1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 (Part A)

Our subject is obedience, and we are invited to be obedient in spite of anything that life throws at us or we throw at ourselves.

The standard does not lower. God does not change His mind. The things that He has established are they are good. And the difficulty in our achieving them, well, He's made room for that in Christ Jesus. That's why we love to sing of Him so much. He says that you should abound more and more. Well, He did not want them to be stunted.

How many people say they're Christians and they are stunted? Let's open our Bibles to the first letter to the church in Thessalonica, chapter 4. First Thessalonians, chapter 4. We will resume our study in verse 1. But before I read verse 1, I want to go back briefly to chapter 3. And there in chapter 3, Paul had expressed his delight in the report that Timothy had brought to him that the church in Thessalonica, made up of rookies, rookies in the faith, they were holding strong in the presence of persecution.

And he encouraged them. And then he began to wrap up his letter, it seems, with a benediction in chapter 3 and verse 11. He says, Now may the God our Father Himself and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way to you. And then he continues, just a little more, and then he says, So that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints. Now, we wrapped up that study last session with a discussion on the coming of Jesus Christ at this Thessalonian letter deals with the coming of Christ in each chapter, all the way through the second letter and the second chapter. But his emphasis and his desire for these Christians was that they would be blameless in holiness.

Now, if you knew anything about yourself, pause and say, who can do that? God is not interested in excuses when it comes to this. Now, I mean this gently and in a very encouraging way, especially for those of us who are weak. God's not interested in your excuses why you should not be blameless. What he is interested in is your pursuit of being blameless.

He knows you're going to fail. That's why he has established grace, and grace is reoccurring. When it is established, it's a system built into grace that is ongoing so that when you come to Christ, the sins you're going to commit in Christ, he's already dealt with before you've done them.

That's how far-reaching it is. It reaches right up to the grave because when you drop dead, so does all your sin for you who are in Christ. Now, there is a line that the unbeliever likes to throw at us from time to time. I've gotten this far without Christ.

I don't see why I need him now. You'll find out. You will find out.

And unfortunately, there's nothing humorous about that, though in a funny kind of way, you're going to find out. God is not mocked. Well, our assigned topic, according to the text, is sanctification. That sounds like it's a big word, and it is if you don't know anything about it, any word.

The word imp is a big word if you don't know what it means, though you run across people who are impish, but that's another story. Sin makes man not only guilty before God, but unclean. That's unclean around each other also. This has got to be dealt with.

It can't be swept under the rug. Because we are guilty, we need to be justified. In other words, no longer guilty. The idea is that the blood of Jesus Christ, not the fluid from the flesh, but the life given. God the Son, that cleanses away our sin.

Because we are unclean, we need to be sanctified, and it needs to be on God's terms. And so just kind of holding in our heads for a minute that statement, holiness and blameless and sanctification, that's what Paul's now going to deal with, and hopefully it'll be a benefit to us. So we now look at the first verse, and there he says, finally then.

So he was wrapping it up, you know, and he begins this benediction, and then another thought comes to mind. Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more just as you receive from us how you ought to walk and to please God. Now when we introduced this letter, we mentioned that Paul would deal with their condition, moral purity. He would construct with them disciplined living, and that he would comfort them concerning death and the rapture as believers in Christ. Well, here he is now beginning to deal with the moral purity and the disciplined living. And the second part of this chapter, which we will not get to this morning, he will deal with the rapture and death. Now he says in verse 1, exhort, which in the Greek really is closer to the idea of inviting. Our subject is obedience, and we are invited to be obedient in spite of anything that life throws at us or we throw at ourselves.

The standard does not lower. God does not change his mind. Things that he has established that they are good, and the difficulty in our achieving them, well, he's made room for that in Christ Jesus. That's why we love to sing of him so much.

He says that you should abound more and more. Well, he did not want them to be stunted. How many people say they're Christians and they are stunted? They're not growing. They're not moving. They're nowhere near where they could be. I'm not saying should be. None of us are where we should be.

But where could we be if we work harder? See, you know, the Bible is always agitating me because you need to be agitated, stirred up all the time. Paul and Peter said we're not going to tire of stirring you up because it is the nature of fallen being to be settled in a sloppy relationship, if any, with God. The Holy Spirit knows that, and so yes, the Bible stirs up. He says just as you receive from us how you ought to walk and to please God. So when Paul spent time at this church in Thessalonica, he told them.

He's going to really hammer it when he gets to sexual impurity. But he told them these things, how you should walk, how you should be a Christian. We're not finding this in many places. There's this new wave amongst many who say they are Christians and many churches. It does not resemble anything we find in Scripture, not in its language, not in its behavior or belief.

And yet, they gather, they have these big rallies and they put all of this energy into what they're doing and none of it resembles the churches in the Scripture. When I say I am old school, I don't mean that in every area of my life. When I go to the dentist, I'm not old school. But when it comes to the Word of God, it's all the way back to eternity past, all the way forward to eternity future.

It's boundless. It's old school. Acts 2.42, according to the apostles' teaching, fellowship, the prayer, the communion with Christ, the way they did it is the way I look to do it. Back to this, you receive how you ought to walk.

They received it. There is a walk in Christ that is useful to God and there is the failure to walk in Christ, which is not of much use to him. In verse 2, he continues, for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus Christ.

So again, behavior and belief. To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to not be satisfied with the bare facts of salvation. If you're just happy with your salvation, you're stunted in Christ.

There's so much more for you, for others through you, that God has given. And it does not seem to have dawned on many Christians that there are commandments that accompany the life in Christ in the New Testament. They tend to think, well, the old commandments were just the Ten Commandments. We're not under the law of Moses anymore, and so there really are no commandments.

That's wrong. There are many commandments, many challenges. I want to mention a few of them that Christians think they don't have to submit to. Well, believe it or not, there are those that do not believe that they have to submit to water baptism. We're commanded to be baptized in water. There are those that believe that the communion table is really not that important. It's okay to skip it with the body. It's just a thing we do, but I did it last month.

I do it from time to time. It's really not precious. Devotional time and study time, personal devotional time and study time, these aren't options. Study to show yourself a proof, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of God. Now, many of you are saying, ouch, ouch, ow. But the purpose is not to hurt you unless you need to be hurt a little bit to get you to do something that's right, that is honorable, a word that is disappearing. In every generation, the word honor and its fact has been challenged and is always challenged.

In society, in individuals, always honor is under pressure. Tithing, the Lord's work, giving money of your finances, there are those that think this is optional. You know, before someone is allowed into leadership here, we ask if they tithe or not. We don't care how much they're tithing. That's between them and God. But if they're not tithing, they can't lead because if they cannot trust God with their wallet according to the scripture, then how can they be trusted with ministry of any sort? Well, you answer that question for yourselves. Assembly, there are those that think gathering together in church is optional.

It's not like, you know, by, you know, does it have, you know, power steering or, you know, it's just not options. These are commandments. In fact, the writer to Hebrews will say they forsake the assembly.

That's a strong word. No one wants to be forsaken. Therefore, we should not want to forsake. Discipline, some think that's optional. Sharing their faith, they think that is optional. Loving their spouse, again, some believe that to be an option. And raising their children in the fear of the Lord. These are just a few of them. We have commandments in the New Testament. They are good. What would we be without them?

We would be a sloppier bunch overall than what we are. And so we affirm these things and we pursue them and the fulfillment thereof and the benefits we enjoy. And when these are abandoned, the world points to us and they mock us. You preach these things and you don't even do it. Not only do you not do it, you don't even attempt to do it. And it's not because of any other reason than you don't believe in the things you say.

Why should they not be then turned off by us? Now, I'm not saying we all do this, but we all need to be mindful of it and answer it for ourselves. He goes on in verse 2, he says, we gave you through the Lord Jesus Christ. The commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, the Lord's commanded them to go out and make disciples.

What if they said, well, you know, it was a suggestion. It was a commandment. Go make disciples.

Baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And so when the mind is engaged, it is an issue of motive that I ought to do. That's not how we are supposed to do it as Christians.

So that's a part that does enter in, but that's not what drives us. That's the law. The mind says, I must do this.

That's my motive. I'm commanded to. It's not Christian commandments. Christian commandments aren't the same. When the will is engaged, it is an issue of I have to do it. I know this is right, but that's not all there is to the Christian life. It's more than I ought to do it and I have to do it.

There is I want to do it. And that is where the love comes in. To be able to sing about Christ's love. To genuinely sing about it. To be moved by it emotionally.

It involves a promise back to the Lord. I see a love for me. I'm going to let you see some of my love for you. James said, show me your faith. You really want to show me your faith? Then do something.

Let's just do it. And so when we sing about the love of God, we are supposed to show him that we love him. In areas that we fail in, he gives us grace, but in areas that we're not failing in, he gives us opportunity. And so some of us need to refresh a course on love. Love to God, not so much love from God. I'm working all of this towards a point.

I'll get there in a moment. In verse 3 he says, for this is the will of God, your sanctification that you should abstain from sexual immorality. What part do Christians not understand about that? It's God's will. It tells us what God's will is. We have several places in the New Testament that declare what the will of God is. John chapter 6, verse 39 and 40. This is the will of the Father who sent me, that of all he has given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up in the last day. And this is the will of him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son of God and believes in him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up in the last day. That's what God wants. And of course what is stated here, in verse 3 of chapter 4, in verse 18 of chapter 5, and that's what Paul will write, in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God.

Gratitude. 1 Peter chapter 2, for this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. You know, when I worked in the steel industry, you couldn't quote scripture like that and make the point. You couldn't say, for this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence.

Just silence didn't work with those kind of men. You had to say it this way, for this is the will of God, that by doing good you may shut up the ignorant ones. That they understood. And that was one of the pleasant things about preaching the word to men who never read the word, is you got to be a Bible translator. Not from the Greek into whatever language you spoke, but from the Greek into the language we speak. To put it where people could get it.

I think I enjoyed that almost the most of it all. Was to be able to take the Lord's prayer, for example, and recite it in a language they understood. Our Father. Now you might have a dopey father.

He's not in heaven, like our Father in heaven, who is on the throne in heaven. And that resonate, you know, a lot of those men. Many of them Irish Catholics, Mohawk Indians, many of their fathers were drunks, were abusive, were just utter failures. And so if you were going to teach the Father to them, you had to put it in perspective of heaven's view and not their upbringing.

None of this has changed for any of us. I was just talking with one of our brothers about working for the government. Look, if we get more Christians working in the government, we can influence them more. Wherever we may find ourselves. Now there are limits to this. We don't want Christians working in brothels. I mean, it just, there's a limit here. We laugh, right?

I got a surprise. Well, your sanctification, that's what he is after. And in that ancient world, during the days of the Church of Thessalonica and Paul, sanctification was a dire need. Because social immorality and impurity was not only legal, it was a part of worship. State worship. In fact, in the ancient day, the churches had brothels and breweries. You wanted to worship Bacchus, the god of entertainment and fun and wine?

You just go down to his temple and you get plastered. And that's how you would express your gratitude for him. How convenient.

How dopey. But that's what they knew. So when Paul came along and he said, I want you to be clean and blameless.

Lights were turning on all over the board. Because they knew what dirt was all about. We do too. We'll give it an honest look. Just read the headlines on Drudge Report.

You'll find out what dirt is. The politicians, how filthy so many of them are. We must be careful when given the choice to not side with those who side with Satan. And there are many of them that are getting the upper hand.

And they use all sorts of phony arguments to cover their tracks. For us, it's very simple. God said that's wrong. Why are you voting for it? That's all.

Many Christians don't seem because, you know, it's a fashion show. I like him. Why? You know what he votes for? You know who he empowers? You know what he or she is all about?

You like him. Well, threefold aspects of sanctification. When the Bible talks about sanctification, there is positional sanctification. Now the word sanctification means to be set aside. When the believers that attend the church are referred to as saints, they are those who have come to Christ Jesus, have had their sins forgiven, and God has set them aside for salvation and his purposes.

But the first aspect is justification. Your sins are forgiven. We're never accepted because of who we are, but because what Christ has done for us in our response to. His invitation, Romans 5, 1, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now when Paul wrote this, he would have to explain to them, or when he spoke it to these pagans, he would have to explain, we have peace with Christ through his blood.

He died. It wasn't just to come down to us and give us some noble writings. He had the prophets to do that. He came and he took away our sin on the cross. And we're never more saved than the moment we are saved. I was saved when I was beginning as a Christian, but now 30 years later, I'm really saved.

And it doesn't happen that way. You see, justification is something that God does for us. Sanctification in its next phase is something we do for God because of what God has done in us. Justification is something God does for us. Sanctification is something God does in us. He immerses us in the Holy Spirit if we would have it. And that indwelling spirit begins to move in our minds, and we begin to filter everything through the eyes of Jesus. So when we go to the voting booth, for example, we filter it through the eyes of Jesus. The Jew, he would filter everything through the law. If you put bacon in front of him, he would say, the law says I can't do this, and he would not do it. You put it in front of a Christian, that bacon's gone.

Because he's like, Jesus said eat, bless it, and go, bro. So, and so the first part is positional. My position with God, I'm justified. The second part is practical. It's progressive. Happens over time. You're converted. But now the process of working you into being a fine disciple of Christ is just that, a process.

It's faster for some than others because of what you invest in it. If you were to take a money offering to the temple of the Lord in the day of the Jew, and you were to give it to the priest as an offering, the money stayed the money, but its purpose, its uses, or usage, was now for God. And in that sense, it was sanctified. And so when we give our lives to Christ, we are set apart as holy to God.

And even if we fall short, we are still set aside to the Lord. It's not moral perfection that will not happen in this life. That's the third part of sanctification. Justification, sanctification, glorification.

But before we get to glorification, I want to cover that statement I made that we're not going to experience moral perfection. Do you know those who penned the scriptures, Solomon, Isaiah, Daniel, all of them in the Old Testament, New Testament alike, but we're going to stay with the Old Testament to make the point. Many of them failed morally. I mean, King David. I mean, so many of the Psalms penned by King David, and this man failed, and God let him fail in front of all of us. So he not only had the burden of failing, and not only the burden of failing in the court and in the kingdom he reigned over, but all since that time, we all know about it.

We all read about him in Bathsheba, him in Uriah. I mean, it's preserved. Because God is saying, don't give me that excuse about you being too dirty to be saved. I've saved worse, and I'll save you if you come, if you open your heart. If you come to me like David for repentance, I will save you. 2 Peter 1, verse 21, listen to what Peter says, For prophecy never came by the will of men, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

What? You mean men like Solomon and David were moved by the Holy Spirit, and when they were moved, it became Scripture? Yes, that means God uses those who are imperfect, because there's no one else for him to use. And when it's time for him to use someone that is perfect, and there came that time, he had to do it himself, sent his son. And so we have positional, progressive, and now perfect, which is the third part of sanctification called glorification. When we die, we go to heaven, and we're like Jesus.

1 John 3, 2, Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when he is revealed, we should be like him, we shall see him as he is. And then he says that you should abstain from sexual immorality. Sexual lust is a real problem, has been in every generation. The world is in plain sexual impurity, and oftentimes it's not volume, it's variety.

This explains the harems, the variety, the spice of life can often be a sin in life. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of 1 Thessalonians. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there, you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app as well. That's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the book of 1 Thessalonians right here on Cross Reference Radio.