1 Thessalonians 4 - How you ought to Walk

Malcam challenges us to examine how we're walking through our Christian journey with a simple yet profound truth: there's a right way and a wrong way to walk through life as believers.                
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Brothers Ned and Orville had been caught stealing some shoes that belonged to teachers and staff at school. They got called into the principal's office, and after the principal showed them the video of their thefts, they confessed, yeah, we stole those shoes. The principal decided they'd he that he would give them a punishment befitting the crime and stealing the shoes of the teachers and the staff. And the principal went down to the school cafeteria, brought back two bags of dried peas. And the principal announced that for their punishment, for the next two weeks, both Ned and Orville would be required to pour the dried peas into their shoes and have to walk around with those dried peas in their shoes. And the principal told them, you don't realize how hard that was on the teachers when they went out there and couldn't find their shoes and some of them had to walk across the gravel parking lot and it was hurting their feet. Now you're going to realize how much hardship you caused. So for the next two weeks, Ned and Orville walked around with their shoes filled with peas. And when the principal saw Ned, he noticed that Ned was limping around horribly. He had dark circles on his eyes, he looked very tired, and Ned told the principal he thought he'd learned his lesson and was hoping to take those peas out of his shoes. It's really hurting him. It's causing him all kinds of problems. He can't even sleep at night when he takes his shoes off because his feet still hurt. The principal felt sorry for Ned and told him, You can dump out the peas. I think you've learned. Orville came walking along though in just a few minutes and he was walking just fine. Immediately the principal called Orville over and said, Stop! Come here. The principal told Orville, look, your brother Ned is in terrible shape because those dried peas were hurting his feet inside of his shoes. He's making him miserable. Why are you having no troubles? Did you put those peas in your shoes like I told you to do? Orville looked at the principal, of course I did. I wouldn't disobey you. I just boiled them first. I think Orville's pretty smart. There's a proper way to walk around with peas in your shoes and a terrible way. I think Orville found the best way. Even in life, there's a proper way to walk and an improper way to walk. Paul, as he addressed the Christians in Thessalonica here in 1 Thessalonians 4, he, in these first 12 verses, he addressed how you ought to walk. Today I want to look at these first 12 verses, but first let's begin with prayer. Lord help us to know the right way to walk, a walk that is pleasing to you, that we would walk like Jesus. Walk like him in every aspect of our lives. Lord, forgive us for the times where we have failed and we've done wrong things, but Lord help us to look at this passage, not looking at other people and how bad they're doing, but seeing where we are and what we need to do in Jesus' name. Amen. There are three main categories in this proper way to walk that Paul addresses in these twelve verses. The first are the eight verses, first eight verses of this chapter, where he really deals with sexual purity. Sexual purity. Let me read these eight verses. Finally, then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus that as you receive from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God, just as you actually do walk, that you excel still more. For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus, for this is the will of God, your sanctification. That is, that you ste abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God, and that no man transgress or 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. For God is not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. So he who rejects us is not rejecting man, but the God who gives his Holy Spirit to you. As Paul starts this section here of his letter to the Christians in Thessalonica, he points out verse one, he's reminding them of the instructions about how they ought to walk as they have been walking. It's a reminder because they've already heard this from Paul, and in fact, many of them were already actively walking that way, but Paul is exhorting them to do it and do it even more, excel still more at it. And Paul is stating very plainly that as Christians, Christians in Thessalonica, as well as every Christian who gets to read or hear from this letter, that we have been called to walk in sanctification, to walk in purity, to walk, and immediately he defines this sanctification, this purity part in the sexual aspect, that we are to be sexually pure, even stating that is that you abstain from sexual immorality. Abstain from sexual immorality. In the Greek here, this word literally is pornea, from which we get our English word porn. According to Lagos, a Bible study program, this is the general word that literally means illicit sexual intercourse. 1A on the definition, adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, intercourse with animals, etc. 1B, sexual intercourse even with close relatives. I know there are some people, even some Christians, who try to say the Bible doesn't condemn any of those sexual sins, but the truth is the Bible does condemn them. Perhaps the reason they will try to tell and say that it doesn't condemn any of them is because of their limited knowledge of the Word of God only to English versions, and they don't ever bother to look at what the actual Greek meant to try to find out what it means. Because when you look at the Greek, it's illicit sexual intercourse, whether it's adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, intercourse with animals, etc., sexual intercourse even with close relatives. Instead, they just look at the overall, all-encompassing phrase like sexual immorality. Well, we will redefine that one to fit better for ourselves. And there are people who will try to justify their sexual sins and redefine sexual immorality basing upon their opinions or societal updated norms or now acceptable practices so they can justify the sinful practice they're doing. But God's word is clear, especially when you go back to the Greek on this. And if you just take that Greek word and bring it over into English and it's the word porn, it's specifically spelling out a huge problem even in today's society where people think that looking at porn, well, that's gotta be okay because at least I'm not having sex with someone. No, God's word is pretty plain. It's wrong. It is condemned. It comes directly from the Greek word here, porn. Abstain from it. Abstain from sexual immorality. When I was studying up for this sermon, I ran across a man's research at the city of Thessalonica in the first century. That's the time of where Paul is, and when he's writing this, he pointed out that the people in the Greco, Greco-Roman world, there in Thessalonica specifically, they lived in sexual looseness. In fact, it was pointed out that faithful monogamy was an absolutely strange concept to the people in that pagan society, especially in Thessalonica. Extramarital sexual unions weren't just tolerated, they were encouraged back then. Men were encouraged to have a mistress and harlots and concubines along with their wife. And these new Christians in Thessalonica probably grew up hearing that you're supposed to have all these things. You're supposed to have all these sexual encounters and unions with mistresses and harlots and concubines and a wife. And they've been told that. And then when they came to know who Christ is, and Paul was there teaching them, Paul is telling them, you need to change your lives, you need to adopt a whole new sexually moral standpoint. And Paul is now trying to remind them again, abstain from sexual immorality. In my mind, I think they probably may have had an even harder time to accept that than people today do. Maybe even worse than it. They were bombarded by examples all around them in real life. We nowadays mainly get bombarded from movies or television. But they lived in a society where no one really cared. It was expected that you did it. Not just tolerated, but expected. And so when Paul had to teach them that you need to have this sexual morality and just hold to one person in marriage, it probably was pretty hard. And Paul was worried about them, and he writes to them. And he's telling us, you stay within that sexual bonds of marriage. People will scoff at us today. We as Christians, though, need to hold fast to sexual purity, abstaining from sexual immorality. We need to practice self-control. Practice self-control. You know, I have gone around a lot of people who petition and try to have laws, you know, to stop a porn, to stop uh bad things in movies and get rid of it. Great thing to do, but that's not the solution. We can try to get rid of porn and access to porn on the internet and movies and removed from television, but the real key to success in that is we have to practice self-control. In this world, Satan puts temptations everywhere. And it's up to us to resist, it's up to us to avoid, it's up to us to flee from those temptations. You know, I I bring up Adam and Eve quite often, but have you ever wondered why Adam and Eve, when they were told you can't eat of that tree? Why didn't they just go miles and miles away and stay over there? Do you realize how much that better that would have been if they just got and separated themselves miles and miles away from the tree they weren't supposed to eat? I've often wondered that. It'd be so much easier to resist the temptation if they were miles and miles away from it. But they didn't. They stayed in that area where they could see that tree and they could eat of it. And I look at that and go, you know, for the most part, that describes us. We don't want to get away from those temptations. We like walking pretty close. You know, when we see a sign that says wet paint, how many people walk as far away from that as they can, or how many people actually go up and touch it to see if it really is wet paint. When you see a sign that's instructing you to slow down for a bump, do you actually slow way down? Or do you go, that's probably not bad, and just keep going. Be honest, which are you doing? Yeah, I could still remember when we were up in my first ministry, there was a sign that said a bump in the highway, and this was on Highway 20 over there by Newport, and we'd driven that road many, many times. Didn't think a thing of it, saw the sign that said bump, thought that's weird, that's new. We just kept on going. 55 miles an hour. We hit that thing, launched the car. For some reason, the road was doing something weird. It was lifting up and it kept getting higher and higher. Pretty soon they started putting elevation signs there. It had lifted over six feet up eventually. And they kept trying to cut it down, cut it down, cut it down. Eventually they did a whole bunch of work and fixed it. But a lot of times, we don't worry about it. I got this covered. Beware. You know, preaching on self-control though is one of those things it's hard for me to do. Because when I get around certain candies or certain cookies, like chocolate chip cookies or certain foods, I struggle to have that self-control. I mean, my wife is amazing. She can eat one and walk away. I'm going like, well, I could eat one but carry a couple more for to go practice. It's one of those things. I struggle with that self-control for that food, but the scriptures make it clear. It's not that I have to make my wife give me self-control. I have to have self-control. I can't expect her to just never let me be around candies and cookies and foods that I like. I actually have to practice self-control myself. I have to learn to control my own body, my own lust. And I can't be blaming other people for tempting me. Over and over, we have the scriptures that command us to be sexually pure and practice self-control. We need to work on it and we need to excel still more. And Paul even likens this or contrasts it with our sexual purity that we're not to live like the heathens. Don't live like heathens. Over my years in ministry, I've talked with many people who are struggling with sexual purity and other sins. And many of them said, Well, it can't be that bad. Look at how many other people are doing it. And I have to admit, there's a lot of other people who are still living in sexual sins. And Paul specifically writes to the Christians in Thessalonica to practice self-control and do not live in the passionate lust like the pagans who do not know God. Just because so many people in the world around you are living in sexual sin does not mean that we as Christians should. We have been called to live differently. We are called to live in sanctification, in holiness. And when people look at our lifestyle, if they can't tell a difference between how we live and how people who don't know God live, then we're failing our Christianity. We have been called to live by godly standards, not worldly standards. In fact, it's what Paul goes on to say, verses 7 and 8. God is not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification, so that he who rejects us is not rejecting man, but the God who gives his Holy Spirit to you. In other words, we need to know that this is God's will. Know that this is God's will, that we live in holiness, in sanctification, sexual purity, not sexual immorality. And Paul stresses the fact that if you reject this teaching, you aren't rejecting Paul's teaching. You aren't rejecting the teaching of some guy up at the pulpit preaching this. You are rejecting God. You are rejecting Jesus. You are rejecting the Holy Spirit who has been given to you. I still remember in my first ministry going to a domestic violence seminar at a nearby town. And during one of the breaks, I was out in the lobby area and I was talking with another preacher, a preacher from a certain denomination, and I asked him what I thought would be a good question. I'm a young guy, he's an older guy, and I just simply asked him, so this coming weekend, what are you preaching on? What are you doing a series out of from a book in the Bible? What are you going to be preaching on? And I still remember his answer. No, I don't use the Bible as it's an outdated book. I use the warm, fuzzy stories from readers digest. In his mind, these doctrines of the Word of God, these teachings in the Word of God were outdated. This aspect of living sexually pure, abstaining from sexual immorality, this idea of following what God's Word says, to him it was outdated and he should not do it. He thought that we need to update the Bible to the 21st century and get rid of the old antiquated laws for on sexual sins and stuff like that, and I was just sitting there and like, what? I didn't know there were people like that. I know he's going to have to answer before God for his views. God's word is still alive and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. It is God's will that we maintain sexual purity, that we abstain from sexual immorality of all kinds, that we practice self-control, that we don't live in the lust like those who don't know and don't believe in God, that we know that this is God's will for Christians, that we follow this. Paul then moved on from walking in this sexual purity to letting us know that we need to walk in the love of the brethren. Verses 9 and 10. Love of the brethren. Now, about your love for one another, we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in fact, you do love all of God's family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so and more and more. Paul, as he's reminding them of how they ought to walk, writes here about this need to walk in love for one another, for the brethren. And then he points out that he doesn't really need to write them this because they have already been taught by God, because love is taught by God. Love is taught by God. I truly believe that if we want to love as God wants us to love, we need to look to God as our teacher and don't look to movies, don't look to TV to find out what love is. Instead, go to scriptures like Romans chapter 5, verse 8. But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. God showed us what true love is, that that's being willing to sacrifice for others, even people who aren't really being nice to you. Again, in John chapter 13, verses 34 and 35, Jesus said, A new commandment I give you, love one another. As I, Jesus, have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you have love one for another. Jesus came to show us what love was. He was kind. He did miracles to help people, he washed people's feet. He loved people who didn't even deserve to be loved. Even people who were going to deny him and abandon him, he still showed them love. Again in 1 John chapter 4, verses 9 through 11, this is how we how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. God didn't just say he loves us. God showed us what true love is. Based on upon scripture, I believe it's 100% true that true love is actually taught to us by God. Shown to us by God. Demonstrated to us by God. He lived love so we could begin to understand what true love is and not what the television and the movies try to show you. And as Paul wrote, not only is love taught by God, but love is to be for all. Love is to be for all. I have to admit that this is one area I still work on all the time. There are some people who are absolutely easy to love. All they ever do is kind things and thoughtful things and loving things, and they're constantly trying to put other people first. And they are so easy to love. But then there are other people for whom that if God ever let us have a discussion with them and he's asking us, why don't you love somebody, you might go, well, God, have you ever met so-and-so? You know, they're a little bit more challenging to love. And I have met several of those people during my lifetime that I found challenging to love. They were people who would lie about me and tried uh constantly to get me into trouble, and they spread rumors, and some of them broke some of my stuff, or some of them stole some of my things, and some of them just made loving them a real challenge. And the problem is that Jesus didn't tell us to just love the nice people, he spoke about a need to love all people. He demonstrated it so well that when he was walking with in the midst of his disciples, those twelve men, and when it came time on the upper room, and he was getting ready to point out that Judas Iscariot was the one who's gonna betray him, but he doesn't say his name, but he just kind of says, One of you will betray me. Jesus hasn't treated Judas in such a way that all the rest of the disciples are going, Well, I know who it is. They don't know. Jesus has treated every one of them, even the guy he knew was going to betray him, even the guy he knew was stealing from him, even the guy who we would have a challenge to love. He treated him so well that none of the other disciples could figure out who it was. Can we love that way? I know I personally have not grown to that ability. I'm working on it. There are some people who are such a challenge to me to love that other people, if they're around me enough, they know that that person rubs me wrong and I struggle to love them because I'm a little bit shorter with them, a little bit gruffer with them, a little less patient with them, a little less willing to give in to them. And I know I need to love all as Jesus loves, but I'm still working on it to be a little more like Jesus, a little less like me. You know, you might have heard that song before. I think many of us, if we're honest, we might confess there are some people we find much easier to love. And others? Well, they're that challenge. But when God, when Jesus told Taught us to love. He taught us love is for all people. Even while we were yet sinners. Or if you go a little bit further down in Romans chapter 5, even while we were yet his enemies, he showed us love. And God taught us to love for all people. And as Paul wrote here to the Christians in Thessalonica, even though they were taught by God to love and they loved all, he said their love needs to grow. May it grow more and more. Excel still more. Excel still more. Twice in this chapter, Paul wrote about the need to excel still more. Even if we're walking in sexual purity, even if we are loving as God taught us to love, we still need to excel even more in it. We need to grow in our sanctification. We need to grow in our holiness. We need to grow in doing what is right. We need to grow in our love for one another. And I have met some people who felt like they have arrived at being a Christian. They feel like they've got it down. And even if they are the best Christian they can be, I think Paul is telling us, you can still grow. You can still grow. One of my favorite Bible passages from Ephesians chapter 4, and that I've often alluded to, was pointing out how that Christ gave to the church apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers to equip his people for the work of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach the unity of faith to the knowledge of the Son of God, until we all become mature, attaining to the fullness of the measure that belongs to the stature of Christ Jesus. Until we all become Christlike, as Christ-like as Jesus. Until we all get there, we all need to be growing. And even if you feel like you've got it made and you're there, well, I haven't, so help me grow. We all need to keep growing in this. And that's what Paul is pointing out. We all need to keep growing. And Paul has continued with this theme of how we ought to walk. He tells us they're in holiness, not in sexual immorality, how that we ought to love. And then he gets down to verses 11 and 12. He points out, work with your hands. Work with your hands. Verse 11. And to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, you should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders, and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. Here Paul shares two main ideas. Make it your ambition to work hard. Make it your ambition to work hard. Set your goal to work, to labor, not just live off of others. In fact, later on in the second letter of Paul to the Christians in Thessalonica, he goes on and writes, The one who is unwilling to work, he shall not eat. And he writes that he shared with them this very teaching, even when he was in their midst. If you're not willing to work, you don't get to eat. And Christians should use our lives to labor, to work, to have a job. Yes, our society makes it possible to retire. In the Old Testament, Numbers chapter 8, we can read about how God set up the priesthood, that a priest was going to serve until he hit a certain age, and then he would be relieved of his duties in the tabernacle and the temple. He could still be a mentor to the younger priest, but the younger priest were to take on all the responsibilities that the priest used to do. And from Adam and Eve all the way down to today, God has designed mankind to labor, to work. And then Paul states the reason why: to win the respect of outsiders, the heathens, that they don't think Christians are just lazy people begging from everyone and everything else and trying to get them to live off the system, but rather they would be not dependent upon anyone, but as they would be responsible for yourself. Be responsible for yourself. If we can work, we should work. Years ago, I was over here at the church working in my office, and some youth came over to the house, and Deborah was talking to them, and one of them asked, Well, where's Malcolm? And she said, Well, he's at work. What do you mean work? Well, he's over at the church working in his office, working on a sermon, working on lessons. And they started asking Deborah, Well, why? Why does he work? See, they came from a family where their mom and a dad had both learned to live off the system. They got free housing, they got free health care, they got free food, they got free everything. And they couldn't understand why I was so stupid that I hadn't figured out how to live off the system, that I still had to work. And there's a lot of people who make it their ambition to figure out how to live off the system rather than laboring. And Christians are not supposed to be those people. We have been commanded, just like we're to have sexual purity, just like we're to have love for the brethren, we're also to work with our hands, be responsible for ourselves. Yes, I understand that there are people who are retired who are living off their savings and their pensions and their social security that they paid into. They've actually proved to be responsible for themselves and they're living on their limited incomes, praise the Lord, and I'm looking forward to the day when I get to join that rank. But I also understand there are people who are disabled and they need to collect disability in order to survive. And I'm not condemning them. They're kind of like the blame and the blind and the lame and the beggars in the days of Jesus. But this scripture is aimed for able-bodied people who are refusing to work. Well, I don't want to work that job because it's too hard. I'd sweat too much. They don't pay me what I'm really truly worth. Or whatever excuse they have. And Christians should not be in that category. We need to be willing to work and labor and provide for ourselves. In today's world, that may actually mean you'll have to have two, maybe even three jobs. I've been there. And Paul commands us to work, to provide for ourselves, to work with our hands. Even as Paul wrote to the Christians in Ephesus, to be able to give to those who have needs. And that is a right way to walk. And Paul reminded these Christians and Thessalonica of how they ought to walk. Walk in sexual purity. Walk with the love of the brethren. Work with your own hands. Be responsible for yourself. Live in such a way that those outside of the church see us as examples of holy people. Lord, I do thank you for your love. I thank you for your blessings. And Lord, help us to live pure and holy. Let us walk as we ought to walk in Jesus' name.