know that God comes first in our lives. He should get the top priority. If God is number one, if I am going to recognize His authority and accept His will, then my desires, my lusts, my fleshly passions, my wants and even my needs must come secondary to His. When your body is screaming and raging and it is in conflict with His Word, His Word must win out. You must take the high road of sexual integrity and purity by putting God and His Word first. When you recognize God first, you automatically must put yourself last.
After God must come others. If you love other people the way Jesus loves them, then you won’t exploit them, you won’t use them, you won’t abuse them, or put them in sinful situations Ladies, you won’t use sex as a manipulation tool, and men you won’t neglect your wives or treat them like all they are for is your sexual gratification. You must come last. Why? “Because God has not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.”
If you choose to put yourself and your sexual desires before God’s Word and other people, then verse 8 says you despise God. But you say, “I don’t despise God! I love Him! I’m just struggling in these areas.” Brother, those aren’t my words, they are His. Your actions, your thoughts, your lusts and sinful desires speak louder than your empty words.
Conclusion
Brother Kevin, you don’t know how long I’ve been caught up in this. You don’t know how long I’ve struggled with this. You don’t know how hard it is for me to control myself or my thoughts or whatever. I’ve already crossed the line and it’s too late to back up now.
Listen, I hear what you’re saying – I know what you’re going through, but I also know what I read at the end of verse 8, “God has given unto us his holy Spirit.” Now, the word holy is not capitalized, so it means two things.
First, it means that God has given you the Holy Spirit. He lives in you and you have no excuse for sexual impurity because you have been equipped for spiritual victory in sexual issues. To say that you can’t gain the victory is to say that you serve an incompetent God.
Secondly, the word holy here means a Spirit of holiness that God has given you. In other words, when you were saved, God placed within you His Spirit and that Spirit has the unchanging character and nature of holiness. When you walk in sexual impurity, you walk in a way that is contrary to your new spiritual nature and you need to turn around.
I’m not going to guess who among you struggles with sexual impurity. I know what I see and what I hear, and most importantly, I know my own struggles. I’m not asking you to guess mine, but to recognize yours. If you are struggling, you are not alone. You may feel all alone and as though you can’t talk to anyone about your problems in this area because people just won’t talk about their bondage to sexual sins the way they will with alcohol and drugs, but millions of men and women are trapped today by this powerful stronghold.
Let me tell you about two things I have done to place safeguards in my own life. There is nothing Satan would rather do than to take me down as a man of God, as a husband and father and your pastor. He would love to see me fall, to fail miserably in this area of my life, so I have placed two safeguards in my life to help prevent it. Many of you have commented on this lapel pin I’ve been wearing lately. It is more than a pretty pin – it is a daily reminder. It is part of an agreement that I signed recently as a pastor to live a life of integrity and sexual purity. I call a pastor friend and he questions me and holds me accountable. When you see this pin, it is to be a reminder to you to pray for my relationship to God.
The second safeguard that I have is Internet accountability software. I have contracted with a company who monitors every website that I view on the Internet. It keeps a log of all those sites, then it emails a list of them to a preacher friend who can see everything I’ve been viewing. Do you know why Internet pornography is so addictive? Because it is so private, so how can I reduce the lure? I took the privacy out of it, and now others can see what I’ve seen. There’s a list of these in your bulletin, and every man in here ought to prayerfully consider using one of them.
God is calling you to a higher standard today, to be holy, as He is holy. Will you repent? Will you pray and confess and turn from sexual immorality to a life of holiness like God desires for you? Will you make a commitment today to walk in the life He longs for you to live?
(If you are reading a transcript of this sermon, check out one of these helpful sites: www.covenanteyes.com; www.xxxchurch.com; or www.pureintimacy.org.)
