Sexual Purity

We’ve been looking at the book of 1 Thessalonians for the past couple of weeks. And I know we call it a book of the Bible, but really it’s a letter – personal correspondence from the Apostle Paul to a church he founded in what is modern day Greece.

And after long and very affectionate introduction, Paul now gets to the meat and potatos of the letter. After everything he wrote in chapter 1-3, where he heard that they are doing okay – they are standing firm in their young faith, and they don’t hate Paul for leaving so soon, he writes this encouragement in chapter 4 verses 1 & 2: “Additionally then, brothers and sisters, we ask and encourage you in the Lord Jesus, that as you have received instruction from us on how you should live and please God—as you are doing—do this even more. For you know what commands we gave you through the Lord Jesus.”

There are several small things to point out here that will help us move through the rest of today and the next couple weeks. Paul mentions instruction that he and the guys gave to the Thess church. You received instruction from us on how you should live and please God. You guys what I’m talking about. You know the commands we gave you. And based on what Timothy says, you’re doing great with those things. But what I am asking and encouraging is that you do those even more.

This past week, our daughters had their annual volleyball awards night at school, where the coaches talk about the season and give out various awards to all the players. And since there were no seniors on the team this year, the coach ended each player’s speech the exact same way. I doubt she intended to, but all whatever it was 14 or 15 girls heard the same words: I’m excited to see how you continue to improve next year.

We taught you some things this year that helped you improve from last year – but as coaches, we’re not satisfied, and we hope you as players aren’t either. It’s the coach’s subtle way of saying, we all can keep improving.

Paul says the same thing about discipleship: We taught you how to live in a way that pleases God, and this was all new to you. You were living according to the flesh, you were doing you’re own thing, like Ephesians 2 says, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit of disobedience, and all the unholy trends of culture, but you were made alive by the Spirit. You received Jesus by faith, and we started telling you the kind of life that pleases God, and even though some of it was a shock to your system, Tim says you’re doing it and doing it well – but we’re excited to see how you continue to grow and do that even more.

The whole picture here is that of maturity. As Christians, we are responsible to grow up in our faith. You were a baby Christian last year or 5 years ago, and it’s great! But if you’re still a baby Christian 5 years from now, still the only verse you can quote is John 3:16, still not sure how to find your way around the Bible, still not controlling your anger, still not growing in love for other people, still coming to church for what you can get out of it instead of looking for ways to serve others in the community – the author of Hebrews would say, hey that’s a cause for concern.

The expectation is that since you have been saved by grace, that you will continue in that grace and grow up. That’s what Paul is pointing toward in verse 2 – you know the commands we gave you through the Lord Jesus and in v3 this is God’s will – your sanctification. Your growing up. Your maturity.

So that’s the main thread for the last two chapters of 1 Thessalonians. Because, apparently, with Paul needing to evacuate the city quickly when violence started happening, he didn’t get all of their questions answered. So he uses the second half of the letter to answer some questions that apparently the church full of baby Christians here in Thessalonica had around this ground-shaking new faith in Jesus, and what all it meant for them.

So, over the next couple of weeks, we’re going to be looking at those topics one by one, examining how Paul would be encouraging us to grow up and mature in living a life that’s pleasing to God.

PRAYER

In 2025, the term “progressive” is thrown around a lot. The word progressive is built from the word “progress” as in moving forward. And in the area of human sexuality, the term progressive is used to say we aren’t stuck in the old traditional mindset of marriage as one man, one woman. We’re not stuck in the past. We’ve learned some things. We’ve been enlightened. We’ve progressed.

And I know that might feel like a recent thing. That new insight has gotten us to this point. But listen to what these ancient writers said about the sexual ethics of Paul’s day: “Let not pleasures always be forbidden… let desire and pleasure triumph sometimes over reason.” In other words – stop this whole line of thinking about consequences and what’s right and wrong – sometimes you gotta just go with what feels good. That same guy argued that if you just let young people get it out of their system when they are young, they will be better husbands, fathers, businesspeople, and better civilians overall.

Here’s what another Greek influencer named Demosthenes said: “We keep mistresses for the sake of pleasure, concubines for the daily care of our person, and wives to bear us legitimate children and be faithful guardians of our households.”

Plutarch said a wife should not be angry if her husband sought sexual pleasure with another woman.

That was the sexual ethic of the day, not to mention that nearly all of the Greek temples employed temple prostitution as an act of worship to the various gods. So when you’re used to that kind of sexual permission and liberty, and all of a sudden Paul rolls into town and says, yeah, that’s the old you. That old you was crucified with Christ. The new creation in Christ doesn’t participate in that stuff anymore, you can understand why the Thessalonians have questions. So Paul continues what he started in verse 3:

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 4

3

For this is God’s will. Those first 5 words set the tone for the rest of the conversation: For this is God’s will. This isn’t part of the church constitution because a bunch of elders decided, you know, we think this is a good idea. Tell the Thessalonians control your own body. This isn’t because science has proven, yeah, people who wait until marriage to have sex are generally happier and more stable in the long run. This is the design of a loving and gracious, good and holy, righteous and just Creator, who wants the best for his people!

Your sanctification –  Sanctification is a translation of the Greek word hagiasmos which begins with the root word, hagios, which is the word “holy.” So sanctification really is an action word – it’s the action of becoming holy. Or if that sounds too churchy or religious for you, think of it like a purification process. Your car probably has an oil filter that purifies the oil in the engine. You have a fuel filter that purifies the gas. You have an air filter that purifies the air. It’s an active process of removing the junk so that what’s on the other side is purified.

According to the glorious plan of redemption – When we come to Christ in all our sin, the record of our sin, Colossians 2:14 says, is erased by his atoning death. All of your sins, past, present, and future, are nailed there to the cross. You’re made alive by the Spirit of God, adopted into God’s family, and THEN, sanctification is the act of God working in us day by day through the Holy Spirit so that we are becoming more dedicated to the Lord – that we grow in our love for him, grow in our love for others, grow not just in learning more facts, but learning how to apply the things we have learned.

And what Paul writes here in chapter 4 is to remind this little church that holiness means that in Christ, you belong to a different kingdom now. You belong to a different culture. A different way of doing things, including sexual relationships. Now, Paul doesn’t mention any specific people or instances, so he’s probably not correcting or rebuking anyone here. But the same threat was there in Thessalonica as it is in Riverside today – that is, that the low standards of the culture around us start to weasel their way into the church. And Paul wanted to get ahead of that.

So, he says in verse 3: Keep away (abstain) from sexual immorality. That term, sexual immorality, the word porneo is used to describe any sexual behavior that is not one man and one woman in a covenant of marriage. And verse 3 says that engaging in that kind of sexual behavior is wrong because it fights against God’s will for your sanctification. It fights against your maturity. It keeps you immature. Look at verse 8. Anyone who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.

This really is a battle of the wills. Either you willingly submit to the will of God, or you submit to your own desires.

One of the most popular romance stories ever made into a movie is the Nicolas Sparks novel, The Notebook. The movie tells the story of a young couple who fell in love as young adults, but then were separated for various reasons. The woman in the film, named Allie, ends up engaged to someone else while the man, named Noah, goes off to war. He returns home, and the two meet up again, and the romance is rekindled – even though she is engaged to someone else.

In the movie, as their stories come back together, the passion is palpable as you watch the movie, and Allie and Noah have sex a couple times. But then she remembers she’s engaged, so she breaks that off so she can stay with Noah. And as they grow old together, she ends up with dementia, and as an old man, he comes to the nursing home or whatever and reads the notebook of their story to her every day. And it’s so sweet that it makes you cry, and then they both die at the same time, holding hands, and it’s there’s not a dry eye in the room. And I hate that movie.

Because here’s the thing. You watch that movie, and their sexual relationship seems so timely and sweet and so harmless, like it was just sort of destined to happen. And they get up and go about the story, nobody gets hurt, except Allie’s fiancée, who no one likes anyway, so who cares what happens to him.

And I think stories like the Notebook are a Satanic thirst trap for Christians, where at the end of the day, you go, hmm. That looks harmless. They end up married. I don’t see the big deal, and I don’t get what is so wrong about it. And the devil starts whispering, “God is kind of a big kill joy. See, you’re not gonna die if you cross the line. You’re not gonna die if you watch some porn. You’re not gonna die if you pop in the Notebook this afternoon to see what Rodney was talking about. Or if you’re engaged, it can be challenging like, I mean, we plan to get married, so what’s the big deal. If you’re dating, I mean, it’s not like you’re sleeping around – it’s one person that you love. Why is that wrong? And besides, if God gave us the desires, why shouldn’t we act on them?”

And sometimes the best parents have to offer is, “uh, just don’t.” Why? “Uh, I don’t know – just don’t.”

One of my favorite books is called Gospel Fluency, by a guy named Jeff Vanderstelt. And I want to read a few paragraphs of this book to you this morning, because he puts it into words like I’ve never heard before. Parents – if you’re wondering how to talk to your kids about sex, this is it. Teenagers, if your friends at school are pressuring you, and you’re not sure how to answer them – this is how you talk to them. This is why you do whatever it takes to not look at porn. This is why you shut off movies that that champion sexual immorality. This is why you guard your social media and the things you text to friends of the opposite sex.

The picture God has given us of his love for his people is that of a husband pursuing his bride. God loved his bride so much that he pursued her faithfully for hundreds of years. Eventually God took on flesh in the form of a baby named Jesus, and he humbly lived as a human for 33 years. The writer of Hebrews says that Jesus is able to sympathize with our weaknesses because he was tempted in every way just as we are, yet he did not sin. He fully understands us, the church, his bride, because he put himself in our shoes. Therefore, he is able to live with us in an understanding way, just like scripture directs husbands to do. Jesus really knows his bride, so he really empathizes with her. He gets her better than any man has ever understood a woman.

Jesus loved his bride enough to serve her and give up his life as a ransom for her. But she was unfaithful to him. She gave herself to others. She did not wait for him, but grew impatient and easily gave in to those not committed to a covenant relationship. And yet, he paid the bride price of his own life to purchase her out of her adulterous slavery. His death on the cross paid the debt for her sin and cleansed her of all her impurities.

With his own life, he purchased for her a perfectly pure wedding dress. In fact, the dress she gets to wear is his own righteousness, which covers the shame of her sin. He died to give her purity, freedom, and unending love. Then he rose again and went to prepare a place for her. One day, he will come for his bride and take her home to live with him forever. And though it’s been over 2000 years, he is patiently waiting for that day when his bride will be fully prepared, and he will consummate the marriage at the greatest wedding party of all eternity. He has been faithfully waiting all this time for his bride. Talk about a faithful, loving, and patient lover who is willing to wait for the love of his life!

The reason we wait to have sex until we are married is because of Jesus’ faithfulness to us. We are his bride and we live to tell the story of his love for us. He purchased our lives with his blood so that they would display his pure, holy, selfless, unadulterated love for us. And if we fail – when we fail – we remember God’s love for us and run back to the cross in faith, trusting that…his death paid for our sin and cleansed us from all unrighteousness; that we are now clothed in his righteousness; that we are changed; that we are new; and that God has declared us pure through the pure love of Jesus Christ.

So we tell the story of his love by displaying it through our own sexual purity. We want the world to know that even though we have betrayed the love of our life, we have been forgiven and made new. He waits patiently for his bride, so we can wait patiently for ours (Vanderstelt, 32-24).

Or said a lot more simply, go to verse 7. God has not called us to impurity but to live in holiness. So how do we grow in holiness? v4 Know how to control your own body (Clay jar) in holiness and honor. Not in lustful passions like people who don’t know God

Paul puts this in pretty clear terms. The world is divided into two categories: Those who know God and Those who don’t. Those who know God and those who don’t.

And for those who know God, controlling your sexual urges is not optional. To be sure, there are people who don’t know God who have chosen to not sleep around and not be sexually active. It’s not like all non-Christians are just rampant sexual zombies that crawl on whatever they can find. But, one of the fruits of the Spirit – one of ways you know a person has the Holy Spirit of Jesus living inside of them – is that they are self-controlled. They know how to control their body, and master their own sexual urges instead of their urges controlling them.

So Paul is saying is that any sexual activity that is not self-controlled, sexual activity that doesn’t honor God and his design for our holiness, that regularly and willingly gives in to their sexual cravings is a legitimate reason to ask whether or not that person really knows God. Have they really understood the story of redemption? Controlling our lusts and living sexually pure lives is essential to anyone who professes to know Christ. In doing so, we honor God with our bodies (GotQuestions).

But we don’t just honor God with our bodies – we also have the responsibility to honor each other. 6 This means one must not transgress against and take advantage of a brother or sister in this manner, because the Lord is an avenger of all these offenses, as we also previously told and warned you.

That word “transgress” means overstepping the boundaries. People in this culture, who were used to it being an act of worship to pick up a temple prostitutes or go home with someone you met at the bar before you go home to your family, are now potentially in small groups meeting new single people who are attractive, they’ve never had to say no to this kind of thing before, and so the natural order is, just follow your urges.

And Paul says, listen – if you go that route, the Lord himself will enter the scene. God does not give the green light for women to be taken advantage of or sinned against in the body of Christ, where she is mentally undressed or talked to inappropriately by guys from her own church. You are all family now. Brothers and sisters in Christ! Men – Paul is talking to us here. It’s our responsibility to protect the women of this church from ourselves. And if we can’t control ourselves, it’s not their husbands or their dad we need to worry about – God is their defender, and he will avenge our lack of self-control.

Why? 7 For God has not called us to impurity but to live in holiness. 8 Consequently, anyone who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.

And there are often two lines of thinking after a message like this:

Well, shoot. I’ve failed this part of maturity pretty hard core, and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do now. Is God done with me? Am I damaged goods? I’ve messed up already – may as well just keep going.

Or the second thought is, this doesn’t apply to me. I’m married with eyes only for my spouse, or I’m single and not dating or even interested, this whole conversation doesn’t apply to me. I don’t read or view explicit stuff, so this whole conversation honestly isn’t something I struggle with.

So, first of all, that’s great! That’s a good thing! That’s the will of God – that you continue to grow in holiness and honor. I hope that we would all be able to say that. So I’ll say with Paul in verse 2 – do this even more! I’m excited to see how you continue to grow in maturity and devotion to Christ! The only word I would have for you today is 1 Corinthians 10:12 “So, whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall.” First John 1 says if you do fall, you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one who atoned for the sins of the whole world.”

The devil is sneaky. So don’t take your foot off the gas.

Back to question 1: If I’ve failed at this thing of sexual purity, is God done with me? Am I damaged goods? I’m taking you to 1 Corinthians as well, chapter 6, which says this: Don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God's kingdom? Do not be deceived: No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or males who have sex with males, [10] no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God's kingdom.

Don’t miss this – If you persist in sexual immorality, if you persist in stealing, or greed, if you persist in getting drunk, or verbally abusing the people you love, you will die in your sin. You will not inherit the kingdom of God, no matter how much time, money, or effort you give to the church. Says it right there in verses 9 and 10.

If you stop there, it makes it look like, yep damaged goods. Too late for you. You and the drunk people, you and the verbally abusive and greedy people are out. But that’s not the end. There’s more. Listen. And some of you used to be like this. BUT (the best contrasting word you could ever see right here) BUT you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Verse 11 says some of you used to be like this which means, you don’t have to stay outside the kingdom of God just because that was you once upon a time!

In Christ, you have been washed. That record, that identity is not yours anymore. In Christ, you don’t have to get drunk. You don’t have to be greedy. You don’t have to undress that woman in your mind. You don’t have to pick up the romance novel any more.

You have been sanctified. I love that he uses past tense on that verb. It’s as good as done, because it’s not you that sanctifies yourself – the Spirit does the sanctification. Your job is to show up for work. I’m here, Lord. What are we working on today?

And you have been justified. You know what that word justified means? I’ll explain this, then we’ll close.

A young couple meets and falls in love. He is filthy rich. Has more money than he has time to count. But she comes into the relationship with $100’s of thousands of dollars in credit card debt. So much so that with her job and interest, it’ll never be zeroed out. They get married, and at the wedding, all of his wealth becomes hers and all of her debt becomes his. In his abundance, he wipes out her debt as if it never happened, and she now lives fully in his abundance.

Jesus is the husband whose record before God is one of abundant perfection and holiness and purity. Ours is the record of the bride who has racked up an insurmountable debt of sin. But when Jesus saves us by his grace, his record of purity becomes ours and our record of immorality becomes his. And at the cross, he paid the bill for our sin, so that we could live in his abundance.

And if you’re going, that sounds ludicrous – it’s because you haven’t tasted of it yet. The message of the cross sounds utterly foolish to the people who haven’t been saved by it.

So Father God, would you open our eyes to this morning to the mystery of your grace. To see that you have loved us so fully and so completely, and that your grace wasn’t a once and done deal – it’s what we stand in every moment of every day.

So thank you for the cross. Thank you for your blood. Thank you for washing us, making us clean, and not treating us like we deserve. Lord help us to walk in purity. Growing in maturity. Wholehearted in our commitment to you because you are wholeheartedly committed to us.

Fill us again with your Spirit I pray. AMEN

Just wanted to give you a quick update on the building situation while we have the opportunity, and I’ll try to keep this quick for the sake of the children and the KidCity teachers. I really want to honor them and their time back there.

But, you remember back in June we had a meeting to talk about purchasing the Schnoebelen property here in Riverside, and there was a unanimous vote that this was the direction we believed the Lord would take us.

Part of that conversation was obviously the finances – the asking price is $1.28 million, and the property appraised at $780,000. The bank won’t loan us that difference, but we were told that if we got another appraisal knowing the asking price and what some contractors said about us keeping that building instead of starting from scratch, that the second appraisal would come back a lot closer to the asking price.

Well, we got that second appraisal back about 3 weeks ago, and to our disappointment, it was even lower than the first one, at $760,000.

The bank will loan us 80% of $760, which is $608,000. And we have already put $50k down as earnest money, so $658 is covered, leaving us to cover the remaining $672 on our own. We have a little over $600k in the building fund, which is great. But that still leaves us $53, 000 short of the purchase price.

We’ve teased out some other options with other banks, passed on the appraisal to other experienced folks for their opinions, but it’s all coming back to keeping things as they are, and not continuing to pursue a bunch of other options. The bank needs to know we can cover our part so they can cover theirs, and at that point it looks like we can officially close on this thing and take ownership.

Here’s where we are at as an Elder Team – We realize this is small bump in the road, and we were hoping for a little different outcome, but we also can’t shake the way God brought this land to our front door. We can’t shake the fact that this fits the vision perfectly for a generational impact here in Riverside. So we are saying, if you all are willing, let’s press in. The task at hand is that we need $53,000 so we can close on this property. Anything above and beyond that, will stay in the building fund to help with construction and architectural costs in the future.

If you have any questions about this or concerns, I’ll invite Nate and Janene and the FRC, our finance team, to come up front to this side and you can talk to them after I dismiss you.

Close in prayer.

SOURCES

Leon Morris, The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1991)

Gene Green, The Letters to the Thessalonians (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2002)

Jeff Vanderstelt, Gospel Fluency: Speaking the Truths of Jesus into the Everyday Stuff of Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017)

Got Questions: https://www.gotquestions.org/sexual-purity.html