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Sunday Sermon
Lake Grove Presbyterian Church - All rights reserved
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Sunday Sermon |
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To download the text and/or audio file for this week's sermon, please go to the "Sermon Archive" page and follow the instructions you'll find there. For a study guide to prepare for next week's sermon, please click HERE NEW LIFE – NEW LIFESTYLEPaul’s First Letter, Part 41 Thessalonians 4:1-12 January 28, 2007 Pastor Bob Sanders
1 Thessalonians 4:1-12 1 As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. 2 For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. 3 It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, 5 not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; 6 and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before. 7 For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. 8 Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit. 9 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. 10 And in fact, you do love all the brothers and sisters throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, dear friends, to do so more and more, 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, 12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. In the South when a preacher got too close to where people really live, they used to say, “He stopped preachin’ and started meddlin’.” Which is pretty much what Paul does here in chapter four of 1 Thessalonians. Over the first three chapters he’s affirmed the wonderful, loving character of this young church, and how much he cares about them. But now in chapter four he’s going to shift gears. Because he cares for them, he’s going to give them specific directions in three very personal areas: their sex lives, their work and money lives, and how they face death. We’re talking major meddlin’. Notice how he begins in verses 1 and 2. He says, “I want you to live in ways that please God.” For Paul, Christian faith involves right believing and right behaving. The Gospel is not only an invitation to a new life; it’s also a call to a new lifestyle. The early Christians were radically different than the people around them. One of the earliest Christian writings we have is known as the Letter to Diognetus. It was written just after the New Testament documents, and it describes some of the ways Christians were different than their pagan neighbors. At one point it says, “They have a common table, but not a common bed.” 1 Pagans didn’t have a common table: they didn’t share their possessions, their homes, their money. Why not? Because to them money was sacred. Sex, however, was mundane and they freely shared that all over the place. Christians were different. To them sex was sacred and they guarded that. Money was mundane and they freely shared that all over the place. Christians have a common table, but not a common bed. What you have to understand is these new believers at Thessalonica are a tiny minority movement in a dominant pagan culture that’s trying to squeeze them into its mold. Paul wants them to understand that their new life in Christ calls for a new lifestyle – something healthy and joyful and life-giving. And the first thing Paul talks about in verses 3 through 8 is sex. So, that’s what I’m going to talk about this morning (I figure if I’m going to do some meddlin’, it might as well be the real thing). Paul gives us three principles that form a Christian understanding of sex. These three principles are found elsewhere in the Bible, but they’re focused quite sharply for us here, and they are (1) the goodness of sex, (2) the context of sex, and (3) the purpose of sex. The Goodness of Sex The first thing Paul talks about is the goodness of sex. Where does he say that? Look at verse 3 where he says, “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified.” That means God wants you to be holy, to be glorious, to be like he is, to share in his very nature. And how do we do that? Does he say, “It’s God will for you to be sanctified, so avoid sex altogether”? No, he doesn’t say that. He says, “Avoid sexual immorality.” I’ll come back in a minute to what that term means, but notice for now Paul says that sex wrongly used can undermine your sanctification. But sex rightly used (are you ready for this?) can be a way toward becoming holy, becoming what God wants you to be. Throughout history there have been two basic approaches toward sex, and different religions and philosophies have taken one or the other of them. One approach is to deify sex. That happened a lot in the ancient Greek mystery religions where sex was part of the worship ritual. But it still goes on today, doesn’t it? Pick up the latest issue of Cosmopolitan or Playboy and what do you find? Well, nobody actually reads these magazines, but if you did you’d find them saying sex is the way to complete happiness, wisdom and joy. Not God, mind you, but sex. Sex is ultimate end-all and be-all. Sex is deified. The other approach is to degrade sex. Sex is shameful and nasty. And you pick up this attitude in some conservative Christian preachers and writers. They claim to put forward traditional Biblical values on sex, but their motivation seems to be not so much fidelity to God’s Word as a kind of disgust over sexuality. There’s nothing good or joyful in their view of sex. They find it degrading and dirty. 2 The Bible neither deifies sex nor degrades it. On the one hand, it demystifies sex. It brings sex down to earth, makes it very matter-of-fact. The Bible says sex most assuredly is NOT the way to find salvation or complete fulfillment. That’s found only in God. But having demystified it, the Bible can speak of sex in places like the Song of Solomon in ways that will curl your hair and your toes. There’s this unashamed rejoicing in erotic married love in the Bible. No, it doesn’t deify sex. But I’ve got to tell you, the Bible affirms there’s a joy and a power in sex that, properly used, is beyond anything Cosmopolitan ever imagined. “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified.” By abstaining from sex? No, by understanding it and embracing it as God intends, as this good and glorious gift. Does the Bible have a positive view of sex? Are you kidding? There isn’t any other religion that claims anything like this – that sex can be part of your sanctification. The Context of Sex The goodness of sex. That’s Paul’s first point. The second is the context of sex. Back to verse 3 where Paul says, “Avoid sexual immorality.” The Greek word will sound familiar: it’s porneia (from which we get our word pornography). Porneia refers to immorality in general, and specifically to sexual activity outside the commitment of marriage. Paul says Christians are to avoid premarital or extramarital sexual relations. Sex is this good gift of God, but a gift to be shared exclusively in the lifelong commitment known as marriage. Sex is for you and the person you’re married to. Period. Not because sex is bad, but because it’s so good, so holy, so powerful. Paul says marriage is the only place where sex works the way God intends. If you think that’s tough to sell in today’s permissive Sex in the City culture, try to imagine what it was like in Paul’s day. For starters, in a city like first-century Thessalonica just about every man was having sex with three or four women. There was his wife, who was supposed to be a respectable woman who had money and managed the household and was the mother of his legitimate heirs. Then every man had his mistress – someone who was his intellectual equal, someone for recreation and intellectual stimulation as well as sex. Then there was his concubine, a woman slave to have sex with at any time, nothing more. And finally there were prostitutes everywhere. 3 So it was normal for a man to have sex with several women all at the same time, and be responsible to none of them. This one’s my wife and mother of my children, this one’s my friend and intellectual companion, this one’s my sex toy. I wonder what it was like in the Thessalonian church when they heard Paul say, “Sex is a great and glorious gift from God.” Loud cheers from the men. “But,” Paul adds, “it has to be with just one woman.” Groans from the men, followed by abrupt silence. “From now on,” he continues, “your best friend and the mother of your children and your recreational companion and your sexual playmate – it’s all one and the same person. It’s your wife.” Loud cheers . . . from the women. Extramarital sex when it’s rife has always benefited men, not women, so what Paul is saying here actually empowers women. But the real reason Paul says sex outside of marriage is wrong is because it violates God. Paul has already said in verse 3, “God’s will is for you to be sanctified, so avoid porneia, sex outside of marriage.” Now look at verses 4 and 5: “Each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God.” What’s he saying here? He’s saying that pagans in Thessalonica (and Lake Oswego) who do not combine sex (whole body commitment) with marriage (whole life commitment) do not know God. Paul doesn’t say the pagans don’t know about God. He says they don’t know God. To know God means to have a relationship with God. And if there’s one thing you learn in a relationship with God, it’s this – if you want intimacy, you have to have commitment. If you want total intimacy, you have to make a total commitment. God says, “I will come down to you and share My love totally with you. But you must commit yourself totally to Me. You shall have no other gods before Me. I sent My Son to be a sacrifice for you. Now you must make yourself a living sacrifice for Me.” There can never be real intimacy without real commitment – whole body commitment and whole life commitment. Deep in your heart, you know that. Deep down you know that the pagan culture’s approach to sexuality is violent. It rips soul and body apart. It says, “I can be one with you physically, but not one with you in every other way. I’ll commit myself bodily to you, but not legally or socially or spiritually or even emotionally.” It’s violent. It’s disruptive. It’s fragmenting. Whenever you separate soul and body it hurts you and the people around you. It hurts relationships, hurts children, hurts everyone. And it’s not how God works. The total body commitment of sex belongs in the total life commitment of marriage. The Purpose of Sex We’ve heard Paul say that sex is good, and that sex has a context, which is marriage. Notice one thing more: sex has a purpose – and it’s more than just producing babies. Look one last time at verses 4 and 5, where Paul talks about “holy and honorable” sex versus the “passionate lust” of pagan sex. He sets up a contrast between sex that honors versus sex that dishonors. Sex that builds up versus sex that tears down. Sex that is life-giving versus sex that is dehumanizing. What Paul is saying here is that the purpose of sex in marriage is to bring joy and to build up, to show honor, to celebrate and to cherish our partner. I love the phrase from the old Anglican wedding service, where the bride and groom say to each other, “With this ring, I thee wed; with my body, I thee worship.” That’s getting close to what Paul has in mind. Nothing makes you feel more cherished, nothing builds up your dignity, nothing lifts you up and exalts you like having someone say to you, “I take off all my life and commit it to you and to no one else, and now I take off all my clothes as well and commit my body to you and no one else.” Good sex is all about reverencing and honoring the other. It doesn’t happen just because we’re married. Some people get married for the wrong reasons. They get married because they’re needy or lonely and they think a partner will somehow “complete” them. Or they get married because they’re sexually attracted to their partner but don’t have much respect or trust or develop any real friendship. The best way I can think to describe it is sexual friendship. Not just friendship without sex. And not just sex without this commitment to each other. Both: sexual friendship. You marry someone not because you’re so needy, but because you see what God is doing in that person, and you admire it so much you want to be part of it. You want to honor and build that person up. You want to learn from that person and become partners at the deepest level. And nothing makes us feel more honored, more valued, than this total gift of self – this whole body commitment and whole life commitment, which is sex the way God intended it. The Lover of Our Souls So what is the Biblical view of sex? First, that sex is a good and glorious gift from a loving God. Second, that sex has a God-given context: the commitment of faithfulness and permanence we call marriage. And third, that sex has a high and holy purpose, which is to bless and build up the people who share it. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Kind of makes you want to hand off the kids for a couple hours and take a long lunch . . . Yeah, but it doesn’t sound all that good if you’re single and wish you weren’t, if you’re lonely and longing for someone special in your life. It doesn’t sound all that good if your marriage is in trouble, if there’s broken trust or an inability to be intimate. It doesn’t sound all that good if you’re struggling with an addiction to porneia. And it certainly doesn’t sound very good if you’ve been badly hurt in a sexual relationship, or been the one who hurt someone else. Listen. Jesus Christ is the true lover of our souls. Even the best marriage on earth is but a foretaste of the love he has for us. Even the best marriage can never fill all the emptiness you feel deep inside. As his followers, we don’t deify sex and we don’t degrade it. It’s a good and great gift, but it’s not the end-all and be-all of life. Jesus Christ came to free us from a consuming preoccupation with sex. He came to free us from the ways we’ve misused sex in the past, the ways we’ve hurt ourselves and others. He came to free us for full and joyful sexuality – a new life and a new lifestyle. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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