How to Walk and to Please God (Part 1)

1 Thessalonians 4:1-12

When we go to Old Country Buffet, we don’t demand that Paul and Richard eat everything offered. They can select what they want to eat. They choose some of this or that and that is OK. But when we eat at home we put a certain amount of food on their plates. We tell them that they must eat all three (or four) things that are on their plates. We don’t tell them that they have the option to eat what they wish to eat. We don’t allow them to say, "I’ll have the apple sauce but not the green beans." If we didn’t want them to eat it we wouldn’t put it on their plates.

Unfortunately some Christians have the mistaken notion that God’s Word is like Old Country Buffet. If they like a particular command they’ll choose it. If they don’t care for something they’ll pass on it. The truth is, however, that God has placed in His Word His commands for our lives that He wants us to obey. If He didn’t want us to obey them then He would not have placed them there.

Here Paul expands on three commands about which they had previously spoken to the Thessalonians that he is now reiterating. And the key idea in this passage is Paul gives us three ways to walk in a manner pleasing to God.

1. Introduction

Verses 1 & 2 are introductory to the material through verse 12. There are three truths that Paul conveys to us through these verses that introduce what it means to walk and please God.

A. There is a way in which to walk and please God

The first truth we see in this introduction is that there is a way in which to walk and please God. Paul says in verse one that the Thessalonians received instruction from them as to how to walk and please God. There is a way to live that is outlined by God so as to please Him. We do not live simply in any way we choose. God has set a path in which we should walk. And if we decide to deviate from that path we are not pleasing Him. In 1 Corinthians 6:19 Paul says, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body."

There is a way in which to walk and please God. To claim that God’s grace has made us pleasing in God’s sight and then to live against God’s Word is to make a mockery of God's grace. Romans 6:1 says, "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?"

And what we have to recognize is that if we fail to call our sin, sin then we are not walking in a way that pleases God. Too many people today excuse their behavior as if it were a matter of preference or family lineage or genetic programming. I can’t help what I am doing because it runs in my family. Why does it run in your family? Your family has refused to deal with it as sin. And it becomes what seems like a family trait. All the men in our household are addicted to some form of drug. All of the women in our family have been afflicted with great depression. The Scripture says that this is because the sins of the fathers will be passed unto the children to the third and fourth generation as a curse unless you deal with it as sin.

There is a way in which to walk and to please God. And we can follow it. God is able to break us from the chains of our slavery so that we can live a life pleasing to God. God has being doing this for millennia. He is still doing it today in our lives and the lives of all that would trust Him to overcome their sin through Jesus Christ.

B. We are to grow in that way

Secondly, Paul says that we are to grow in this way. There is a way to walk and please God and we are to grow in it. Look at the end of verse 1. "As you have received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more." As these Thessalonians were walking and pleasing God, Paul says keep doing it even more. Continue to excel in it. As you have seen God strengthening you to put off the sin in your life keep doing it. This is what Paul means by excel still more. And how are we to do this? Paul says in Colossians 2:6&7, "As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude." So how did you receive Christ Jesus the Lord? By faith, that is, by trust in His Word. And so how are you to walk and grow in that way? By faith. By continuing to trust what God’s Word says over our feelings or our own faulty wisdom.

Why are we to grow in this way that pleases God. If we don’t grow we will find ourselves stumbling and reaping the consequences of our failure to grow. Peter defines those consequences for us in his second letter. There in 1:5 Peter says, to add to your faith; moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and to all these add love. In verse 8 he says that if we continue to grow we will find ourselves neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if we fail to do so Peter says that whoever lacks these qualities becomes blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. The one who fails to grow in the faith loses sight of the fact that they have been forgiven of their sin. It doesn’t say that they aren’t forgiven but that they forget they have been forgiven. These people lose the joy of their salvation. They are caught up in their own path in failing to grow in God’s grace and become miserable. And they lack strength to do what is right because the joy of the Lord was their strength.

C. God has made known to us this way

Thirdly, God has made known to us this way. Paul says in verse 2, "For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus." God has clearly made known to us again and again through His Word how we are to live. If there is any doubt in your mind as to how you should be living it is because you are not searching God’s Word. Or it is because you are not being honest with God’s Word. You may see something in the Word as being difficult to do. But instead of trusting in the Lord to carry it out you reinterpret for your own convenience. "Well the Bible doesn’t mean my kind of worry. Its only when someone really worries that it becomes sin." God has made the way He wants us to walk clear. He has not hidden it in some dark inaccessible cave. He has given it to us clearly in His Word. And He wants us to grow (to excel) in that way. With this introduction let’s plunge in to the first of these ways in which God wants us to walk and please Him.

2. Pleasing God in Purity

The first way in which God wants us to walk and please Him that we notice is pleasing God in purity. This is found in verses 3-8. Here Paul says, "For this is the will of God, your sanctification (your holiness); that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality." So if anyone has any doubts about carrying out God’s will for your life, here it is. God says that for every believer sexual purity is the will of God. There is no question as to whether or not unrestrained sexual passion may be all right for some believers. Paul does not equivocate on this issue. The will of God for you in Christ Jesus is your sexual purity. We notice two aspects of this purity that God commands in this passage.

A. Purity defined

The first aspect of this purity that we notice is purity defined. Paul defines purity for us. He defines it in two ways.

i. To abstain from sexual immorality

The first way that he defines purity is that he says it includes our need to abstain from sexual immorality. The word sexual immorality is the word "porne." From it we get our English word pornography. And this word speaks of any kind of sexual misconduct including but not limited to adultery, premarital sex, pornography, homosexuality and every other form of perversion of God’s gift of sex.

Paul says this a little more clearly in 2 Corinthians 7. There he urges the Corinthians by saying, "Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. Paul says that it is not permissible at all. We are to rid ourselves of all filthiness. Not just some. There aren’t pockets of immorality that we can allow to remain in our lives but we must rid ourselves of all it. The reason is that sin eats like a cancer. And we must have none of it in our lives or it will get the better of us. It is like the story of the camel that asked the man to let him have a little room in his tent to rest his head and before he knew it the camel was in the tent and the man was outside. Sexual sin will take control of a person because it feeds on our indulgent flesh.

And Paul notes that we are to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of both the flesh and the spirit. This means that we must extinguish wrong sexual thoughts. We must be careful on that which we allow our minds to dwell. Only one wrong picture in our mind can lead us to where we ought not be. We must continually bathe our minds with Scripture. Paul says that we ought to be taking captive every thought to the obedience of Christ. When stray thoughts come into our minds from whatever source, we must seek to set our mind on Christ’s Word. It is only those things which are true and honest and just and pure and lovely and of a good report, virtuous and praiseworthy upon which we must meditate.

Any kind of mental unfaithfulness or immorality must be confessed and reviled by the believer. Jesus said that this too constitutes adultery. Even seemingly innocuous thoughts in the form of "Well if my husband were only kinder like him" or "If my wife only showed concern to me like she does." These thoughts are the foundation of adultery and they must not be entertained.

We must be careful to that which we listen or see. Don’t fall for the flattery of an adulterer. Proverbs says, "For the lips of an adulteress drip honey and smoother than oil is her speech. But in the end she is bitter as wormwood (poison)." Do not fall for the advances of someone other than your spouse. Their words are simply made to entrap you.

And you who are single don’t draw near to anyone who entices you with promises of marriage if you will only . . . Paul says that we are to have a complete break from the morality (or lack thereof) of the world. It is to be a morality that exalts God’s purpose in sex. What is God’s purpose in sex? It is procreation and guilt-free enjoyment of one another. God is not a killjoy. God has a wonderful plan for unashamed and fantastic sex between a husband and wife. This is not something that is to be spoken about quietly. But is to be something clearly proclaimed within our families. Our children ought to know that God has something extraordinarily wonderful waiting for them within the context of biblical marriage. And apart from that protective environment of marriage they cannot experience all the joy that God has for them in that. They should understand that they would be extremely disappointed to settle for anything less than God’s best.

ii. To learn to control one’s body

The second way that Paul defines purity is that it includes our need to learn to control one’s body. This is what Paul describes in vv. 4-5. That each of you learn how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor. There is a need for us to learn to discipline our minds and hearts and bodies to avoid and overcome those sexual impulses that invade our space. Paul says that we need to learn to possess our vessel (or body) in such a way so as to derail that to which we should not succumb.

This can only happen as we learn to control our own bodies. As believers we can rely on the power of the Spirit of God to overcome these wrong thoughts or actions. Galatians 5 says that one of the fruit of the Spirit is self-control. So to say that we cannot overcome in this area of sexual purity is simply a lie that Satan wants us to believe. We know what will cause us to think or act wrongly. And these are the very things that we must learn to avoid or put off and flee from. You understand that fleeing is the right response to maintain sexual purity don’t you? In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul says, "Flee immorality." And in 1 Timothy, Paul again tells young Timothy, "Flee youthful lusts." When we hit a channel with something questionable on it that is not the time to decide whether you should stay and see if it’s ok. And we need to understand that our fleshly desires want us to hang around so they can get a foothold to draw us in. We need to discipline ourselves to purity. One commentator says that the verb (to learn to control) has the idea of gradually obtaining complete mastery of the body. This is in harmony with the fact that attainment to the Christian moral standard involves a struggle that must be won by persistent effort (Hiebert). We are to discipline ourselves to a point of complete mastery of our body for the purpose of purity. And Paul says, "Flee. Get out of there!"

The other night when President Bush addressed the nation I went to the TV a little after 8:30. However, our kitchen clock is a little fast and I picked up the end whatever was on at 8:00. It took me about 5 seconds to realize that President Bush wasn’t yet on and that what was on was not for my eyes. I shut it off and fled. Yet there are people who claim to be Christians watching, not just 5 seconds of this trash but hours of prime time or soap operas. And they are unable to realize how to control their body because their senses have been dulled to it.

We are to flee immorality. When someone other than your spouse begins to speak to you in a manner that is flirtatious or brazen or in any manner that does not portray uprightness, that is not the time to think about whether you can begin to share the gospel with this person. It is time to flee! Our society has trained us to think that fleeing is uncouth. When in reality it is the weapon that God gives us to fight immorality. Israel’s son, Joseph maintained his purity when he fled from the advances of Potiphar’s wife. He said, "How can I sin against God." He understood that his feet were God’s primary weapons in maintaining his purity. We need to be ready to flee from wrong thoughts, wrong images, wrong people in order to maintain our purity. We need to be ready to live according to North Carolina’s state motto. "First in Flight!"

When you have a thought you know is not pleasing to God it is not the time to dwell on it. It is the time to flee to the Word of God and dwell on that. It is time to call out to God and pray to Him. It is a time to get that thought out of your mind. Paul is serious about this stuff. Out of these 10 verses that describe three ways to please God, he spends six dealing with this aspect of our sanctification.

We are to learn to control our own bodies. And Paul puts this in direct opposition with the way of the world. Don’t think that their world was different from our world. They were driven by the same desires as we are. Look at verse 4 and 5. "We are to possess our bodies in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God." What ought to make the difference? We are not to be like the Gentiles who have no restraint because they refuse to acknowledge God and His ultimate authority over their bodies. God’s authority over us should cause us to live pure lives. Paul says that we need to abstain from sexual immorality and we need to learn how to control our bodies in holiness and honor.

B. Purity denied

The second aspect of this purity that we notice is purity denied. Now there are consequences that we will suffer if we deny the purity to which the Scripture calls us. God is not mocked! Whatever a man sows that he will also reap. Paul says that there are three results when a person wishes to deny God’s standard of purity for the believer.

i. It defrauds your brother

The first result that we notice from denying God’s purity we find in verse 6. It defrauds your brother. Here Paul says, "And that no man (should) transgress and defraud his brother in this matter." There is, in a real sense, the robbery of what belongs to another. Even if this occurs between two unmarried individuals they are robbing what should one day belong to another and they are robbing from God’s glory, as believers, by not keeping this in the proper place.

You cannot look at another person in lustful thought and not defraud that person, their spouse, your own heart and God’s Spirit who lives in you. And the way we dress likewise makes a statement. We can say, by the way we dress, look at my body. We need to realize that we must be careful even in what we wear that we don’t cause others to focus on that which is not right and so defraud our brothers and sisters with an inappropriate invitation to look at shouldn’t be looked at. Now this doesn’t mean that we all come in wearing trench coats to our ankles but it means that we ought to consider others in what we do wear lest we defraud them in that or defraud our own selves in it.

Paul says that if we deny God’s purity in our lives we are defrauding our brothers and sisters in Christ. Let us not be accused of thievery in this realm.

ii. It rejects God’s Word

The second result that we notice from denying God’s purity is that it rejects God’s Word. This is what Paul notes in verse 8. He says here, "So he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you."

Some years ago I had a couple that were coming to me for counseling. And as we continued in the counseling I asked these two single folks, "Are you involved physically." Now usually when someone has the same phone number, I already know the answer to this question. But at this point in counseling we had to deal with this issue. They told me that they were. And I told them they needed to stop. I will never forget the question that the gentleman asked me because it was the perfect question. They had a problem with church authority because of their background. And the question he asked was, "Is this what your church says we should do, or is it what God says we should do?" I smiled. I loved the question because I was able to go right to the Scripture (which was where I was going anyway). And I took them to this passage and others in which God clearly outlines His steps toward a sexual relationship between two people.

God’s Word unmistakably speaks of the sexual relationship and that its practice is to be between one man and one woman who are in a married relationship with one another. Do I have to define this any more carefully than that (today)? Do I really need to say, "Between one man who was born a man and one woman who was born a woman?"

So what Paul is saying here is that when a person who claims to be a believer will not acknowledge the clear truth of sexual purity in all areas of life they are not rejecting man’s word. They are rejecting God and His Word. Paul says that this is God who puts His Holy Spirit into you. Doesn’t it make sense that, if you have His Holy Spirit, you will see that He clearly tells us this immorality is wrong. And if you cannot see it you are rejecting God and His Word. Friend, don’t do that and grieve His Holy Spirit.

iii. It brings God’s wrath

Finally, the third result that we notice from denying God’s purity is that it brings God’s wrath. Paul notes this at the end of verse 6. "Because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you."

God sees impurity as such a serious detriment to the spiritual growth and life of a believer that He speaks in such severe terms. He sees immorality in the believer’s life as so damaging to the glory of God that He calls Himself an avenger of all these things.

When we make our flesh an idol (and can you agree that this is the case in our country?) is it any wonder that such great tragedies befall us. And I don’t mean simply in the spread of deadly or incapacitating disease. I also am speaking of lasting guilt and the disruption of families and eternal punishment.

God will not be mocked. Whatever we sow we shall reap. This is why we must live in purity so that God would be honored among us. We must live in purity so that the Gospel would be spread and our lives would be holy and pleasing before our great king.

Now let me say that Satan would love to see you stuck in this. So much lying and deceit go on in covering up impurity and immorality. What you need to do is seek God’s strength in putting off your sin. You need to find a trusted Christian friend who can help encourage you to overcome this and you need to be honest with them. You must be willing to fight impurity and embrace God’s standard of purity for your life if you are to overcome.

Maybe you have not yet submitted to Jesus Christ. Perhaps you have not put your trust in Him as your only Savior and Lord. If that is the case you don’t have the resources to overcome sin in your life. And even if you beat this sin in your life I tell you that you will not overcome the eternal punishment that will come upon you for not trusting in God’s Son, Jesus Christ, to wipe away your sin. You need a Savior. Jesus died on the cross to save you from your sin and to allow you to live a life, not for your own benefit, but for the glory of God. Will you repent of your sin and put your trust in Him today to save you?