Living Life in Light of Jesus Return: A Call to Sexual Purity

1 Thessalonians 4:3-8

The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to 1

Thessalonians chapter 4. Were going to be looking at verses 3 to 8.
A number of years ago when Phil Ryken was beginning to write his
book called, The Message of Salvation, which was going to be a
book which focused on the main New Testament themes that
describe different aspects of what God does for us in redemption
justification and adoption and glorification he wrote to me and we
had a conversation for several weeks about what passage he was
going to choose to use to preach, to teach, on sanctification in that
book. And we batted back and forth a number of ideas and I'm not
sure whether I really gave him good counsel. Since that time I have
thought that if I only had one passage to go to, to address the issue
of sanctification, it would probably be either Philippians 2:12and 13,
or the passage we're going to look at today. This passage is that
significant in terms of articulating Paul's view of sanctification.

Now before we go any further, let me be very clear about what I

mean by sanctification. I know you've already got your Bibles open,
but if you would take your hymnals and turn back with me to page
872, not hymn 872 there isn't a hymn 872 but if you look at the
bottom of the page and look at page 872 and then go all the way to
the top on the left-hand margin and look at the question number 35:
What is sanctification? What do we mean by sanctification?
Sanctification is the work of God's free grace, whereby we are
renewed in the whole man, after the image of God, and are enabled
more and more to die unto sin and live unto righteousness. So
sanctification is about growing in godliness. It's about more and
more living to righteousness and dying to sin in our lives. And this is
a passage, 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8, in which Paul tells us much about
sanctification.

As we read this passage, in fact, I want you to be on the lookout for

three things. First of all, for what Paul says about sanctification, and
youll see him emphasize the will of God, the call of God, and the
empowerment of God in sanctification as you look at verses 3, 7,
and 8. So be on the lookout for the theme of sanctification.

Secondly, in this passage Paul's big pastoral concern is sexual

purity. He's writing to a congregation that lives in a crazy time of
sexual immorality. Do you ever look around at the world now and
kind of get discouraged, especially those of us who are a little bit
older and can remember when it wasn't quite too crazy? There are
some of us in this room that can remember before the 60's hit and
it's a very different landscape today, very different world today, with
regards to sexual morality in our culture. Well Paul is writing to a
congregation that's in a worse situation than ours and he's calling
them to sexual purity. And if you look at the second half of verse 3 all
the way down to verse 6 that's what his focus is on in speaking to
this congregation. In fact, it's very clearly one of the two major
pastoral issues that he wants to talk to them about. The other is
going to be about the second coming. If you can remember all the
way back, we've said all along that the theme of this book is Living
Life in Light of Jesus Return and he's going to get to that issue in
this section but before he even gets there he wants to address the
issue of sexual morality.

And then finally, I want you to see the very strong warnings that Paul
gives in this passage. He gives solemn warnings for us, and look
especially at verse 6 and verse 8. So be on the lookout for what Paul
says about sanctification, sexual purity, and this solemn warning that
he gives. Let's pray before we read God's Word.

Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word. Every word of it is

inspired; every word of it is profitable. And so we ask today that You
would bring to bear the truth of Your Word in our hearts so that we
would acknowledge practically its authority. It is the only rule of faith
and life. So we want, O Lord, by the Spirit, to have an attitude of
believing and accepting and sitting under Your Word. We pray today
that Your Word would search our lives out and find if there is any
unclean thing in us and then not only apply the Gospel to us but
apply the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit to us, O Lord. And we
ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.

This is the Word of God. Hear it:

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.
Amen, and thus ends this reading of God's holy, inspired, and
inerrant Word. May He write its eternal truth upon all our hearts.

We live in a confused and confusing world with regard to sexual

practice and societal norms. If any of us in this room had gone to our
grandparents and told them that a federal judge was going to rule in
our time that gender was of no significance to the societal institution
of marriage, I am almost certain among a number of horrified
responses that our grandparents would have had, they would have
thought that we would have lost our minds. And yet that's the world
we live in, where we're not even sure how maleness and femaleness
relate to marriage; we're not sure that theyre essential to marriage.
We live in a confused and confusing society with regard to sexual
practice and societal norms. And I think sometimes we look at that,
especially those of us who can remember saner times, and we think,
Boy, it couldn't get any worse than this. But I want you to remember
that Paul is writing to these Christians in Thessalonica from Corinth,
not Corinth, Mississippi, the Corinth. And Corinth and Thessalonica
both were famed for their sexual immorality. It would be kind of like
Paul writing from Amsterdam to San Francisco in our own day. He's
at the epicenter of the prevalent immorality that persisted in Greco-
Roman culture.

You have to understand, in Greco-Roman culture, fornication was not

only common, it wasn't even illegal. Adultery was illegal if you were
in the upper class and the woman that you were committing adultery
with was in the upper class but fornication was institutionally and
legally pervasive. If you were upper class in the Greco-Roman world,
you were a male, it would be not uncommon for you to have a wife to
run your household and to bear your children, but in addition to that
to have a concubine, to have slaves with whom you would be
allowed to have sexual relationships, and even to have young boys
attached to you who would give you sexual favors. This is the world
that the Thessalonians were living in. Do you know that the Jewish
rabbis so pervasive was the sexual immorality of the Greco-
Roman world, that Jewish rabbis had determined that no Gentile
woman could be assumed to be a virgin who was older than three
years and one day. The Jews were just horrified at the pervasive
sexual immorality of the world in which they lived.

And here's Paul and he's writing to the Thessalonians and he's
wanting to address this issue. He's wanting to do this not because
he's a prude, not because he's repressed, but because he cares
about the Word of God and because he's a pastor that loves his
people. And as he does so, he wants to speak to them about three
important things sanctification, sexual purity, and then he wants to
give a solemn warning about the importance of these things. And so
I'd like to look at those with you today very briefly.

SANCTIFICATION: THE PURPOSE OF GODS GRACE

TO US IS OUR GROWTH IN HOLINESS

The first one is sanctification. You see it right out of the bat. If you
look at verse 3, Paul says this: This is the will of God, your
sanctification. You hear what Paul is saying? God's will for you is
that you grow in holiness. You know pastors get tons of opportunities
to talk with people, especially young people, about what God's will is
for them in their life. That's why there are so many books written on
that subject. If you talk to young folks who are in high school or in
college of just out of college in that career stage, theyre all trying to
figure out, Lord, what did You put me here for? What do You want
me to do for the rest of my life? Where do You want me to work?
Who do You want me to marry? Where do you want me to live?
What do You want me to do with the gifts and abilities that You've
given to me? And pastors get to have those conversations all the
time. And some of the time we don't know what the specific will of
God is for you in your life in terms of who youre supposed to marry
and where youre supposed to live and what job or career youre
supposed to pursue. But I can tell you this, on the basis of 1
Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 3, if you ask me, What is the will of
God? for your life, I know this the will of God for your life is that
you grow in holiness. Every Christian, no matter where you are, no
matter whether youre male or female, young or old, whether you live
in Jackson or whether you live in Darfur, it is God's will for you to
grow in holiness.

And Paul makes that crystal clear in this passage and he reinforces
it in three ways. Notice how he does this - in verse 3, in verse 7, and
verse 8. First of all, he says God's purpose, God's plan for your life,
is for you to grow in holiness. Look at what he says in verse 3. This
is the will of God, your sanctification. So he's saying God's will,
God's plan, God's purpose for every Christian is that we grow in
godliness. In fact, if I had to give a one sentence summarization of
this whole passage it would be God's will is for you to be godly.
God's will is for you to be godly.

SEXUAL PURITY: OUR BELONGING TO GOD OUGHT

ESPECIALLY

BE EXPRESSED IN OUR SEXUAL PURITY AND FIDELITY

Secondly, in verse 7 he says, God has not called us for impurity, but
in holiness. In other words, God has not called us to live impure,
immoral lives. He has literally called us into holiness. Just as we are
called into Christ to be His disciples and to be in fellowship with Him,
so we are called into holiness. We are called into a life of holiness.
And Paul is saying that the reason God has called you out of
darkness and into His marvelous light is not just to be forgiven, not
just to be justified, but to be sanctified, to live in holiness. So we've
been not only is it the will of God that we live in holiness but God
has called us in order that we would live in holiness. And notice what
he doesn't say. He doesn't say that we were saved by that holiness
and were therefore called. That's good news because if that were
true none of us were going to be in heaven. If we were saved by our
holiness we're all in trouble. But he does say, having been saved by
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, saved by the grace of God, God's
undeserved favor shown to us in the life, death, and resurrection of
Jesus Christ so that all who believe on Him alone for salvation as He
is offered in the Gospel are forgiven and accepted only because of
what Jesus has done, having been saved, we're saved into a life of
holiness, into a life of growing godliness. God's called us to that in
our salvation.

Third, look in verse 8. Notice that Paul emphasizes that God has
given us His Holy Spirit. And interestingly in the Old Testament, what
is the most common name for the Holy Spirit? Spirit of God. That's
the most common name for the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament
Spirit of God. Here, Paul calls the Spirit of God the Holy Spirit. That
has become the most common name that we Christians use to
designate the third person of the Trinity because Paul is drawing
attention to one of the things that the Holy Spirit does. The Spirit of
God indwells us in order to grow us in holiness. Paul will talk to the
Ephesians about this in Ephesians 3:14-19. Go read what he says
about what the Holy Spirit does in your heart when He indwells you
as a believer.

Now what's Paul doing? He's telling you that God's will is your
holiness, God's call to you was into holiness, and He has indwelt you
with His Holy Spirit so that you would grow in holiness. Paul is
describing for us why sanctification is so important. The purpose of
God's grace in us is that we would grow in holiness. God has called
us by His grace into holiness and God has given us and indwelt us
with His Holy Spirit so that we might grow in holiness. Sanctification
is both a process and a pursuit. It's something that God is at work in
us to do and it is something that we are to pursue ourselves. And
he's exhorting the Thessalonians to pursue this kind of holiness and
to recognize the importance of it. It is the will of God for us that we
would grow in holiness.

The second thing he says in this passage is to specifically apply this

issue of broken holiness to one hugely important pastoral issue
sexual immorality. And look at what he says: That you abstain from
sexual immorality. This is the specific application of your growing in
holiness, 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. Paul is exhorting the
Thessalonians to sexual purity.
Now very frankly, he has us in the crosshairs and this is a very
uncomfortable place to be with Paul because his words are just as
applicable to us today as they were to those Thessalonians. You
know when we look around today and we live in a world where
same-sex attraction is not simply celebrated but it's now increasingly
legalized, fornication has become a societal norm, the very definition
of marriage has become murky in our own time, and we think it's
really bad. Well think of how it would have been for these
Thessalonians to be rearing children in the crazy kind of culture that
they had with regard to marriage, family, and sexual morality. That's
the kind of culture that they had to raise them in.

But don't you love the way that Paul speaks about this to them? Look
at what he says to them in verse 5. He says, I don't want you to live
in the passion of lust like the Gentiles. Now just pause and glory in
that for a minute. Most of this congregation was not Jewish. You
know if there were Jewish members of this congregation it was a
fairly small core. Paul's pattern was typically to go into town, preach
the Gospel to Jewish folks there, gather up a little core group, study
the Bible with them, and then reach out to the Gentiles. And so in
most of his congregations the Gentiles far outnumbered the Jewish
people and that was certainly the case with the Thessalonians
theyre a majority Gentile congregation. But he says to this majority
Gentile congregation, I don't want you to act like Gentiles. Isn't that
interesting? He says to a majority Gentile congregation, I don't want
you to act like Gentiles. In the Old Testament, there were two kinds
of people in the world - Jews and Gentiles; Jews and everybody
else. For Paul, there are two kinds of people in the world those
who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and pagans. And he's saying to
former pagans, Don't act like pagans. Don't act like the Gentiles.
Don't act like the culture around you. You don't get your marching
orders for how to live with one another and relate to one another
sexually from the world. You get it from God's Word. God's Word
gives us our marching orders in terms of how we're going to live in
this way.

And he says three things in particular about sexual immorality. One,

he tells them to abstain from it. Look at verse 3. Abstain from sexual
immorality. He uses a general term there that refers to all kinds of
sexual immorality. And he says, I know that the culture around you
does not abstain from it, but in here, in the church, we are going to
abstain from it. Were going to be different from the world around us.

Secondly, if youll look with me at verse 4 he tells them that he wants

them to control their bodily appetites. 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 theyre going to
control their bodily appetites, their lust and their passion, whereas
the Gentiles Just let them go! Just do whatever you feel! Do
whatever you like! Theyre not going to do that. Theyre going to be
in control of their bodily appetites.

And then third, if you look at verse 6, he tells them do not transgress.
Now that's interesting. Transgress means to cross the line, to
trespass, to break the law of God. But here he's not just talking about
transgressing against God, breaking His law, he's saying that in your
sexual morality if you act inappropriately, immorally, not with purity,
you are not just transgressing against God what does he say? No
one should transgress and wrong his brother in this matter. So there
are horizontal ramifications for sexual morality. It's always the case.
And you think, No, that's only the case if you've got a situation of
adultery. No, because all of us are responsible not only to the
spouse of other people but we are responsible to our own spouse or
our own potential spouse in our sexual behavior. And when we are
immoral, we are sinning against our brethren in any and every
instance because there are horizontal requirements for our sexual
purity.

Now this is hugely important for us. Over the last twenty years I've
seen marriages that have been broken apart by pornography, by
same-sex attraction, and by adultery. This is a standing issue in our
culture and Paul is putting this right in his crosshairs and he's saying
to the Thessalonians and he's saying to you and me, This is vitally
important. Now you may ask, Well why? Why can't we just relegate
sexual behavior to just something that's between individuals and it
doesn't have anything to do with the church and it doesn't have
anything to do with God? Well actually, the Bible gives a lot of
answers to that question and I don't have time to give all the answers
that the Bible gives to that question but I want to draw your attention
to three answers that the Bible gives to that question.

The first reason is, if you will remember in the Old Testament the
major metaphor for being unfaithful to God is? Adultery. When Israel
goes after other gods, what do the prophets consistently accuse
Israel of doing? Committing spiritual adultery. Now there is a reason
for that. There is a reason for that. Part of the reason for that is, of
course, in many of these other religions, especially in Baal worship,
actual prostitution and adultery was involved in the ritual of the
religion. You would go to temple prostitutes and participate in sexual
immorality as a part of the ritual for the religion. But much deeper
than that is this understanding that there is a fundamental
connection between physical adultery and spiritual adultery.

I've told you before when I was working with college students, one of
my best guys in high school, one of my most mature guys in high
school, whod gone off to college and then gotten out of college and
was starting off in his career, came to me really struggling and he
said, I'm not sure I believe in the existence of God anymore. Now
I'm a college director and I'm trying to figure out, Okay, how am I
going to follow up on that conversation? And so my first question
was, Are you sleeping with your girlfriend? And he looked like a
ghost. And in the course of the conversation it unfolded that yes, he
was, and there were a whole variety of things going on. But there
was a direct connection between his spiritual crisis and his sexual
immorality. And until he understood that, his spiritual crisis was not
going to be addressed. God has made us, He understands how we
function as sexual beings, and we cannot ignore Him in this area and
think that it will not impact our relationship with Him.

And so I just want to say to husbands of the congregation, this

means that you have got to declare war on pornography. It means to
the young people in this congregation that when youre in high
school and in college and everybody else around you has a different
moral code than the moral code that your parents have inculcated in
your home and you just think, This is the season of life where we
just kind of enjoy ourselves and it's okay to engage in fornication. It's
fine. I can go off to State and Ole Miss and Vanderbilt and Millsaps
and MC and Belhaven and I can live it up and then when I get out of
college I can settle down and get more serious about Jesus and one
person and it will all be fine. It doesn't work that way.
And Paul is saying to this congregation, Were not going to live that
way for a second reason because of the boundary between the
church and the world. It's not only important because of that spiritual
connection between adultery and idolatry, it's important for the
boundary between the church and the world. Paul is saying, One of
the ways that we're going to show that the Gospel is true and that the
Holy Spirit is real and that regeneration is a miracle of God that is
verifiable, is through the lives that we live that are distinguishable
from the pagan world around us. Were not going to live like they live
and theyre going to see it in our fidelity to our spouses in our sexual
purity.

Thirdly, it's absolutely essential for harmony in the congregation. It's

not only the connection between adultery and idolatry, it's not only
that boundary between the church and the world so that the world
can look at us and say, You know, theyre different from us. They act
differently with regard to their sexual behavior but it's also significant
for the harmony in a congregation. Does adultery and sexual sin help
the unity of a congregation? I've never ever seen it help the unity of a
congregation, never once. It always does what? It always breaks it
up. People take sides. People decide that the elders should have
done this or they should have done that. It's always fragmented the
unity of a congregation. And so Paul is concerned about sexual
morality because of its connection with our spiritual fidelity to God,
because of the boundary between the church and the world, and
because of the harmony within the congregation. I could give you
hundreds of other reasons, literally, from the Scriptures, but these
are some of the reasons why Christians care so much about sexual
purity. It's not because we're repressed, it's not because we're prude,
it's not because we're Puritanical although I can't imagine a better
compliment to be given to somebody than being like the Puritans.
What a compliment. I wish I were. It's because we love people, it's
because we love God, it's because we care about their everlasting
souls.

A SOLEMN WARNING

You know you understand that in this issue our biggest concerns
aren't even the dramatic heartbreaking temporal ramifications of
sexual impurity marriages breaking up, families breaking up, lives
being wounded and ruined. It's eternal concerns and that's exactly
where Paul goes in this passage. Look at what he says in verse 6
and in verse 8. Why is it that we shouldn't transgress and wrong our
brother? Look at the second half of verse 6. Because the Lord is an
avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly
warned you. Look at verse 8. Therefore whoever disregards this,
disregards not man but God, who gives His Holy Spirit to you. Paul
is warning here that the unrepentant, sexually immoral, face God's
avenging justice and wrath and that those who disregard God's call
to holiness and disregarding God Himself. Now what this does not
mean is that sexual sin is the unforgiveable sin. Paul will say, of
course to the Corinthians, after he lists all manner of sexual
immorality, such were some of you but now you have been washed
and cleaned and glorified. So Paul understands that it is possible to
repent of these sins and be not only members in good standing but
gloriously, graciously accepted by God, nor does this mean that true
Christians will never struggle with these things. I remind you that the
man who wrote more psalms than anyone else was an adulterer. His
name was David.
But the Christian may never make peace with these sins, ever seek
to justify them, and whenever we have succumbed to temptation in
these sins, our souls are in danger. And Paul's telling it to us here
very, very clearly in this solemn warning. He's saying unrepentant,
sexually immoral people, face the avenging justice and wrath of God.
If God has called us to live in holiness, then to live in sexual
immorality constitutes a rejection of that call and that rejection brings
God's wrath and that rejection of God's call to holiness constitutes a
rejection of God. You can't say, Jesus, I want to be Your disciple but
I don't want to live like You've called me to live. Can you imagine
saying that to Jesus? I want to be Your disciple, but I don't want to
live the way that You've called me to live. Those who have
attempted to justify their sexual immorality are doing exactly that.
And my friends, we see that happening more and more in this
culture. People want to say, I want to live in a way that is
diametrically opposed to God's Word and I want to call myself a
Christian and I want to sue you if you say that I can't. That's what
they do in this culture. So your culture is not going to help you think
straight in this area; only the Word of God is.

Now, if youre struggling, if youre struggling in any of these areas of

immorality pornography, same-sex attraction, adultery, fornication
we want to be your allies in that fight against those sins. And I
haven't told you enough how to begin to fight those battles except to
draw you attention to Paul's pointing of the work of the Holy Spirit. If
you attempt to fight those battles on your own, I can just tell you right
now you will lose because this is a spiritual battle and it must be
done in dependence upon the Holy Spirit and there's no easy 1-2-3
solution in any of these areas. It is a long, grueling, bruising battle,
but it's the battle that every Christian is called to. I promise you, if we
went around this room and if we trusted one another enough, for
each of us to stand up and announce what our three greatest
besetting sins were, there would be no one in this room who named
a besetting sin and said that it was an easy sin to fight against.
That's why it's a besetting sin. But we never ever can make peace
with those sins or justify them. Paul says, For those who are
unrepentant in sexual immorality, the wrath of God awaits them. And
it's because we care about people eternally that we say these things,
not because we're all narrow-minded and bigoted and repressed; it's
because we love people and we want them to be with God forever.
And I've seen people literally look at the choice between sexual
immorality and God and look me in the eye and say, It's going to
have to be sexual immorality. And when I've seen them take that
fork in the road, I have also often seen many who never come back.
This is serious business and we need God's help and we need
God's grace to stay in this fight together.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Word. We ask that You would
work it deep down in our hearts. We do want to be different from the
world but Lord I recognize that many of us in this room are in grave,
terrible battles right now with sexual immorality. Lord God, by Your
Spirit, give us freedom from bondage to sin and newness of life and
the will to continue this fight. If we have to fight it to our last breath, O
God, with no relief, then give us the grace of perseverance to fight it
to our last breath with no relief because, O God, a blessed rest
awaits. Lord, help us, by Your Spirit. We pray in Jesus name, amen.

Now let's sing about this. What I'd like you to do is open your
hymnals to 335 and I want us to sing just the fourth stanza of
Gracious Spirit, Dwell with Me and really take in those words. In
fact, let's sing the fourth stanza twice.

Receive now the Lord's blessing. Grace, mercy, and peace to you
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.