9/2 - 1 Thessalonians 4, Part 2

Paul exhorts the Thessalonians early in the chapter for their faithfulness but here in chapter 4 addresses them on a matter where they needed more guidance. The Thessalonian culture, much like ours, had a perspective of sex that left God out. What made it worse for them was there was no Christian influence that had even suggested sexual purity. As new believers, they were expected to go from doing whatever they were doing to being sexual pure, cold turkey.

"For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; 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. 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" (v. 4-8)

The opening to this passage, I believe, would be better understood as "for this is a will of God," meaning I don't think Paul is explaining the exhaustive will of God but just a portion, particularly, our sexual purity. As believers, our goal is to please God and the only way we can accomplish this is first understand what it is that pleases Him or, in other words, His will. The specific part of His will we must understand here is that we be sanctified.

The verse makes it clear that one's sexuality can't be separated from one's sanctification. If you are failing in this area, you consequently fail to be sanctified in God's sight. That word sanctification, in this instance, means to make holy, to separate or to devote or consecrate. The implication is separation from the world and devotion to God. In verse 4, we see the significance of that separation - that we possess our bodies with honor, not "like the Gentiles who do not now God." There's a clear distinction made here. Therefore if you have resolved to live a life that includes sex outside of marriage, then your sanctification - the process of being made holy & fit for the kingdom of God - is incomplete. I'm not ranking sins here. The same could be said for a variety of other sins, but we're on 1 Thessalonians 4 and this is the topic at hand. This is also an area God has devoted a lot of attention to in His word so it would behoove us to pay special attention to it.

Imagine a lower standard for holiness. I suppose we don't have to imagine, we can just look around at the world's guidelines for sexual morality, but imagine if that standard was actually truth. Imagine if some of the things we convince ourselves of - "God understands," "A little of this won't hurt," "It's not like I'm hurting anybody," etc - imagine if that standard was actually true, if God was actually cool with it like we convince ourselves He is. That would also mean that God is also cool with the consequences - the heartache, unwanted pregnancies, disease, sexual addiction, perversion - all the things He actually guards us from when a proper perspective of marriage is attained and a correct attempt at it is made.