Stinking Burial Clothes (1 Thessalonians 4:1-12)
Following Faithfully: Lessons in Discipleship from Thessalonians • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 1:11:00
0 ratings
· 12 viewsFiles
Notes
Transcript
Sermon
Sermon
Key Passage
Key Passage
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.
For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality;
that 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;
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.
For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.
Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit.
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 more and more,
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.
Introduction
Introduction
I realized as I was studying this week that we are halfway through this series.
1 & 2 Thessalonians are very short books of the Bible. But I hope you find alongside of us that they are tremendously valuable.
Biblical Foundation
Bible reveals the truth and the nature of God to us
It reveals the truth of who we are as well.
It demonstrates God’s love to us in that He sent His son to live a perfect life and die on the cross and pay the penalty for sin.
Jesus invites us to follow Him
This is discipleship
Matthew 4:19 definition of a disciple
This is what Paul taught and modeled to the Thessalonian church
Paul followed Jesus
Jesus changed Paul
Paul went on a mission to make disciples of Jesus
This journey brought him to Thessalonica
Some chose to follow Jesus
Those that followed were changed by Jesus
Their faith was becoming known to the world around them
Paul wrote this letter to the Thessalonian church to encourage them.
The whole first three chapters of this book was Paul telling how their faith, love and hope in Jesus Christ was so good.
That whole section ended last week as the book now takes a turn to instruction.
May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.
Paul asks God to strengthen their hearts so they will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.
To carry the tone from last week: Maturity is continuing to strive for holiness.
This is the direction Paul carries us now: he will challenge them to continue growing in holiness.
Sermon
Sermon
As I open up today, I want to highlight story from the life of Jesus that I would like to use as a parallel to our journey today:
In John 11, there is the story of a man named Lazarus.
Lazarus was a friend of Jesus who became very ill.
Jesus heard about it and began the journey to see Lazarus.
By the time Jesus arrived, Lazarus had already died and had been dead for 4 days.
Everyone was mourning and Lazarus’ sister even said, “If you had only been here, my brother would not have died.”
Jesus made an interesting statement to the sister, but she didn’t quite understand in the moment:
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;
Jesus asked to go to where Lazarus had been laid.
They brought Jesus and Jesus asked for the stone of the tomb to be rolled away.
The people around said, “Uhh, Jesus, you probably don’t want to do that. He’s going to stink pretty badly by now.”
He insists that they open the tomb, so a couple of guys go and open the tomb.
Jesus says, “Lazarus, come out”
The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
As we look to Jesus, we realize that He is the resurrection and the life.
Jesus calls us into discipleship. As we place our faith in Him, He brings us life through Him.
Then our lives become a life like Lazarus of taking off the stinking old grave clothes.
The disciples were fishermen, until they left their nets to follow Jesus. Then they became disciples.
Their identity changed.
As a result, they were a new creation. They were different. There was change.
They couldn’t keep doing fishermen things. They now had to do disciple things.
They were alive, and as they followed Jesus, they had to learn how to take off their burial clothes. They learned by obedience to Jesus.
They had the temptation to be fishermen, always. But they were disciples. They were now different and that would be a tension they would have to overcome.
This is what was happening with the Thessalonian church.
They were a new creation in Christ. They were alive, when they were once dead. Now, Paul is imploring them to live like people who are alive in Christ, not dead in their sin.
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.
For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.
There is so much to cover in these two verses.
First, Paul instructed them how to live in order to please God.
I want you to know that God’s pleasure with the Thessalonians comes from Jesus Christ
Salvation is the foundation of God’s acceptance of them.
Paul is not saying that they are losing their salvation every time they sin. Some people will go there.
I think we can see that isn’t what is being said.
Rather, I want you to think in relational terms
Following Jesus is a relational covenant.
I love my wife. My wife loves me.
Are there things that I can do in my marriage to annoy, frustrate, and anger my wife?
Yes.
Does that mean we aren’t married? No.
But what does love look like?
If I am married, I need to live like I am married and live sacrificially for another person. Not only serving my own needs like I was single.
Discipleship is not a set of rules, it is a relationship with a God who demonstrated His love for us by dying on the cross.
Tremendous love!
My response ought to be to live in a way that brings pleasure to God in that relationship, not frustration and anger.
That is what relationship is!
Second, Paul tells them to do this more and more
Again, I want to relate this to marriage
Lisa and I have been married 25 years. The longer we are married, I continue to find ways to align myself to her in our relationship. I need to continue growing.
Otherwise, it becomes toxic to our marriage.
We cannot stop obeying because we did it once
We cannot say, “I’m doing the same things I did when I first started following Jesus. That means you aren’t following, you are staying.
Last, Paul says, “You know what instruction we gave you by the authority of Jesus Christ.”
These are not Paul’s instructions, they are Jesus’ instructions.
So obeying what Paul is about to say means that they are following Jesus, not Paul. This is very important, and we will get there.
But Paul is not changing the instructions.
There is a fallacy in the Christian church. That fallacy is what I call the fallacy of “new”.
We always want to do something new.
We want to be convicted of sin that is different than the sin we have in our life
We want to learn things that are new
Everyone wants a new and shiny thing in life.
Paul says, “Just follow what I told you. It is simple. Continue doing that more and more.”
Paul then gives this church four instructions for holy living.
Four is pretty simple, right? Wrong.
He will address sexual immorality, love, gossip, and hard work.
Some or all of these may be a challenge.
All of this stems from the first few words in verse 3.
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified:
Verse 2 ended with Paul saying that these instructions are given by the authority of the Lord Jesus
Lord— Authority that we surrender to.
Saying “Jesus is Lord” means that I am not lord. He has authority and ownership of me.
The text here uses the word, “sanctified”.
This is a big church word that is rarely (if ever) used in any context outside of church.
This word describes the journey of a disciple who is growing in Jesus toward holiness and away from sin.
This is why I opened up with the story of Lazarus.
I wanted to put a word-picture to the process of sanctification.
We have been resurrected by the resurrection and life.
We are alive. Grave clothes don’t make us dead. But they make the live person stink.
Sanctification is the process of taking off the stinking clothes of our old ways of living and looking more like the live person that we were called to be.
Stinking Grave Clothes #1— Sexual Immorality
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality;
I think it is telling the order Paul structures this letter:
He says, “You guys are doing so well! (for three chapters)”
Now I challenge you to avoid sexual immorality.
Do you think Paul knew where the temptation would be?
Absolutely!
What does Paul mean by sexual immorality?
The Greek word is Porneia.
I believe we often go so far into defining sin in all of its variations, but in doing so, never clearly define the target.
God created sex.
It isn’t evil or gross to talk about.
God created it and if God created it, it is good.
But with everything God created, He created it with purpose and instructions for its practice.
When we take what God created for good and use it contrary to His instruction, it is abuse. This is not holy, this is sinful.
God created sex to be between a man and a woman in the context of a covenant relationship with one another (marriage).
Anything outside of this is sexual immorality.
As the word, “porneia” indicates, pornography is one of the areas that are in this sphere that has massively impacted humanity and the church.
Sex outside of marriage, homosexuality, transgenderism, sexual lusting, and as you see, we can keep defining how to miss the target of holiness.
Paul says, “You must avoid all of this”
He continues:
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality;
that 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;
Paul highlights the separation from the way of the “pagans” and the way of the “disciple”.
The disciple strives to control their own body in a way that is holy and honorable.
Pagans (non-disciples) live in passionate lust. Their temptation to sin is the compass for their lives.
We are not victims to our desires. We must strive to master the sinful nature living within us.
This is very important. If God gave us our sexuality, then we must look to God for what sexual holiness looks like.
For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.
This is a battle for our heart.
God desires our heart. All of it. Our sinful nature also desires our heart and Satan uses our sinful nature to draw us away from God’s will.
Paul doesn’t give us a process or a step-by-step approach to dealing with sexual sin in our lives. But as we will see, the Holy Spirit plays a massive part in our battle for sanctification.
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.
Paul continues and gives a special warning here. He says that no one should take advantage of a brother or sister.
Literally the word here is “exploit”.
The idea being communicated here is that we already have an enemy who is bringing temptation into our lives.
This is the case where we remove Satan out of the equation and we become the ones who tempt or coerce others into sexual sin.
Paul’s warning for this person is this:
The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before.
Sexual sin is something almost everyone thinks they will “get away with”.
But they forget the very nature of God.
God is all knowing
God is ever present
God knows the thoughts and motivations of your heart and my heart.
If we truly believed this about God, would it change our approach to the sexual sin that we allow to set up camp?
Sexual sin doesn’t just impact one person. It always impacts others. It has consequences that distance us from the God we claim to follow. God is just. That is scary.
Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit.
The last part of this verse is that we are not rejecting Paul. We are rejecting God.
He gives us His Holy Spirit. His Holy Spirit lives within us.
His Holy Spirit brings conviction.
When we sin sexually, we are sinning immediately against the nature of God who is living within us.
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.
Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;
you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
Stinking Grave Clothes #1— Sexual Immorality
Stinking Grave Clothes #2— Conditional Love
Paul revisits the primary theme of his letter so far: love
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 more and more,
As Paul says here, “...we do not need to write to you...”
Paul has spoken to this point in nearly every paragraph of this letter to this point.
But he does mention it as a step of their sanctification.
Love is the process of taking something of our stinking grave clothes off.
Stinking grave clothes is the type of living that holds on to grudges, that defines people by their sin, that lives in disharmony within and outside of the body of Christ.
Paul re-emphasizes the point of love.
A love based on identity, not performance
Now on to the last two points.
In order to understand the last two points, we need to look to the book of 2 Thessalonians.
There were some issues happening in the church here and Paul is very gentle about addressing them in our passage today.
When we get to 2 Thessalonians, he is much less gentle. He addresses the same issues with more clarity for us to know what is going on.
We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies.
Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat.
And as for you, brothers and sisters, never tire of doing what is good.
Take special note of anyone who does not obey our instruction in this letter. Do not associate with them, in order that they may feel ashamed.
In this, we will look at two types of people: busybodies and lazy people
Stinking Grave Clothes #1— Sexual Immorality
Stinking Grave Clothes #2— Conditional Love
Stinking Grave Clothes #3— Busybodies
and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business
First, busybodies. I find it funny that Paul follows the progression of 1) Sexual Immorality, 2) Godly love, then 3) busybodies.
But there are few things more divisive and destructive in the body of Christ than people who don’t mind their own business and talk about it to everyone else.
If someone is in sin, there is a process
Matthew 18 lays out a process for bringing the sin of a person to their attention.
It is done with a heart hoping for repentance and restoration.
But we tend to do Matthew 18 without talking to the person.
We feel that somehow, we talk to each other, then they will be brought to repentance. This is unloving and sinful.
If someone is not in sin, then it is probably best not to open your mouth.
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.
Why is this an issue? I think it is an issue because we become so assured of our own righteousness that we feel that we are now in a superior place to judge one another.
We do this by talking to other people about the immaturity, sin or errors of those around us.
This is gossip. It is wrong. It is part of the grave clothes that we must remove.
The only way that a busybody gets to where they are is by losing sight of their need for grace
We are always in a posture before God of being in desperate need of His grace.
If for 5 minutes of my life, God stopped giving me grace, I would once again be destined for eternal separation from God
Praise God for His faithfulness and grace.
Paul says, lead a quiet life and mind your own business.
And lastly
Stinking Grave Clothes #1— Sexual Immorality
Stinking Grave Clothes #2— Conditional Love
Stinking Grave Clothes #3— Busybodies
Stinking Grave Clothes #4— Laziness
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.
I want to address this culturally before applying it to the lives of our situation.
Based on next week’s text, it appears that this church was so looking forward to the return of Jesus that they were like, “I’m quitting my job and letting the church feed me. Jesus is coming back anyways! So what does it matter?
Paul says that you must work. In 2 Thessalonians, he said, “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.”
Hard work and productive labor are important parts of our discipleship.
I want to take a moment and highlight something here:
There are those who have needs within the church and even within our church.
These needs are not the results of laziness. Rather they are the results of circumstances that hit all of us at times in our lives.
The church ought to be there for those who have needs within the church.
This is what we see was a trademark of the early church.
We ought to give so the church can grow, serve in ministry and meet the needs of those in the body who have needs.
In these cases, the need being met is oftentimes less about the actual need and more about setting this person up to stand on their own feet again.
Budgeting, new jobs, changing circumstances.
There are also those who are in the place of need because they are fools.
They didn’t work. Or they did work and they blew their money on worthless things.
Hobbies are great, but they must come after the basic needs of caring for your family
I can go into stories about the circumstances where I have had to challenge people on this.
Don’t sit on your couch doing nothing then expect the church to pay your rent check.
That rent money could have went to the person who is working two jobs and still needs to buy groceries for their kids.
The church must have good filters for knowing when/how to distribute the resources of the church for needs within the body.
Conclusion
Conclusion
I want to go back to the story in John 11 about Lazarus.
Jesus said:
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;
and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
Gospel message
Sanctification
Dealing with hidden sin in our lives
We can try to hide the stench of death on our souls, but God knows.
Do we humble ourselves before Him?
Real Life in Action
Head- What did I learn about ‘sanctification’ today?
Heart- What stinking burial clothes is God asking me to remove?
Hands- Repent of the sin that you have held on to by going to God in prayer.
