1 Thessalonians - Walking In Purity

Who cares if we live a godly life? God cares, we should care, the world cares, other Christians care, and I think you care. 

Walking in purity. That's Warren Wiersbe's message today, here on Back to the Bible. Welcome. Today, Warren reminds us that Christ followers belong to God—spirit, mind, and body—and how we live is a reflection of God to everyone around us, especially in a world that's darkened by sin. So stay tuned as we go back to the Bible for some very practical pointers for our walk with God. Here's Warren with his message from 1 Thessalonians 4.

Ask me if I care. Have you ever heard that statement? Sometimes young people use it, children use it. Ask me if I care. Well, it's a statement that can hurt. They want us to know how really unconcerned they are. Just ask me if I care. Well, this is a good question for us as Christians today. Who really cares whether or not we live a clean life? You see, the philosophy today is in the world that you can live your own life, it's your body, you can do what you want to with your own body. And after all, if other people are doing these things, why shouldn't we? 

In 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul starts his admonition. Paul begins his application of the Word of God. And he has been telling the people in Thessalonica how he had helped found the church and how he had nurtured the church and established the church in the faith. Now he tells the church how to walk. You see, in 1 Thessalonians 1, the church was born. In 1 Thessalonians 2, the church was nurtured. In 1 Thessalonians 3, the church was taught how to stand. And then the next step for the baby is you learn how to walk. It's always interesting when your children phone you and say, "Hey, the baby started to walk today." Well, Christians have to learn how to walk. 

1 Thessalonians 4:1, "Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God." Now what kind of a walk is he talking about? Well, in 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8, he says walk in purity. He's talking about sexual purity. 1 Thessalonians 4:3, "For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you should abstain from sexual immorality." So 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8, walk in purity.

And then 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12, walk in love. "Now concerning brotherly love," walk in love. And then 1 Thessalonians 4:13 down through 1 Thessalonians 5:11, walk in hope. It's a big section in which he talks about the coming of our Lord. He said, "I don't want you weeping and carrying on like the unsaved. We live in hope. I want you to walk in hope." Then 1 Thessalonians 5:12 through the end of the letter, the end of the chapter, walk in harmony. He's talking about how Christians can get along with each other in their personal ministry, in the public services. And of course, he always emphasizes the coming of the Lord. 

Now today and tomorrow, I want us to look at 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 and deal with this matter of personal purity. Ask me if I care. Well, you can't talk that way if you're a Christian. Who does care about personal purity in our lives? Well, Paul gives four answers to that question. Number one, he says God cares. Notice 1 Thessalonians 4:1, "walk so as to please God." 1 Thessalonians 4:2, "you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus." So God the Father cares and God the Son cares. And then in 1 Thessalonians 4:7-8, "For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit." God the Father cares, God the Son cares, and God the Holy Spirit cares that we live a clean, pure life. 

But somebody else cares. In 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4, he says we ought to care. 1 Thessalonians 4:4, "that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel," his own body, "in sanctification and honor." You only have one body. You only get one body. Immorality destroys. Now he says if you have any sense at all, you should care about what you do with your body. In 1 Thessalonians 4:5, he tells us the world cares. "not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles," that is the outsiders, the unsaved people, "who do not know God." And 1 Thessalonians 4:6 tells us other Christians care. I care whether or not people live lives that are pure or lives that are immoral. It affects me. It affects my children. It affects society. It affects the church. 1 Thessalonians 4:6, "that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter." Why? "Because the Lord is the avenger of all such." Paul said, "I warned you about that." 

Now here are four good reasons why you and I should live lives of personal purity. Reason number one: God cares. Let's talk about God the Father. 1 Thessalonians 4:1, "Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord." Now that word "urge" means we encourage you. We want you to listen to this word of encouragement and exhortation that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God.

Now he's talking here about pleasing God the Father. There are three levels on which people can live. Romans 15 talks about this. Romans 15:1-3, "We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves." Now the lowest level on which to live is to please yourself. "I don't care what anybody else says or does or what they think. I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm going to do it my way." That's the lowest level we can live on. Romans 15:2, "Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification," that is, being built up. Now the second level is living to please others. Now we should as Christians seek to help others, but that isn't the highest level. We do that because we want to please God. Romans 15:3, "For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written, 'The reproaches of those who reproached You fell on Me.'" The Lord Jesus said, "I do always those things that please Him." And that was John 8:29, "I do always those things that please Him." 

And that's the way we ought to live. Now God cares what you do with your body. God has called us to holiness. His will is for our good. 1 Thessalonians 4:3, "This is the will of God, your sanctification, that you should abstain from sexual immorality." Now I read some of these modern liberal writers and they tell me that the Christian approach to sexuality is strict and stringent and difficult and that it leads to unhappiness and restrictions and repressions, it creates problems. And this is not the case at all. God made our bodies. God invented sex. God knows how to run it. God knows what it's all about. And His will is for our good. God doesn't will something for us that's wrong. This is the will of God, your sanctification, that we should use what He's given to us the way He wants to. 

Now the Bible is God's instruction book for life. You buy a new appliance for your house, you read the instruction book. The people who made the appliance know how to run it. Well, God gives us His Bible, and the Bible is the instruction book for life and this includes this matter of sexuality. His will is for our good and His calling in grace is for our holiness. 1 Thessalonians 4:7, "For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness," in sanctification. That's why he tells us in 1 Thessalonians 2:12 to walk worthy of God. He tells us that we should walk worthy of Him to please Him. Now God didn't have to save me. God saved me by His grace. And because He has saved me by His grace, I owe to Him the allegiance and the obedience of my heart. 

We should walk worthy of God. Someone says, "Well, that's a very difficult thing to do." Well, this is why we have the Word of God and the Church of God and the Holy Spirit of God. Paul prays for them in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, "Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit and soul and body," notice that, "body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Now the answer to that is 1 Thessalonians 5:24, "He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it." The God who commands also is the God who enables us to obey the command. Now we ought to get a mindset immediately that says, "I want to please God. I'm not going to please myself. I'm not going to use all the excuses of the world and say you have only one life to live. If you have these things in your life, enjoy them. God gave them to you to enjoy." That's right, God gave sexuality to be enjoyed, but not outside of His bounds in the Word of God. It's my understanding that God has ordained marriage as the proper place for the enjoyment of these wonderful gifts.

God the Father cares whether or not we are living clean lives. And God the Son cares. 1 Thessalonians 4:2, "For you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus." This is not something new. When Paul was with them, he told them you had better keep your lives clean. You see, in the pagan world, as in our world today, there was the worshiping of sex. In fact, sexual immorality was bound right in with some of their religious practices. This has become almost a religion with people today. People have to get literature that promotes it. They have to watch movies that promote it. The TV people want to invade our homes with this kind of stuff because people want it. And if you protest against it, folks say, "Oh well, you're just a Puritan." Well, I thank God for what the Puritans did for this country. I'm glad that this country was founded by some God-fearing people. It's too bad we don't have some God-fearing people today who can do something about some of these things. 

God the Son commands us to keep our lives pure. The word "commandment" in 1 Thessalonians 4:2 is a military term. It means an order handed down from an executive officer. The general tells the sergeant who tells the buck privates, "This is what you're supposed to do." Now He commands us. He has every right to command us. He died for us. The Lord Jesus Christ died for us and because He died for us, He owns us. The Lord Jesus Christ purchased us with His blood. Be careful what you do with your body. He not only died for us, He lives for us today and one day He's going to come for us and He wants to be able to come and find us in purity.

Notice 1 Thessalonians 3:13, "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." When the Lord Jesus comes, He wants to find us with sanctified, holy bodies. Now we're not going to have our old nature gone until we see the Lord Jesus Christ, but there is no reason why we have to live for our old nature. 1 John 3:3, "And every man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as He is pure." We have been given a military order to obey: keep your life clean. 

And so God the Father cares whether or not we live pure lives, and God the Son cares, and God the Holy Spirit cares. 1 Thessalonians 4:7-8, "For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore he who rejects this," that is, this commandment about purity, "does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit." Now who was it who called you? It was the Holy Spirit. You wouldn't be saved today were it not for the Holy Spirit. Who was it that wrote the Word of God that gave you the message and the assurance of salvation? The Holy Spirit. Who is it who indwells you? The Holy Spirit. Who is it that has made our bodies the temple of God? The Holy Spirit. Who is it that wants to sanctify us completely, that is, have us totally and completely set apart for God's use? Our body, our soul, our spirit? The Holy Spirit of God. Who is it who has a job for us to do in this world and wants to empower us to do that job? The Holy Spirit of God. 

Now the Holy Spirit of God is greatly concerned about our purity. I was thinking of Ephesians 4:32. You know these verses so well. Ephesians 4:32, "Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." We should not have evil things in our hearts toward one another. But how about evil things in our lives toward the Holy Spirit? Ephesians 4:30, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." Now how do we do this? Well, he talks about some of these sins back in Ephesians 4:19, "They've given themselves over to licentiousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness." Ephesians 4:22, "put off concerning your former conduct the old man, which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts." Throughout the Word of God, we are warned about what immorality does in the Christian life. 

Did you ever notice that sin leads to dishonor? Oh, how many, how many of God's people, including God's servants, have dishonored the Lord and dishonored the gospel because they've been playing around with this thing called immorality. And we live in a world that is like a cesspool. You can't walk into a drugstore, you can't stand in line at a checkout counter in a supermarket without your mind being exposed to this filth. It has almost become a religion. It's certainly a big business, there's no question about that. Now we could go on and on, but I'll just stop at this point and say that you and I need to care because we only have one body and we ought to possess this vessel in sanctification. 

I notice in 1 Thessalonians 4:5 that the world cares how I live. "not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God." The word "Gentiles" there means unbelievers. The world cares. The world expects Christians to be different. Have you ever noticed that when a Christian gets into immorality, the press gets a hold of it and has a good time with it? Now the world loves to see Christians sin because it gives them an excuse to sin. You and I are to be different from the world. We are to be lights shining in this world.

I like what Moses said, actually he was speaking for God when he spoke to the Jewish people and told them what they really are in God, in the book of Exodus when he tells them all about they are a holy people, they are a nation set apart by God. Peter uses the same illustration in 1 Peter 2:9, "But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people," for what purpose? "that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." Now if you say, "Well, the world's too hard on us," remember God expects us to be lights shining in a dark world. "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works," not bad works, "and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Oh, that we might remember: God cares that we live a holy life, and we should care, and the world cares, and by the way, other Christians care. 

1 Thessalonians 4:6, "that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified." That means he solemnly declared you won't get away with it. See, we have the idea we can go out and sin and then come and confess our sin and then go out and sin and come and confess our sin. My Bible doesn't permit that. My Bible tells me that a person who's really born of God does not habitually practice sin and he wants to live a holy life. Yes, I know David committed adultery. My people use David as an excuse for their sin, but not as an example for their repentance. David committed adultery and paid for it for the rest of his life. There is no such thing as cheap sin. You take what you want from life and you pay for it. And David paid for it. Yes, God forgave him. God put away his sin. Other Christians care. I care what kind of a life other Christians live.

As we were raising our four children, we were glad to be in churches where people set the example. The children were seeing good marriages and they were seeing people who were setting an example of holiness and godly living. We belong to each other. We're members of the same body and family. We belong to the same army. He said, "Don't you take advantage of your brother." Now he's suggesting here that some of the Christians in the church were playing around with each other's mates. He said, "Don't you dare do that. Don't you defraud your brother." 

Sex outside of marriage is robbery. You know, sex is something like a bank. There are two ways to get money out of the bank. You can rob the bank and you'll get the money, but you'll be in trouble. Or you can go into the bank and sit down with the banker and say, "What are the rules that run this bank? I'd like to be a member of this organization." You sign your name, you agree to certain conditions, and then you put your deposit into the bank. Now there are two ways to get money out of the bank: as a robber or as a committed member.

Now marriage is God's bank. God says you come and you get married, and every husband has a wife, every wife has a husband, and you do it the way I tell you to do it in My Word. Because the Word of God tells us it is robbery, it is thievery for people to practice sex outside of marriage. Other Christians care. Don't take advantage of other Christians and don't be a bad example to others. Don't make it hard for people to raise their children because of the bad example that people are setting. 

Well, we've been rather hard on each other today, but I think we need this. Who cares if we live a godly life? God cares, we should care, the world cares, other Christians care, and I think you care.