God's Will: Your Holiness

Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you, and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

And that sets up the next section of scripture beginning in chapter 4. Chapter 4 verses 1 through 8 deals with holiness, which he just mentioned. Chapter 4 verses 9 through 12 deals with brotherly love, which he just called out. And that's going to tell us what we need to be doing while we await Christ's return, which 4.13 through 5.11 will address. Paragraphs 4, 1 through 8, and 4, 9 through 12 are very tightly closed, very tightly tied together. And I almost considered preaching them together as one sermon. But there was just too much to cover there. But they both have that same language about what you were doing, do more and more. Paul has already told the Thessalonians in chapter 3, this is what you need to be doing, loving one another and being holy and blameless as you await Christ's return. And now he's going back and going into more detail and telling them how they need to fulfill these commands. He warns us first against a corrupted kind of love in sexual immorality, and then he's going to point us next week to the real love of brotherly love that comes from God and honors God as we await Christ's return. Both these teachings on both sex and love were very countercultural when they were first presented by Paul, and they still are today. So today we're gonna focus on the first of these, holiness. Our main point today is if God's people aren't holy, they don't care for either God or other people. If God's people aren't holy, they don't truly care for either God or other people. Our text this morning is divided into four points. First, holiness is commanded by God. Holiness is commanded by God, and we're gonna see that in verses one through the first part of verse three. Secondly, holiness is commanded for individual believers. Holiness is commanded for individual believers, and we see the details on that in the second half of verse three through verse five. Third, lack of holiness wrecks the greater community. We see in verse six that lack of holiness wrecks the greater community. And fourth, lack of holiness is a rejection of God. Verses seven and eight tell us that the lack of holiness is a rejection of God. First, holiness is commanded by God. Let me reread the first part of this text.

Finally then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that as you receive 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.

It's an interesting buildup in those first few verses. I'm going to tell you something, and it's coming straight from God. And I've told you before, and it came straight from God. He was preparing for them to hear it again. He tells them he's going to tell them something that has been received, which is language that is used for instructions that have been received. And in 2 Thessalonians, Paul talks about the tradition you received from us. He's talking about the teaching of the apostles that has already been gathered. He's talking about the teachings that came from Jesus and are being passed on to these early disciples. And the word in verse 2 for instruction is elsewhere used for commands, and it comes from a military context. In this case, what he's talking about for us is a settled manner. It's part of the tradition and teaching of the apostles, and the instructions are to be obeyed. As with all parts of this book, this text heavily emphasizes the Godhead and its role in all things in a Christian's life. We see reference in verse 4.1 to the Lord Jesus and God, in 4.2 to Lord Jesus, in 4.3 to God, in 4.5 to God, in 4.6 to the Lord, meaning in this case Jesus, 4.7 again God, 4.8 God and the Holy Spirit. So God is woven throughout this entire passage as the one who is giving the commands. There's a particular emphasis here on Jesus as Lord. He's called Lord in all three references. He's someone who has the authority to command us. He's someone to whom obedience is due. And he has a role, we hear, as an avenger and judge. It's very clear that this issue is of grave importance because Paul tells us this command is coming from an apostle who not only asks but urges that it be met. And he does so in the name of the Lord Jesus. And he tells us that the apostle is giving them this through the Lord Jesus. This is not just something that's an arbitrary command or something that might be a good idea. It is how to live our lives in a way that pleases God. It is how to live our lives in a way that pleases God. And this is particularly clear with the statement at the beginning of verse three. God's will for you. Many people spend a lot of time wandering around in their lives trying to figure out what God's will is and asking people, how do I find God's will? Here you go, mic drop, God's will, right here in front of us. Now, it's not the only thing God wills for you. Even later in the book of 1 Thessalonians in chapter five, we'll hear God's will invoked again.

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

So there are many things that God wills, but it is clear that sanctification is a key part of that. package. It is core to biblical teaching that we would be sanctified, that we would be holy. If you look throughout this passage, references to sanctification or holiness is repeated throughout. Here the word sanctification is the same Greek word that is used later for holiness. So it's translated in verse three as sanctification, in 4.4 as in holiness, 4.7 as in holiness. And in 4.8, there's a reference to the Holy Spirit. And it doesn't come across in the English, but in the Greek, there's special emphasis on the holiness of the Spirit and the way that it is constructed. Holiness basically means being set apart, being holy, becoming holy, being distinct, being like God. In English, sanctification versus just holiness is usually a reference to the becoming part of holiness, the process of holiness. In Christian theology, there are three different kinds of sanctification or holiness, and I wanna be clear about which one we're talking about here today. The first kind is positional sanctification. when God sets apart a believer as his own at the time of conversion. So that's what God has done for each and every believer at one point in time. Secondly, there's progressive sanctification. That's the ongoing process throughout a believer's life of becoming more holy, more mature, more Christ-like. And this is God's work in us over our entire lives. And then finally, there's ultimate sanctification. After death, when God glorifies believers, setting them utterly and eternally apart from sin. Here, very clearly, it is progressive sanctification that is in view. That is what you need to do in this life. Something that is verse 1 says, you're already doing, and you need to do more of it. This is a process where you start doing the right thing and you get better at it. You start doing it more often rather than less often, and you grow and mature in your Christian life. Becoming holy in this life is a faint, faint foretaste of the glorious and eternal sinlessness that is the believer's promised hope with Christ forever. Now, Paul's call here for sanctification, for living a holy life, is not something new. The Old Testament is replete with examples of God saying something along the lines of, you shall be holy for I am holy." And in the New Testament, Peter, in his first epistle, cites Leviticus on this count and explains how this fits in now that Christ has come. In 1 Peter 1 beginning in verse 13, Peter encourages his readers,

Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ,

at his second coming, the same kind of context Paul has been talking about.

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. And if you call on him as father, who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last time for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

We are to be holy, and we can only be holy in Christ Jesus, who is the perfect, unblemished lamb. Do you take the commands of God's word to be holy seriously? Do you seek after holiness? Or do you act like grace makes God's commands optional? Yeah, I know I should be holy, I know I should be more like Christ, but he'll forgive me. The clear command of scripture is that we must seek after holiness and work to holiness, seek sanctification, knowing that it is of God, but knowing that is how he grows us and builds us and makes us more like his own son, being an example to others about the transforming nature of what God has done for us. There is a kind of Christianity that seeks to be so full of grace that it lacks any need to struggle. But God's Word is clear that we face struggle. We face temptations that we have to fight. We face commands that we are told that we must obey. And those are not optional. They come from God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Second, holiness is commanded for individual believers. We're going to turn now to the second half of verse 3 through verse 5. God's will for us is sanctification. And Paul continues to describe what that means in a specific instance.

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.

So there are four infinitives here in this passage that we abstain and that we know how to control are the first two, and there'll be two more in the third point, not transgress and not wrong. And all four of these flow around the idea of sexual immorality. The theme throughout the section is holiness writ large, but sexual immorality is the example that Paul chooses to use as a primary example of what holiness does not look like. Why is this the case? Again, why does God focus so much on sex? Well, in part, it's because throughout scripture, God uses the marriage relationship as a metaphor for his relationship with his people. In the Old Testament, he talks about the people of Israel as his bride, who he seeks to care for. He does the same thing with the church in the New Testament and Ephesians 5. In both cases, in the New Testament and the Old Testament, when his people is unfaithful, when Israel is unfaithful, when the church is unfaithful, God contrasts this idolatry, this spiritual unfaithfulness to sexual infidelity, to adultery, even prostitution. Marriage is supposed to be a picture of God's love for us. that Christ is the bridegroom and the church is a perfect, blameless bride to be presented to him at the end of time. But when we fight back against God's commands, when we engage in sexual immorality, we break that relationship. In the Old Testament, there are key examples in the books of Hosea and Ezekiel. In Hosea, where Hosea marrying a prostitute is compared to God's relationship with the people of Israel. And in the book of Ezekiel, which, to be blunt, is far more graphic than anything I would dare talk about today in the way that Samaria and Judah were unfaithful to their faithful king, Yahweh. And the writers in the New Testament don't shy away from this either. In James 4, James pulls this same imagery from the Old Testament. In the ESV it says, you adulterous people, but it's literally you adulteresses. you women who are acting in adultery. And that's not calling out women separate from men. That's a reference back to the Old Testament where God's people are the unfaithful wife. He says in James 4.4,

you adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Participating in the sexual immorality that is so rampant in the world places you in active opposition to God. And we, just as sanctification goes well beyond sexual immorality and includes all sins that we may commit, it's very clear from scripture that sexual sins form a major part of what God is focusing on. 1 Corinthians 6, 9, Paul writes,

or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God.

Notice even as Paul sets up this list of things that are unholy behavior with a major focus on sexual sins, he finishes with the hope that we have in Jesus Christ, which we'll come back to in a little bit. So the main command here is to abstain from sexual immorality. This has been important throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament. In Acts 15, when the Council of Jerusalem met to tell the Gentile believers that they did not have to follow all the Mosaic law, that they did not have to get circumcised, that they did not have to follow all the food laws, they said, but, That doesn't mean you can be sexually immoral. You can't do that. That's primary. Yes, you are saved by faith in Jesus Christ, not by anything you do, but you can't keep doing all this stuff you used to do, specifically sexual immorality. Sexual immorality is effectively any sexual activity outside a one-man, one-woman marriage. Any sexual activity outside a one-man, one-woman marriage. I think that's clear from what Jesus says about lust being a form of adultery. It covers everything men and women might do or think about doing by themselves or with women and men outside of marriage. If lust is involved, it's sexually immoral. This command is supremely counter-cultural. If you want to read up in the Greek and Roman culture of the time, make sure you do it carefully because it is frightening in its depravity. Sexual rituals were part of pagan religion. Men, in particular, were allowed to do all sorts of things outside of marriage, and it was considered okay. Every kind of perversion that you can imagine existed. And to be honest, to one extent or another, that's true of every culture throughout history. Our current sexual culture is evil, but not uniquely so. We have not been able to invent things maybe with the exception of the internet, that make it any different, but it's not in kind, it might just be in scope. Now, it isn't just the culture that is depraved and struggles with this. Nearly everyone in this room over a certain age has wrestled with the sin of sexual immorality, whether in the past or this very day. You've lusted in your heart while looking at your fellow human beings in person, or by while looking at pictures or videos. You've engaged in some sexual activity before marriage, or engaged in all the sexual activity before marriage, or cohabitated before marriage, or engaged in sexual activity while married with someone not your spouse, including going back to the lust that we started with. Sadly, we live in a culture where sex all too often occurs before a relationship has even begun rather than following from a lifetime commitment. Lust, adultery, abandoning family through divorce, a woman leaving her husband and her family for another man, a man abandoning his wife emotionally through pornography, unfaithfulness, infidelity, abuse of others or oneself. Believers must abstain from all these things. Verse four tells us that we need to know how to control our own bodies in holiness and honor, not in passions of lust. Not just try to keep our bodies holy, but to keep them honorable. This points to the fundamental disconnect between how fallen humanity treats sexuality and the way God treats it. In Romans 124, the same word for honor used here is used with a negative for dishonor there. It reads,

therefore God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever, amen.

Sexual sin is at the very root and core of humanity's rebellion against God. It's putting something else, It's putting these gross sexual desires as the item that we worship rather than God. And Paul points out here in particular that we are not to be like the Gentiles who don't know God. We have sort of an emphasis there. The fact that they're Gentiles means they don't know God, but he says they don't know God because he's pointing out that they're completely outside of God at this point. He's saying we don't want to be like the culture. We don't want to be like it is outside the church. Sexual immorality harms us in a way that even other sins don't. In 1 Corinthians 6.18, Paul says,

flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

Jesus certainly takes this very seriously, this need for self-control over the body when he talks in Matthew 5. He says,

you have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

I could have an extended sermon on that particular passage and discuss how much of this is hyperbole and how much of this is literal, but certainly, he says, this is a serious matter. This is worth fighting for. This is something that is damaging to you and your very soul and risks your very salvation. It can be very damaging. I remember the first time I saw what I wasn't supposed to see. It actually happened three times under different circumstances in a single year. Given where I was living, we moved around a lot, I'm certain I was six or seven years old. And it happened three times in one year. And this was in the 1970s. before the internet, and I remember 50 years later. Images have a long-lasting impact. Engaging physically with another person has a long-lasting impact. But our culture mainstreams pornography and infidelity. People simply don't think it's wrong. It's normal, it's ubiquitous. Worst of all, statistics indicate that self-proclaimed, self-identified evangelicals are a little different than the general population in terms of their behavior, and not much different in what they profess to believe. In surveys, large portions of self-proclaimed Evangelicals say that sex before marriage is okay, and they show that in their behavior. Why is this? I think in part it is just, again, this fundamental disconnect between what God has given us and what we have desired. As John writes in 1 John 2, echoing the temptation of Adam and Eve in the garden,

For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride and possessions is not from the Father, but it is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

We are ungrateful. We are not satisfied with what God gave us. Just as Adam and Eve had everything except one thing, and that was too many things to be held back from them. We think that we deserve things that we think will give us fleeting pleasure, that we think will make us feel better, and we are not satisfied with what God has provided. We act like pagans. St. Augustine in his confessions identified how sin can arise like this. He says,

sin arises when things that are a minor good are pursued as though they were the most important goals in life. If money or affection or power are sought in disproportionate and obsessive ways, then sins occur. And that sin is magnified when, for these lesser goals, we fail to pursue the highest good and the finest goals. So when we ask ourselves why, in a given situation, we committed the sin, the answer is usually one of two things. Either we wanted to obtain something we didn't have, or we feared losing something we had.

And we see that spelled out in the Bible repeatedly. Two quick examples, David and Solomon. They literally had everything. They were God's designated kings. They had material and spiritual blessings beyond measure, beyond any men on the earth. They had multiple wives and concubines. But it wasn't enough. David still wanted more. He saw Bathsheba and he wanted her. Solomon had all these wives and they pulled him toward idolatry, made him unfaithful to God by bringing him to foreign wives. So what can we do about this? Basically, I think we have to go back to 1 Corinthians and flee sexual immorality. It's not something you want to mess with and try to struggle with. You need to flee it. Think of sexual immorality as the Grand Canyon. You don't want to go climb over the guardrail and hold on backwards and lean over and see how close to the edge you can get before you fall in. You need to stay back. You need to stay on this side of the guardrail and be careful that you don't get too close. It is important that you ask questions about what you're doing, who you're hanging out with, what you're seeing, how you're becoming involved with people that you might be attracted to, and flee from any hint. If you're having to ask, well, is this too far? It probably is. And I I am coming at this not from a point of success, but as one like others here who have failed. Sexual immorality is dangerous. We should flee from it. We should be content in what God has provided us. That also is not easy. The very root of our sin is a desire for something else. And as we've seen in the stories of David and Solomon, simply getting married is not enough. People are fooling themselves if they think the solution to their desires and their lust is simply to get married and then it won't be a problem anymore. Again, God has given us everything and we want more. And so this has to be a constant struggle. It has to be an active struggle. And it has to be something that we see as an active foe. But as horrible it is, sexual immorality is in its effect on us. Our third point is that a lack of holiness also wrecks the larger community. It wrecks the larger community. The final two infinitives from the passage we're gonna look at are in verse six.

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.

As verses one and two indicates, they've already had this teaching. He repeats that here, I told you beforehand, and it was a serious matter. We have two verbs here, one's transgress and the other is wrong, and in a certain sense, transgress is a kind of verb that's usually used for what we do against God, and wrong is how we go against our fellow man. And so we've already been told that we're going against God's will and going to transgress by our sexual immorality. But the focus here is most on its effect on our fellow human beings. Our sexual immorality harms others, not just ourselves. You may not think you have physically harmed others by engaging in sex outside of marriage, but you've stolen from them and their spouses. You may have looked at pictures, thereby participating in the degradation of another human being made in the image of God as their conscience is further seared and turned away from God as they seek to make a living gratifying your sinful desires. And that even assumes that they're participating with consent. And we know that in many cases it's not based on consent, but on force, violence, drugs, and manipulation. If you look at pornography and think you are less sinful than the people you are looking at, you are gravely self-deceived. Some, maybe even many of you here in this place, have suffered as the spouse who was cheated on, the child who suffered from a parent's marriage that dissolved because of adultery, or even more trying, you're a victim of sexual abuse or even rape. You're the wronged party. You have been victimized. Victims of sexual abuse and violence are no more responsible for sexual immorality than theft victims are for thieves. But you have been harmed. We will hear later that you do have an avenger in Jesus who will make things right. Even beyond our direct brothers and sisters who may have had a negative effect based on our actions, there's a larger social connection. Part of the damage is sinning against God, but there's also greater damage caused by sinning against your brother and your sister, even on a societal level. Gay liberation started in the 60s, alongside heterosexual liberation in the 60s. Gay marriage wasn't even a topic until the 1990s, 25 years after heterosexual divorce rates, including among evangelical Christians, skyrocketed. It wasn't other people who undercut marriage, it was us. It was people who claimed to believe what we believe but did not live it out, who did not push back. when changes were made, who acquiesced and said, oh, I understand, when they had friends or members of their church who decided to leave marriages because they decided they were in love with someone else. One practical application of this is the need for church discipline, the body telling the individual that their actions are out of line with their professed beliefs. The individual does not get to determine for him or herself whether or not they are in line. But we're not in love anymore, and God wants me to be in love. God is love. How many so-called Christians were disciplined by their churches in the 1970s and 80s when they divorced and remarried because they had fallen out of love with one person and fallen in love with another? I'm assuming it happens somewhere sometime, but in numbers that are infinitesimally small. We need to stop thinking of sexual immorality as a victimless sin. We're not just victimizing ourselves, we're victimizing others. And we also need to stop being indistinguishable from the culture. We're no worse than the rest of our society is not a defense. It is a grave condemnation on the church. Doing what we want without thinking about its effect on ourselves, on our families, on our children, on our brothers and sisters, on the greater society, will just lead us further down this terrible path. Finally, fourth, lack of holiness is a rejection of God. It's bad enough that we're harming ourselves, it's even worse that we're harming others, but we are actually rejecting God when we refuse to be holy. We see this in verses 7 and 8.

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 for you.

As we've seen here, there are at least four ways that God is involved in this process. We saw in the previous passage that the Lord is an avenger. He actually cares about this enough to punish people, including people in the church who have sinned against their brother and sister. But here even more so, he has called us to holiness. And we disregard him. And he has given us his spirit. He has called us, but he did not call us to be his very own special treasured people out of undeserved love and grace to continue in our sin and rebellion. He called us out to be transformed and formed into a perfect gift, showing his love and grace and his transformative power. Not only did he call us to this, but he gave us his own spirit that we might be enabled to do what he has commanded us to do. He gives his Holy Spirit. The sense there is something that is an ongoing kind of thing. Didn't just give you the Spirit at your conversion, but he gives you his Spirit on an ongoing basis that you might walk with the Spirit and be guided by the Spirit, led away from sin, and into holiness. But when we disregard the command for holiness, we're disregarding God. We're disregarding God the Father who called us. We're disregarding the Spirit who is there to illumine us and guide us. And we're disregarding Jesus who died for us to cover our sins. who died for us that we might be new creatures, that we might display the glory of God in our new transformed lives. When we reject holiness, we reject God's greatest gifts, himself. as a father who loves us, as a savior who dies for us, as a spirit who leads us. I'm still processing that powerful prayer of confession that Don gave us earlier. It was a marvelous opening up to God, acknowledging our depravity and our need for confession and repentance. That we love other things more than we love God. And we need to come back and return to our first love. And that's really the final application here. For those of you who are here who are not believers, that's the state you're in. You've rejected God. You've lived a life not worrying about what you do or being accountable to anyone, much less God, because you're gonna live your own life and do your own thing. But this rejection of God has a penalty. Eternal separation and punishment from God for your sin. But there is hope. and forgiveness. Sexual immorality is not the unforgivable sin. Other sins are not unforgivable either. Jesus died so that sinners would be brought to repentance and fully reconciled with God the Father. I encourage you to cry out to him today, not to continue to reject him. but to repent to him and declare your need for him. And for those who are believers, this message was for you. What was going on here was the action of believers in the church who are acting in a way that rejected God. That ought not be, but it is. You too have a continual need to repent. You have been saved. That doesn't mean you keep sinning. You have been saved, but that doesn't mean you presume on the grace of God. As James read earlier from the book of John, Jesus talks about abiding in him. He is the vine, and the Father is the vinedresser. And he says, I've cleaned you, but you're not gonna bear fruit unless you are in me. You're not going to live a life that is holy, that shows that you have been saved unless you abide in me. You need to return over and over again in repentance, abiding in Christ, abiding in the salvation he's given you, being pruned by the Father. As there are consequences for the sin you've engaged in, as we've talked about, there are often grave consequences of sexual immorality. But if you ask for forgiveness, you will be forgiven. In conclusion, if God's people aren't holy, they don't care for either God or people, they are just self-centered sinners. We call on you this day to instead focus on love of God and love of other people and display that in your holiness. Let's pray. As our brother Don prayed earlier, Father, we are indeed totally depraved and we seek after that which is not your gift, but that which is dangerous for us and deadly for us. Father, we pray that you would point our desires away from that which is deadly to that which is glorious and pure and good and of you. Father, we pray today that sinners would come to know you, and saints would be encouraged and further sanctified by your good grace. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.