Now if you would take your Bibles in hand, or if you don’t have your own Bible with you, turn with me in one of our pew Bibles to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verses 1 through 12. In the church Bible that’s on page 987. As we move today into chapter 4 in our ongoing examination of the teaching of Paul’s letter, we really move into the second major section of the epistle. And we follow Paul as he unpacks in more detail the central theme of the prayer, we were considering last Lord’s Day at the end of chapter 3. He prayed; his focus was on holiness, on sanctification, on the process of growing in likeness to Christ. And we’re going to look at the way Paul explains the theme and applies the theme of holiness in these opening twelve verses of chapter 4 under two large headings. First of all, verses 1 through 3, I want you to see the character of sanctification. Here’s what Christian holiness is. The character of sanctification. What Christian holiness is. Then 4 through 12, the practice of sanctification. What Christian holiness requires. What holiness is and what it requires. Before we look at those themes, let’s bow our heads together once again and ask for the Lord to help us as we seek to study and live in the light of His holy Word. Let us all pray.
God our Father, how we praise You that You speak to us in the holy Scriptures. Send us now please, we pray, the Spirit of Christ to give our understanding the light of heaven and our hearts strength to embrace and believe and bow in submission to the teaching of Your Word for the glory of the name of Jesus. Amen.
First Thessalonians chapter 4 at verse 1. This is the Word of God:
“Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.
Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.”
Amen, and we praise God for His holy, inerrant Word.
Let’s think in the first place about the character of sanctification. Here’s what Christian holiness is. Look down at verses 1 through 3. “Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification.” Alright, so sanctification, the process of making a person holy, is the theme, the focus of this section. “This is the will of God, your sanctification.” You’ll even notice that Paul very hopefully has virtually defined sanctification for us. Did you see that in verse 1? Look at it again. He is writing, he says, about “how you ought to walk and please God.” Holiness is about living to please God. That’s what it means. Sanctification.
In Scotland growing up we had a room in our house that was special. We rarely used it. It had fancy furniture in it and no TV and a carpet unsullied by little boys’ dirty shoes. It was only for special occasions and we were always told as children not to play in there because that room was for company. Sometimes my mom would bake a cake or buy a fancy dessert from the store, and as our little fingers reached up to swipe a blob of cream or frosting from the cake, she’d bat them away with a stern warning that, “This cake is not to be touched! It’s for company. We’re having company tonight and this cake is for them!” That room and those cakes, they were set apart for company. They were consecrated to company! Only with company were they to be accessed and enjoyed. In a sense, they were holy. That’s what holiness means – to be reserved for special use. Set apart from all ordinary purposes. Consecrated, not to company, but to God for the pleasure of God. And Paul is saying to us here holiness like that, consecration to God for the pleasure of God, sanctification ought to be at the very top of our agenda as Christian people.
And there are a number of features of sanctification that I want you to see in this passage, the first of which is that sanctification is in Christ. Sanctification, holiness, is in Christ. Look at verse 1 again. “Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more.” “We urge you in the Lord Jesus” – the exhortation to holiness is an exhortation in Christ. Holiness is commanded by God in His holy Word, but when you hear any command of God and you are not in Christ yourself, what is the effect of that command upon you? It is always condemnation, isn’t it? Because the call to holiness is impossible outside of Christ. It’s beyond the reach of our natural condition and ability. We have no capacity to obey. We are dead in our sin and wholly averse to all spiritual good, and so we must always fall short of that holiness “without which no one shall see the Lord.” The commands of Scripture outside of Christ only bring condemnation.
“But there is therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus,” Romans 8:1. If the command and the exhortation to holiness comes in Christ, it comes clothed in His power. It comes wrapped in His enabling grace. Last Lord’s Day evening, if you were with us, you would have heard Dr. Bill Harper lead us in prayer and he quoted in his prayer Saint Augustine’s famous petition, “Lord, give what You command and command whatever You will.” If you are in Christ by faith, all the commands of God come to you, just as they do to everyone else, only now they come in Christ. They come as the command of Christ with the supply and the strength and the help and the power of God.
When you meet an exhortation to be holy, isn’t it easy to look first at yourself and to see how strong your sin still is and how weak you’ve been in rooting it out and see how much your sin still seems to have prevailed against your better judgment and your deepest desires and attempts to please God? And you hear the call to holiness and you look at your own wicked heart and you’re defeated and discouraged and you’re ready to quit. But Paul says the exhortation to grow in holiness is an exhortation in Christ. It comes to you immersed in Gospel love, suffused with the cross-won, blood-bought grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes you are commanded to be holy, but in Christ, He who commands you gives what He commands. And so there may well be a long, long way to go yet in your personal sanctification. Let’s not minimize that. Your sin may indeed have won the upper hand in far too many areas of your personal life thus far. But beloved, never forget that if you are in Christ, so too is the call and command of God to be holy. It does not come to you now as a mere command, a naked command; it comes now clothed in Christ with all His redeeming love and power. For those who are in Christ, there is a glorious promise standing behind every command of God. When He says to you, “This is what you must be,” He also says, “And in Christ, this is what you will be. This is what I will make you one day, so press on.” Sanctification is in Christ.
Also notice, secondly, sanctification is necessary. It is necessary, not optional. Look again at verse 1. “We ask and urge you,” Paul says, “that as you received from us how you” – listen “how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more.” “How you ought to walk” – the Greek verb means “to be necessary.” At the Olympics, one of the funniest events in the athletics competition is race walking. Have you seen these guys do this? It’s hilarious! They’ve developed a technique that requires the hips to rotate in this dramatic, eccentric fashion. It makes them look ridiculous as the athletes wiggle from side to side as they walk! The rules require, you see, that one foot must always be on the ground at all times so as to prevent running. And in light of that, apparently the most efficient way to develop maximum speed and efficiency while avoiding disqualification involves this exaggerated hip wiggle that makes the competitors look like they’re pretending to be penguins waddling up and down at high speed! But they don’t care how they look. They have absolutely no concern for how they look. They know how you walk determines whether you get to stay in the race. How you walk determines whether you get to stay in the race.
And that is Paul’s point here too, isn’t it? It is necessary, he says, “that you walk as to please God.” It’s not optional; it’s required. The world may think a holy walk ridiculous, exaggerated, foolish. They may sneer and laugh at us as we walk God’s way. But we must know that holiness, sanctification, is necessary; it is a necessity of the Christian life. How you walk determines whether you get to stay in the race. Sanctification is in Christ. Sanctification is necessary.
Thirly, notice sanctification is progressive. It is progressive. “I want you to walk in holiness,” Paul says to the Thessalonians, “more and more.” He uses that phrase again, doesn’t he, at the end of verse 10 – “Love one another more and more.” If sanctification is a walk, a race, a journey, well then of course progress is required. More and more is its defining feature. More and more is the motto of a healthy Christian life. Further up and further in is the direction of our travel. Stagnation in holiness is impossible. Stagnation is inimical to holiness. We need to hear in this text the call of the Lord Jesus to more and more, more and more – more likeness to Him, more love for the things of God, more understanding of His holy Word and His will and His ways, more trust in His promises, more hatred for our remaining sin, more compassion for the lost who do not know Him. More – do you want more? It’s a mark of growing holiness that you want more. Sanctification is progressive.
So it is in Christ, it is necessary, it is progressive, and then finally, sanctification is Godward. It is Godward. Paul writes about how “we ought to walk and please God.” “This is the will of God, your sanctification.” From time to time I will have conversations with people who ask me about discerning God’s will for their lives. I’m sure you’ve had these conversations from time to time yourselves. They desire to know what God wants for their vocation in life or for their choice of a marriage partner or concerning where they ought to live. And we should pray about those things and weigh them carefully in the light of God’s Word and with all Christian prudence, but when people come to me and say, “Pastor, I don’t know what God wants for my life. I’m not sure I can really discern His will for my life,” there is a perverse, twisted little piece of me that wants to look them in the eye and tell them that though they may not knot, I know. “I am 100% sure what God wants for your life! I know His will!” First Thessalonians 4:3 – “This is the will of God for you, your sanctification.” God hasn’t told us, He hasn’t told us except by way of general Scriptural principle about who to marry or which job to take or where to live, and nor will He. He has told us that holiness in marriage and in your vocation and in your home matters to Him far more than anything else.
Sometimes we spend an awful lot of time anxiously trying to identify and piece together obscure clues from the providence of God or we are waiting for new revelations from heaven perhaps about things we’re actually already free in Christ to choose or not to choose. And we do not spend nearly enough time concerned about growing each day in basic Biblical holiness, in obedience to the already crystal clear command of Scripture. This is the will of God for you – sanctification. God wants your holiness. That’s His will. That, Paul says, is what pleases Him. Listen, if you stay on the path of Scripturally defined holiness, wherever the path of your life might take you, you will never be out of the will of God. People sometimes get very anxious about being out of God’s will. Let me say it this way – be obedient to the commands of Scripture. Pursue likeness to Christ wherever your path may take you and you will never be out of the will of God. “This is the will of God, your sanctification.” When pleasing God matters to you most, holiness will be your great concern. When pleasing yourself matters most, God gets reduced to a cosmic GPS to whom we only turn when we want to know what to do next and holiness tends to drop from our priority list altogether.
And so that’s the first thing I want you to see here – the characteristics of sanctification. What holiness is.
Now look at verses 3 through 12 and think about the practice of sanctification. What holiness requires. What it looks like. How you live it out. Paul focuses his attention on two areas of particular concern for him among the Thessalonians. In verses 3 through 8, he deals with sexual purity. He wants holiness in this whole arena of sex and sexuality among the Thessalonians. And then in 9 through 12, he deals with brotherly love, holiness in our relationships with one another in the fellowship of the church.
Look at what he says about sexual purity first. Verse 3, “This is the will of God for you, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality.” Verse 4 puts a fine point on the problem. Here is the heart of the matter for the Thessalonians, as it still is for so many of us today. When it comes to sex and sexuality, the Thessalonians needed to grow in self control. You see that in verse 4? Paul wants each one of you “to know how to control his own body in holiness and honor.” Self control is the vital skill we all need to learn to develop in so many areas of life, particularly in this text in the area of sexuality. And self control like this, let’s be clear, is not legalism. Paul actually says in the text it is “holiness and honor.” Self control.
Neither does self control require isolation. I think this is a particularly important practical point. Self control does not require isolation, as if this is a problem you are only able to address by yourself alone. Generally speaking, dealing especially with sexual sin and growing in self control in this area depends on meaningful, Christian community. It takes accountability. It needs support. Self control is best cultivated together. It’s a group project.
At First Presbyterian Church we have been working with some false starts here and there along the way, but we’ve been working to develop grace groups that aim to help people find just this kind of mutual support and accountability in a confidential environment as we struggle with besetting sin in this area of sex and sexuality. And if you are struggling in this area, let me urge you not to do it any more on your own. Sin thrives in the shadows, and the best step you can take to kill it as you turn to Christ in repentance is to drag it into the light and get accountability and support and encouragement. And so come and speak to me, would you? Come and speak to Billy Dempsey or William Skinner or any of the pastors on the staff and we’ll help you get connected. Or speak to a trusted elder. Here they all are down at the front. Speak to a trusted elder or a senior saint in your life and ask their wisdom and ask them to disciple you as you fight to grow in this area of self control.
And notice that Paul highlights two sets of relationships, the importance of which reinforces the “why” of holiness in this area of sexual purity, why it really matters. The first has to do with our witness in the unbelieving world around us. Verse 5. Look at verse 5. We are to pursue sexual holiness “not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God.” So Paul is concerned that Christians should be noticeably different in this area in particular. The Thessalonians, remember, were mostly Gentiles by ethnicity, by birth. But now by the grace of Christ they have become members of the people of God. The Gentiles who do not know God, Paul says, they are marked by the passion of lust. But that ought not to be the case for the people of God.
Paul could easily, I think, have penned that remark about the passion of lust with reference to the culture and time in which we currently live, don’t you think? A culture where sex sells products, sex is on every screen, pornography is an epidemic and even human personhood has come to be defined by sexuality. You are your sexuality today. Ours is a whole culture that does not know God and is dominated by the passion of lust. But Christians are to be holy in this area because we are no longer Gentiles who do not know God. We are citizens of a new world now, shaped by a new ethic now. Our identity isn’t determined by our sexuality but by our union with Jesus Christ now. Sexual holiness in Paul’s day was an issue of Christian witness. Believers stood out from the crowd because of their counter cultural behavior in this matter.
Now for the most part, in Western civilization since Paul’s day, that has not really been true. The Christian ethic has dominated the way society thinks about the issue of sex, regardless of whether you are a believer or not. But I wonder if you would agree that in the last four or five decades or so, that broad cultural consensus around the Christian sexual ethic has entirely collapsed. And now, once again, really for the first time since the early church, Christians are weird and different and counter-cultural because we seek to practice self control in the matter of sex and sexuality and because holiness and honor are our higher and highest values. Holiness in this whole arena really matters, do you see, because your witness is on the line. Your witness is on the line.
And so one set of relationships affected by sexual purity lie outside the church; another set lie within the church. Look at verse 6. Paul wants no one to “transgress and wrong his brother in this matter.” The word that’s translated “to wrong your brother” means “to take advantage of them by taking something from them by deceptive means.” It is to defraud your brother. I think that is a helpful way to think about sexual sin. Sexual sin defrauds people. It takes from them what is not yours to possess. You steal dignity, purity, chastity. It takes the good gift of sex that God has given to be enjoyed in the context of marriage and debases and twists it for selfish ends. One of the ways we can begin to change our attitudes to sex and sexual sin is by understanding that illicit sexual pleasure takes what is not rightfully ours, it robs other people, it dehumanizes them, it uses and wounds them. We are sometimes so focused on ourselves and our own pleasures that we’ve missed the hurt, Paul says, we are doing to others. And in the church, among the people of God, these things ought never to be.
And before we move on, do notice Paul supplies two motivations just to reinforce the progress he wants us to make in this area. First, there is a stern warning, isn’t there? Look again at verses 5 and 6. “No one is to transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.” God disciplines His wayward children. He judges false believers who disregard His call to holiness. The language of God as “an avenger” is important there, by the way, because it implies God will defend those against whom we sin sexually, for whom all too often there is no earthly recourse and no human justice. But if we are defrauding, stealing from others by our sexual sin, we need to know God will be their avenger. He will be their avenger. And when God steps in to do justice, there is no court of appeal. There is no court of appeal beyond Him. He is the final judge. There is a stern warning.
The other motive focuses on the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Look at verse 8. “Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.” So this call to holiness is not a sudden, idiosyncratic whim of Paul the puritanical ex-Pharisee who’s only interested in spoiling our fun. That’s not what this is. No, this is the will of God, and God has lavished upon us the Holy Spirit to enable us to live a life of growing obedience to His will. Having commanded what He wills, He gives what He commands. The Spirit of holiness inhabiting our hearts, the Holy Spirit, is never content with unholy Christians. The Spirit of holiness is who makes us holy. And so if the Spirit of holiness really has been given to us, then not only can we make progress, we must and we will make progress in this area of sexual purity as in every other. It may be slow and hard and long, but it will come by the grace of God. Take heart.
It is also, I think, worth asking if we never ever make progress in sexual holiness or in holiness in any other area of our lives, it is worth asking ourselves with sober honesty before God if perhaps one reason we make no progress at all is because we are not yet truly converted. Is it possible that you have been working at moral reformation without Gospel repentance? At ethical conformity to the rules of the Word of God without embracing from the heart the transforming grace of the Gospel of God? Beloved, you must be born again! You need the Spirit of holiness to give you a new heart. That’s the origin and the seed of all true holiness in our lives. When that seed is planted, it will grow and grow and bear fruit to the glory of God. It will. So the practice of holiness works out first in this realm of sexual purity.
Then finally, notice the practice of sanctification also works itself out in brotherly love, in the fellowship of the church. Look at verses 9 through 12. Notice first that God Himself teaches brotherly love. Verse 9, “Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.” Christians are taught by God. Jesus said, “No one can come to Me except the Father who sent Me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day. For it is written in the prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’” John 6:44-45. Or Isaiah, speaking of the age of the Messiah in which we now live, Isaiah 54:13, “All your children shall be taught by the Lord and great shall be the peace of your children.” All practical holiness, all of it, comes about this way – the Spirit of God takes the Word of God and teaches us, trains us not just to know in our heads what God requires but to live it out, live out the truth in our lives day by day to the glory of God. He trains us. He equips us.
And Paul says that Christian love for one another in the local church is one of the fundamental areas in which He does this. He sanctifies us in this realm of our relationships with one another, which means that Christian love is a basic mark and evidence of the work of God in our midst. If the pulse is the basic sign of life in a human being, in a human body, mutual Christian love is the basic sign of life in the body of Christ. “By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, that you have love for one another.” If we want our non-Christian friends to trust for themselves in the Lord Jesus, then bring them to church to hear the good news about Christ preached to them, but then if we do that, we must strive to be ourselves the living evidence that this Gospel they are hearing preached can really change the heart and make disciples. And the way we show that is by the way you love one another.
And that’s really the concern of the last few verses of this section, isn’t it? Look at verses 11 and 12. “We urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders” – there’s our witness – “and be dependent on no one” – there’s our concern for the body of Christ. Love each other more and more, he says, grow in this, and one practical way to do that is to earn your own keep. Work hard with your own hands. That way, outsiders will see the difference following Jesus makes and your brothers and sisters in the local church will not be burdened by the need to support you unnecessarily with financial help. So brotherly love, Paul says. It’s not just a mushy feeling of general affability and benevolence toward one another. It is not sentimentalism or saying nice things and smiling politely to folks at church on Sunday. That’s not what Paul is talking about. Brotherly love things about working hard and contributing to others and not being a burden to anyone and presenting a good witness to the world. You are loving people well in Jesus’ name when you do that, Paul is saying.
Holiness, do you see, is not a pious abstraction. It doesn’t make you soft or other-worldly or naive. It makes you practical. It leads you to think about sex and community and job and money and time and service and how you can consecrate them all to the pleasure of God for the glory of God. Christian love is the real world practice of holiness. It is ours in Christ. We are empowered by His Spirit to live it out, so may God help us to do just that more and more. Let’s pray together.
Father, we bless You for Your Word. We confess as we assess our own progress in the walk of Christian sanctification how far we have yet to go to be like Jesus. Please forgive us our remaining sin. Have mercy and grant fresh supplies of Your Spirit and power that we might live for Your honor and glory. We want to live for Your pleasure, O God. Would You work by Your Word and Spirit, and now as we come to Your Table, and bless the means of grace, that we might become like the Savior we love who loved us and gave Himself for us. For we ask it in Jesus’ name, amen.