Pleasing God

Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that, as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you may excel still more (1 Thess 4:1).

If you are a believer, a follower of Christ, then this verse ought to make you salivate, so to speak. Paul is about to tell his readers "how you ought to walk and please God", and, frankly, for true believers there is nothing more glorious than pleasing God. Thus it would be that we should hang on every word on the subject that follows.

² For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. ³ For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; ⁴ that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, ⁵ not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; ⁶ and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. ⁷ For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification (1 Thess 4:2-7).

Okay, good! Now we have something to examine on the Bible's view of how "brethren", the people of God, can "walk and please God". Excellent!

Let's see. Well, first, clearly it is our calling to be sanctified. That is a key function of the Christian life. It is the goal. Paul says in Romans that we are to "present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification" (Rom 6:19). We begin the Christian life by being sanctified by faith in Christ (Acts 26:18; 1 Cor 6:11). After that begins the process of sanctification. That is, having been set apart ("sanctified"), we begin the process of becoming holy ("sanctified"). Or, as Paul puts it in Philippians, we begin the process of living up to that which we've already attained (Phil 3:16).

Okay, so far, so good. So what does Paul specifically prescribe here for our sanctification, our becoming holy? In verse 3 he starts with "this is the will of God, your sanctification" and then follows by a sort of synonym. He uses the phrase, "that is", which means "sanctification is". What is it? "Abstain from sexual immorality."

Hold on a minute. Isn't that rather ... minimal? I mean, isn't that kind of limited? Surely holy living is defined as much more than sexual purity? And, of course, that's true. We are to love the brethren (1 Thess 4:9), "make it your ambition to lead a quiet life" (1 Thess 4:11)(Try to make that case in today's world), and "behave properly toward outsiders" (1 Thess 4:12) by working with our hands (1 Thess 4:11). That sort of thing. But apparently this particular facet of holy living -- that of sexual purity -- is much bigger than most of us realize.

It is true that in Paul's time sexual immorality of all types were not regarded as immorality by the society at large. It was, in fact, encouraged. It was part of daily life, part of social life, part of religious life. It was mostly common place and acceptable. People in Paul's time would have argued that sex between friends was fine or that "loving and committed relationships include sex" or that "We should all be allowed to pursue that which makes us happy; sex makes us happy." You know, just like you might hear today. So when Paul told them to abstain from all matters of immorality that revolve around sex (Eph 4:19), it was a pretty big deal. Paul, then, was warning them off of a huge error common in their day which they may not have seen. The enemy of this holiness, then, would be "lustful passion" and the opposing position would be "sanctification and honor".

Paul gives an additional warning and I wonder how often we are guilty of it. I've often heard it yanked out of context and, in so doing, it loses its meaning and force. Paul warns in verse 6 "that no one go beyond and defraud in the matter his brother." "See," I've heard, "you're not to cheat your brother!" Well, okay, that's true enough, but that's not what this is talking about. This is talking about defrauding your brother in terms of sexual immorality. How do we defraud someone in those terms? Well, you could do it by encouraging your brother or sister to engage in sexual immorality. You know, the direct method. You could do it by covetousness, wishing you had their sexual immorality rather than helping them to stop it. You could do it by example, presenting sexual immorality as good, causing them to stumble. You could do it with speech, talking about things that shouldn't be talked about. "What's the harm? We're not actually encouraging sexual sin. We're just talking." (Compare that with Phil 4:8 and Col 3:16, for instance.) You could do it by lack of self-control in one area, encouraging lack of self-control in others in that area. Women can do it to men by their dress or attention. Men can do it to their sisters in Christ by their attitudes and unwarranted attention. Indeed, sexual immorality, especially in our day, is so prevalent that it takes genuine vigilance to avoid encouraging it in others by example, word, or attitude.

As it turns out, self-control becomes the key issue in sexual purity. The enemy is lust ... lust of any kind (James 1:14). Sanctification is largely a product of setting aside personal desires for God's desires. Denying this process of self-control and pursuing God's desires rather than our own, according to the text, is not safe. "Whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God." I would personally recommend against it.