Why Abstain From Sexual Immorality

Introduction

In today’s verse Paul discusses why we should abstain from sexual immorality. In last week’s sermon we discussed exactly what sexual immorality is and some ways we can abstain from it. We defined from several Scripture passages Πορνεια or sexual immorality as any sexual attitude, desire, or behavior outside of the confines of a true and real marriage before God.

In this week’s text, Paul is discussing why we should abstain from sexual immorality. Look at 1 Thessalonians 4:6-8 “that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.”

Paul gives three major reasons why we should abstain from sexual immorality. And as we look at the text let me emphasize those for you again:

1 Thess. 4:6-8 “because 1. the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For 2. God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, 3. disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.”

This text is going to have to take more introduction than normal because of recent things in purity culture in especially the United States. Now you may be unaware of some of these things, but I still find it necessary to set some things straight.

Have you ever had a company promise something that you thought too good to be true?

USA Today has an article from 2020 that lists about 30 companies that made exaggerated or false promises about their products. Here are some examples:

5-hour energy promised that their shots were doctor-recommended and better for you than coffee.

Frosted Mini Flakes was claimed to help children’s attentiveness by 20%

Activia Yogurt boasted it could regulate the digestive system and help the immune system.

Volkswagen claimed their diesel vehicles were environmentally friendly when really they were just wired to cheat emissions tests.

All of these companies had to pay out big time for their false advertising. This doesn’t mean that their products were useless. But that they could not do what they claimed to do.

The purity culture, purity conferences etc has made some false advertising as well. Purity conferences were big when I was a teenager, and they were geared primarily for teenagers to promote abstinence before marriage.

Stacy Morford writing for a website called The Conversation says, “In recent years, it has been shown that purity culture is harmful. It taught women in particular to be suspicious and ashamed of their bodies, and resulted in anxiety, panic attacks, and even PTSD.”

In March 2021, Angie Hong shared her on personal story with the purity culture on The Atlantic. Her main summary is that “the rules do not apply equally to everyone.”

She writes: “Our unnies and oppas taught us that a vow of chastity would keep us from getting hurt or becoming damaged, like protecting a delicate flower from blooming too early. If my flower became spoiled, then putting it back together would be really hard. If I faltered, I also risked not having intimacy with God and living the perfect, sanctified life. I read this passage from Romans 12 over and over: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

She got into ministry and reflected that she was called a china doll and a dragon lady. She felt ashamed that Christian leaders would make illicit passes at her, she felt it was her fault.

She concludes, “By disentangling myself from the ideals of purity, I am creating new ways of being with others in my community. I feel much closer to God already.”

Purity culture attempted to convince teens to remain sexually pure by emotional manipulation and making false promises.

I remember attending such a conference as a teenager. At almost every one of these conferences they normally had some skit where they’d use gum or a flower or something. They would damage the object in some way (representing having sex outside of marriage) and then ask, “who would want this?”

This message, while trying to do some good in preventing immorality, completely ignores the forgiveness and grace found and Jesus and in fact runs counter to the gospel itself.

They would also make promises like, “If you remain sexually pure, then you will automatically be sexually satisfied in your spouse.” The false promise was that purity leads to a happy marriage.

All the companies that made false promises had to pay up big time. They had major consequences.

What are the consequences for the false promises of purity culture? People are using it’s negative effects to argue to do away with purity culture altogether. Certain people are trying to keep the name of “Christian” and yet do away with any biblical standard for sex and sexuality and they’re using purity culture as exhibit A.

Furthermore, fighting sin should lead you closer to Jesus. Whenever you sin Jesus stands ready to forgive. Purity culture said, “Whenever you sin, nobody wants you anymore.” It gave the Accuser a foothold to stand and mock any who fell into sexual sin.

You can hear the accuser once someone has fallen into sexual sin say, “You’re damaged goods now, no one will ever want you. You may as well give up and give in. There’s no point trying anymore.”

These false promises shows that some people were more concerned with manipulating behavior than they were obeying God. And may that be a warning to us all. Behavior modification without the gospel is dead religion.

The Avenger

1 Thess. 4:6 “that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you.”

The word “transgress” means to go beyond an established moral boundary. The word “wrong” is literally defraud which means to take or desire what one has no right to. and “in this matter” in this context means sexually.

The Scripture teaches there are firm, clearly marked boundaries toward our sexual behaviors and desires. Why should we as Christians fight to stay within these boundaries?

The first reason Paul gives is because the Lord is an avenger in this matters. Now the word “avenger” goes back into Old Testament law. If someone killed someone else without intending to or with evil intent, the law assumed the right of someone known as the avenger of blood.

Cain seems to acknowledge this as well. After he kills Abel, he worried that someone would kill him; however, God in his graciousness gives Cain a mark.

The laws which speak about the avenger of blood are all directed toward the cities of refuge. They can be found in Numbers 35, Deuteronomy 19, and Joshua 20. They seem to assume the right of the avenger of blood, but the laws themselves are directed toward setting up cities of refuge to where the manslayer can flee for safety. It gives the specific cases which the avenger of blood can actually put the guilty to death.

Vengeance is punishment inflicted on someone for doing wrong. An avenger is the person who carries out this punishment.

If you search for the word “avenger” in the Bible, it does not yield as many results as the word vengeance. The word “vengeance” is used frequently to describe the Day of the Lord in the prophets. The Day of the Lord is any day where God makes his justice especially known; however, the ultimate day of the Lord is when Jesus will return. And this, most likely is what Paul has in mind here when he calls the Lord an avenger in these matters.

Psalm 94:1 “O Lord, God of vengeance, O God of vengeance, shine forth!”

2 Thess. 1:7-8 “and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.”

This is something that Paul warned them about while he was with them in person.

So how can we apply this?

Take sexual sin seriously. God takes this sin seriously. There have been a lot of attempts to sweep this sin under the rug.

“Teenagers are just raging with hormones, they cannot help it.”

“Just one look won’t hurt.”

“They were just caught up in the moment.”

“Don’t try to repress who you are.”

“Everyone is addicted to pornography these days.”

I’m around teenagers all the time. And I can vouch for the fact that unfiltered access to pornography has made the sexual gestures and jokes far more explicit than when I was in high school not that long ago. Someone in a public school in this area says that all the boys in this middle school go around making reference to oral sex.

We are living in the middle of a pandemic of epic proportions worse than even the Covid pandemic.

And what are we doing about it? Are we taking this seriously? If we laugh along with people in person or on television who make sexual jokes, can we really say that we take this sin seriously?

If we give ourselves and our children unmonitered access to the internet can we really say that we take this sin seriously?

The warning that Paul gives is clear and we must train our disgust in this manner. I must wage war. When you scroll on your phone and see a funny meme that is sexual, when you stare too long at a picture, when you get a little too involved in that romance novel or movie, when you find yourself directing that conversation to romantic things, remind yourself the Lord is an avenger in these matters! Be afraid, his justice does not lack!

And maybe you think that you’ve won the battle against sexual sin. Perhaps you’ve proven consistently over a long period of time that you’ve slayed the giant of sexual sin, what should you do? The first thing I would encourage you to do is not let your guard down. As God warned Cain, sin is crouching at the door and it desires to rule over you, but you must rule over it.

Second, if you who’ve fought your battles and won truly take this sin seriously, then help your brothers and sisters fight this battle as well! Our society is drowning in sexual sin and abuse. And if there’s anything we’ve learned, staying silent about it only enables more sexual sin and abuse! And I know there exists a danger that it can become the only thing we talk about too, I mentioned last week, there needs to be balance.

But who can you disciple? Who can you keep accountable? Wisdom would dictate that I do not disciple or talk to young women about these things; however, there’s been many times I’ve asked guys point blank, “Who keeps you accountable for your sexual sin?”

I would ask you the same thing, who keeps you accountable for your sexual sin? And more than that, who are you keeping accountable? Find someone and aid their battle against sexual sin, point them to Jesus, remind them of forgiveness, parry the attacks of the Accuser.

Called for Holiness

1 Thess. 4:7 “For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.”

Paul mentions here that the believers have been called. “Called” is another word for invited. We can sort of miss the importance of the term if we lose the historical context. Say that you were invited by the president of the United Stated to come and meet with him in the oval office.

Now, regardless of your political view, would you go into the oval office in your pajamas? Would you purposefully go in there and show the president disrespect? Well, I would hope not. Because of the prestige of the office, there are certain formalities we would conform to show honor.

To take it out of our political context, imagine that an honorable king invited you to become a citizen in their nation. You consider this a great honor and you may go right away to buy clothing like the citizens of this kingdom, you research the lifestyle of the people of this kingdom, you learn the laws of this king, because you want to please this honorable king.

Now the point Paul wants to get across is that you have been called by the King of kings into his kingdom. This is your salvation from the wicked nations of this world. To be invited by God into his kingdom, is a major privilege, what are we to do with this new found prestige?

Some in the ancient world viewed spiritual realities as an excuse to indulge in physical pleasure. Gnostics viewed the spirit as good and the flesh as bad, and this led some of them to believe they could indulge in whatever sexual pleasure they would choose.

Some pagan religions believed that whenever the gods and goddesses engaged in the sex act then it would increase production in crops and animals and their own babies. So, they would practice temple prostitution as an act of worship.

What has the God of the universe called you to? God forbid that we use the status that God has called us to for impurity!

And this is sort of an aside, but I glanced again at the list of sexual abusers posted by the Southern Baptist Convention. This list is over 200 pages long with about 2-3 abusers per page, all of which were connected to some baptist church. Some of the incidents date back to the 1970’s all the way to more recent incidents. There are no appropriate words to describe how heinous it is that people would use their calling into the kingdom of God to prey on people.

God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness!

Our calling into Christ’s kingdom has brought us a new way of life, and we should seek to live as citizens of his kingdom. Purity culture taught us that if we did this that and the other thing, then we would have a happy marriage and be accepted by God. But the gospel is that God radically pursued you! You don’t have to jump through hoops to get into the kingdom of God. You realize that God sent his Son Jesus. Jesus lived a perfect life, never sinned once, every manner of temptation came his way, yet he never gave in, why? For your sake. Then he was lead to a cruel death on a cross. Why? Because the Lord is an avenger. You’ve seen it all throughout Scripture, sin brings death. You’ve sinned, you’ve wronged an eternal God, something has to die, the Lord is an avenger.

You’ve seen the Lord’s avenging at work in the plague of the firstborn. You can imagine the scene: from house to house in the middle of the night firstborn after firstborn dying whether Egyptian or Israelite? Why? Because the Lord is an avenger, he will not let the guilty go unpunished. But the only thing that appeased the avenger was the blood on the doorpost; something had to die.

And in the same way, when Jesus died on that cross, the experience was so excruciating because in that moment the Lord came upon him as the avenger.

Is. 53:10 “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.”

Why did it please God to crush Jesus? Because

2 Cor. 5:21 “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

The cross even is so central because our very sins were put on Jesus and he was crushed for you! Your sin! Your sexual sin, all your impurities were placed upon Jesus.

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

This is king Jesus! King Jesus was crushed for your sins. King Jesus conquered your sins and demolished death and resurrected. King Jesus washes you of your sins. And this king Jesus calls you into his kingdom, and you would use that calling for impurity? By no means, he has called us in holiness.

Disregarding God

Paul concludes this section 1 Thess. 4:8 “Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.”

Disregard is to reject, to see as invalid the instruction about sexual morality also disregards God. And how we’ve seen this displayed in our culture.

Man’s instruction for sexual morality has failed a number of times. We seen already the failure of purity culture. Now, we see people trying to throw out the concept of being pure altogether.

Our modern western society has erased the lines that once demarcated what was sexually moral and immoral. Marriage used to be that boundary, even in our society. But that got erased, and our society said as long as it’s between one man and one women it’s okay. But that got erased in our society said as long as it’s between adults it’s okay. What are we going to do if this gets erased? If we follow the godless logic used to erase the other lines, we have no legitimate reason to stop our nation from legalizing polygamy, bestiality, and even pedophilia. Man’s standard is always changing, we need something more.

The new secular, or godless ethic for sex is consent. As long as you say “yes” it’s okay and if you say “no” it’s not okay. This boundary is on thin ice. Christina Emba writing for the Washington Post writes against this idea of consent, “Even when it goes well, sex is complicated. It involves our bodies, minds and emotions, our connections to each other and our deepest selves. Despite the (many, and popular) arguments that it’s only a physical act, it is clear to almost anyone who has had it that sex has vast consequences, some of which can last long after an encounter ends. Over the past several decades, our society has come to believe that consent — as a legal standard and a moral requirement — could somehow make our most unruly activity more manageable. But it was never going to be that easy.” Although she writes in darkness from a secular perspective, I believe what she has to say here coincides with what Scripture teaches in regard to being “one flesh.”

She goes on to talk about the problem of people giving false consent, or not being really clear on their answer to a question for permission. She says, “More clarifications of consent — or ever-more-technical breakdowns of its different forms — won’t rebalance power differentials, explain intimacy or teach us how to care. Making the standard of consent our sole criterion for good sex punts on the question of how to conduct a relationship that affirms our fundamental personhood and human dignity.”

Now, as far as I know, Ms. Emba is not a Christian; however, even she from a secular perspective can recognize how faulty this ethic is.

Please hear this, asking people if a certain act is okay and then being selfishly “fulfilled” with a yes answer or dissapointed with a no answer treats people like objects for pleasure and not as people.

Sex outside of God’s design is inhumane, it dehumanizes us. I mean, I was watching an old looney toons cartoon. And you know one of the old comedic tropes for this cartoons is when a guy sees a beautiful girl he starts cat calling and panting like a dog. It dehumanizes women.

People have recognized for years now that pornography changes the way people think to the extent that they just see other people as objects for their own pleasure. The new consent ethic does the exact same thing! It may sound nice, but in reality it takes away our humanity as well.

You remember the Tower of Babel. The people wanted to make a name for themselves and build a tower to access God space. They were going to ascend into heaven. To us today that may seem silly. “They really though they could get to heaven by building a tower?”

But we do the same thing all the time! We think we can build our own sexual ethic without any repercussions, without any regard for God! I don’t care if your sexual ethic is abstinence for life or complete freedom, if you try to build your ethic without God in view it will fall apart like a house of cards.

Any sexual ethic man tries to build without God will fall apart. It will lead to pain, it will lead to heartache, it will lead to legalism or licence. Anytime God and his design are disregarded dire consequences result.

He says here of God that he gives his Holy Spirit to us. Rejecting God in this matter is tantamount to rejecting his gift of the Holy Spirit who, according to one commentator, “was a gift from God to bring holiness into the lives of believers.”

Conclusion

In conclusion I want you to reflect on the seriousness of Paul’s language. In the verses 3-6a Paul clearly lays our for us exactly what sexual immorality is: any sexual attitude, desire, or behavior outside of the confines of a true and real marriage before God. In verses 6b-8 Paul explains to us why we should abstain from sexual immorality: because God is an avenger, because of his calling in holiness, and because otherwise we would be rejecting God himself. I want to conclude by reflecting on what we should do if we stumble. How to we get back up and keep fighting for our purity? David certainly had to deal with this after his sin against Bathsheba, let me read for you David’s repentance:

Psalm 51:1-12

1  Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy

blot out my transgressions.

2  Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

and cleanse me from my sin!

3  For I know my transgressions,

and my sin is ever before me.

4  Against you, you only, have I sinned

and done what is evil in your sight,

so that you may be justified in your words

and blameless in your judgment.

5  Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,

and in sin did my mother conceive me.

6  Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,

and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

7  Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;

wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

8  Let me hear joy and gladness;

let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

9  Hide your face from my sins,

and blot out all my iniquities.

10  Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and renew a right spirit within me.

11  Cast me not away from your presence,

and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

12  Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

and uphold me with a willing spirit.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ps 51:1–12.