1 Thessalonians 4:18 Sexual immorality
The church as it is supposed to be is:
1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
1) a people of encouragement (1:2–10);
2) a people of self-sacrifice (2:1–12);
3) a people of controversy (2:13–16);
4) a people of joy (2:17–3:13);
5) a people of purity (4:1–8);
6) a people of work (4:9–12);
7) a people of clarity (4:13–5:11);
8) a people of unity (5:12–15);
9) a people of growth (5:16–22).
Today we consider number 5; A people of purity.
Finally then, brothers, we beg and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, that you abound more and more. 2 For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. 3 For this is the will of God: your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, 4 that each one of you know how to control his own body[a] in sanctification and honor, 5 not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who don’t know God, 6 that no one should take advantage of and wrong a brother or sister in this matter; because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as also we forewarned you and testified. 7 For God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification. 8 Therefore he who rejects this doesn’t reject man, but God, who has also given his Holy Spirit to you.
Along with all the other things the church is to be, it is to be a people of purity. Specifically, we are talking about sexual purity. Verse 3 through 5 says,
For this is the will of God: your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, 4 that each one of you know how to control his own body[a] in sanctification and honor, 5 not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who don’t know God,
So, a sermon about sex, yeah. But the main point that we want to understand is that we are to stand out from the world. Our values and beliefs should be different than the world’s.
But before we jump into that point, I want to draw your attention to verse 1.
Finally then, brothers, we beg and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, that you abound more and more.
I think that this is a good place to begin this sermon on sexual purity. Read that verse again,
Finally then, brothers, we beg and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, that you abound more and more.
Paul is saying to the church in Thessalonica, “Hey, we know that you are doing well. We know that you have turned from idols to God. We know that you are standing up for your faith in a hostile environment. We know that you show love to each other and to us.
But don’t be content that you have somehow arrived at the pinnacle of faith-become even better-abound more and more.
This is a good way to start this passage because the minute that I said that I was preaching today about sexual purity, many of you thought, “Well, I don’t need this sermon.” Right? Don’t try to deny it.
Well, why do we think that? Because I’m old. Or I’m a widow or widower, that stuff isn’t relevant to me anymore.” On the other hand, others of you might be thinking, “Well, I’m old, but I’m not dead.” That’s why I wanted to start with verse 1 as an introduction. Verse 1 concludes with the words, “Abound more and more.”
Paul is saying to the Thessalonians, and to us that no matter the topic in Scripture, until you are dead, there’s always room for improvement.
Let’s take stealing as an example. The Bible says, “Thou shalt not steal.” So, we are told not to participate in any activity where we take something for ourselves that doesn’t belong to us.
Well some of you might say, “I don’t do that.” “That’s a children’s sermon.” “I haven’t stolen since I was a small child.”
Well obviously, we can begin teaching that lesson on stealing by addressing more adult issues; tax fraud, tithing, paying your bills on time, or even keeping your word about money commitments. There’s room for teaching beyond simple shoplifting.
Then we can also take it to another level. We know that stealing begins in the mind with coveting. And even if I can say that I don’t steal, we may still struggle with looking at what others have and desiring it for myself.
And even if you can say that you don’t steal, and you don’t covet, we are still called as Christians to know God and His Word so well that we are able to give an explanation for why we believe what we believe.
What I am trying to say is, we can always grow. We can always “abound more and more” in our knowledge and the application of that knowledge to our actions.
When the wife of missionary Adoniram Judson told him that a newspaper article likened him to some of the apostles, Judson replied, "I do not want to be like a Paul...or any mere man. I want to be like Christ...I want to follow Him only, copy His teachings, drink in His Spirit, and place my feet in His footprints...Oh, to be more like Christ!"
Source Unknown.
So, we are studying this section of Scripture that has to do with sexual purity. It’s going to take a couple of messages to get through this passage, so let me tell you where we are going. We are looking at verses 3-8 of 1 Thessalonians 4, and it’s a really simple outline. Verse 3 tells us about the standard of sexual purity, and verses 4-8 tell us how to achieve that standard.
Put another way, this week we consider what it means to abstain from sexual immorality, and next week we consider how to abstain from sexual immorality.
A people of purity
We are going to look at two things; What is the standard for sexual purity? How do I live up to that standard?
1. The standard
3 For this is the will of God: your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality,
There are three words or phrases here that we need to understand in order to understand what God’s standard regarding sexual immorality is; sanctification, abstain, and sexual immorality.
a. God’s will is your sanctification.
The word “sanctification” is also translated “holiness.” To be set apart for God’s use. I think the best illustration for that would be a clay jar used in the first century to hold drinking water. Now obviously clay jars were used for many things in the first century. A clay jar can be used to carry water from the well to drink from. It could be used to wash yourself with. It could be used as a pot for growing a plant. And it can be used for bathroom purposes.
But most people would have the sense not to use the same clay jar for all of those things. For example, they wouldn’t take the clay pot used for bathroom purposes to draw drinking water.
That is what is meant here by sanctification. You are “set apart” for God’s special use. So, God wants you to be pure. And the standard for that purity is that you “abstain from sexual immorality.” What does it mean to abstain?
b. Abstain from sexual immorality.
Well, its English meaning is really the same as the meaning of the Greek word here. The Greek means “to stay away” from something, and in English it means the same.
To keep oneself from doing, engaging in, or partaking of something; refrain.
To forbear or refrain voluntarily, especially from what gratifies the passions or appetites:
to choose not to do or have something : to refrain deliberately and often with an effort of self-denial from an action or practice
So that’s pretty simple so far. God wants you to be “set apart.” And to be “set apart” you are to abstain, or not participate in “sexual immorality.”
So, what is “sexual immorality?”
c. What is “sexual immorality?”
Now here I could assume that everyone knows what we are talking about. But, the problem is that our society, and even the modern “Christian” church have introduced “Shades of Gray” into the conversation about sexual immorality. We live in a society that has sexualized everything. And they have normalized every kind of deviant behavior and thought. And, more than that, sex has become the end all, be all for the very meaning of life.
It has become the source of identity. I still remember a note that I found at school several years ago. Some kid must have dropped it in my classroom. It appeared to be a note where the child was going to tell their parents something about themselves. In effect they were going to “come out of the closet” but in a bigger way. The note read something like this; “Mom and Dad, I have to tell you something. I am pansexual.” The note went on to define that. For those of you who don’t know, what the child was saying, in the 6th grade mind you, was that they were not heterosexual, they were not homosexual, they were not bisexual, or transgender. They were pansexual. That means that they desire intimacy with anyone and everyone.
All I could think of when I read this note was, “why is a 6th grader even thinking about defining themselves sexually. When I was in 6th grade, that was the furthest thing from my mind. But we live in a culture where the most important thing about yourself is your sexual identity. So, children are being encouraged to make decisions about who they are, sexually, at a very early age.
So, we need to be more precise in our understanding of this definition not just for our own sakes, but for the sake of our Christian witness to the world.
So, let me get very succinct here with a definition for sexual immorality. Sexual immorality is participating in any sexual activity outside of the confines of a marriage between one man and one woman. It takes in thoughts and desires about sexual activity outside of that between a marriage of one man and one woman. And, it takes in activities or thoughts that might draw you into that sexual activity.
3 levels; participation, thoughts, danger zones
So first, what activity are we talking about? And don’t worry, it’s not my intent to get too graphic here. Probably the best way to cover this discretely is to talk about what Paul was referring to. You know, we often look at our modern world as though it is involved in sins that the ancient world couldn’t even envision. But, the Greek world of Paul’s day, in some ways, was worse than ours. And you find that out when you begin looking at their vocabulary; the words related to sexual activity. Now, to make this succinct, I’m just going to quote from John MacArthur’s commentary on this chapter. These are Greek words describing what the Bible calls sexual immorality.
There’s the word porn, familiar word to anyone who knows the Greek of the New Testament. Pornē literally means the purchasable one, a whore, a harlot. That’s pornē.
Porneuō, from which we get the world pornography, was the filthy business of making a living by prostitution. Those words tend to be translated in the New Testament, fornication, which is a form of prostitution. Pallakē is the Greek word used for a sex slave. Sometimes called a concubine, sex slaves were desirable in marriages. Women were little more than chattel, little more than animals, little more than tools for cleaning and washing, and et cetera, and men chose to have sex slaves for the gratification of their physical desires. So they had a word for that, pallakē.
Then there was the work moichos. Moichos is the word for an adulterer. An adulterer is someone engaged in sexual activity with a person who is not their spouse, And then there is in the Greek language, etairai. it’s a word that means mistresses. This was one step up from a sexual slave. This was a friend. for conversation and intercourse. So, there were enough different forms of this sexual sin to demand those five different words.
When it came to homosexuality they had a vocabulary to identify that. There is a term called arsenokoitēs. It’s the word for homosexual, arsenokoitēs. Man with man sexual activity. Then there was another word that’s used in the New Testament, malakos. It is translated, for example, in 1 Corinthians 6 as effeminate. It actually in the Greek was the technical term for the passive partner in a homosexual affair.
Now this is just how life was in those days. In 1 Corinthians chapter 6:9, the apostle Paul says this, “Do not be deceived” – verse 9 – “neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, and nor homosexuals.” I gave you seven words. He uses four of them right there in one verse. None of those are going to “inherit the kingdom of God.”
So all of those activities, outside the bounds of the marriage of one man and one woman, and let me say this, the ideal is one man and one woman, for life, though God gives exceptions to that, are called sexual immorality; before, during, and after marriage. And if we were to study further, we would include lesbianism, bestiality, pedophilia, and transgender activities.
That’s participation, now the sin also regards our thoughts.
And it is also sexual immorality to think on those things. Remember what Jesus said,
Matthew 5:27-28 27 “You have heard that it was said [a]to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
And the same God who said in Exodus 20, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” also gave us the 10th commandment,
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant,
You know what is so sad today about that list of sexual vices? That is not even a complete list of all the sexual deviancy of our world. But we don’t need to list it all. It is enough to give a simple definition.
Let me go back to the definition I gave you earlier.
Sexual immorality is participating in any sexual activity outside of the confines of a marriage between one man and one woman. It takes in thoughts and desires about sexual activity outside of that between a marriage of one man and one woman. And, it takes in activities or thoughts that might draw you into that sexual activity. Danger zones
What do you mean activities or thoughts that might draw you into that sexual activity?
Let me give you an example in order to make it clearer. Most of us know the story of King David committing adultery with Bathsheba. Adultery, of course, is sexual activity with someone who is married to someone else. (Participation) We know that David went out on the roof of his house and saw Bathsheba bathing. It’s probable that he knew that she would be doing that. After seeing her, he sent a servant to call her to his house, and they slept together. So, here’s the question; In that story, where is the “sexual immorality?”
Well obviously, it was in the actual act of sleeping with her. And most of us would also agree that it was an act of sexual immorality for David to watch her bathe. But I submit to you that there was another act of sexual immorality. I think that he knew that she would be there, and that he ventured out on his roof at certain times because he knew what he would see. So, there is also sexual immorality in David’s purposely putting himself somewhere that might lead to certain thoughts and certain actions.
Do you understand what I am saying? We often limit our understanding of this kind of immorality to participating in a certain activity, or thinking about it. But the sexual immorality begins by our purposely putting ourselves in a place that will lead us to those desires. Now I’m not talking about accidents. But purposely and knowingly putting yourself there is also sin.
Well how do we do that? You know. We like to preach about how sexualized our culture has become, but how many of us watch movies and shows that feed those kinds of thoughts in our own minds? How many of us participate in what Paul called “coarse jesting?”
Ephesians 5:3-4 But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; 4 neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. What is coarse jesting? For one, it is talking about sexual topics in a joking matter. What’s wrong with that? It moves thoughts about activities that the Bible calls an offense to God to being a joke. And it moves us further from agreeing with God’s thoughts about those activities, closer to agreeing with the world’s thoughts. When we talk to young people about all of this, sometimes the question from them is, “How far should I go in my dating activities to prevent me from getting to the actual sin of fornication?” Well here’s the answer; Don’t involve yourself in any activity that brings you to desire sexual immorality. Because the desire for sexual immorality is also sin, don’t do anything that brings up that desire. That’s why we warn about things like living with a person of the opposite sex outside of the confines of marriage. It’s not that “living together” automatically means “sleeping together” but both have become euphemisms for sexual intimacy, it just that living with someone of the opposite sex subjects you to temptations and desires. And even if you don’t “sleep with” that person, the desire itself becomes sin when we dwell on it. You see, sexual immorality involves far more than just actual participation in an act. So, that’s the definition of sexual immorality. And Paul is saying to the church in Thessalonica that God’s will for them is to abstain from all forms of sexual immorality. It is God’s will that they be sanctified, or set apart. They should be different from the world. The church should be a people of purity.
When someone comes into the assembly of this church, or encounters a Christian, they should encounter a people who are entirely the opposite in sexual morality than what they would encounter in the rest of the world. They should think we’re weird.
I was thinking about that this week. Denise and Alex and I had an occasion to go to Hutchinson this week for an errand. So, we decided on the way back to have dinner at the Carriage Crossing Restaurant in Yoder. Most of you know that Yoder is a small town founded by, and remains the hub of a local Amish people. And most of you know what it means to be Amish. They are a Christian group who hold some strict beliefs about being separate from the world around them. In particular, what most of us expect when we visit an Amish community, is a people in plain clothing; the woman wear very simple dresses and head coverings and the men wear long sleeve plain button up collared shirts with long pants and suspenders. The men grow out their beards, and nobody wears bright colors. We also might expect to see an individual or family riding down the road in a horse and buggy. That where the restaurant gets it’s name; “Carriage Crossing.”
Now, what am I trying to illustrate with that description of the Amish? Well, when we went to that town and restaurant, we expected to see some people who were different in appearance than what we usually see in the world. I expected to see a “peculiar” people. A people whose beliefs I don’t entirely understand or agree with.
And when the world visits the church, or meets a Christian, if they know anything about Christianity, they should expect a people, and they should find, a people they find peculiar in regard to their sexual morality. They should enter a building that seems like a walk back in time to a different era.
They definitely shouldn’t encounter a people who are just like the world.
Well, next time we will consider the question, “How do I live up to that standard?”