How to be Faithful

Introduction

Paul has been grounding in his target for the Thessalonians. I will reiterate again his figure of speech in 1 Thess. 3:8 “For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord.” What Paul sought for people from the beginning of his ministry to the end was faithfulness. And we can demand faithfulness, but what does that look like? Being a faithful employee can have certain traits: showing up on time for work, striving to your best ability, taking initiative. Being a faithful spouse can have different traits: getting to know your spouse and showing them love in ways you reserve only for them. Not showing that type of love and devotion to others. Being a faithful friend has different traits: always intending good will toward that person in times of abundance and times of hardship.

But what are the traits of being faithful to Jesus? What does it look like to be a faithful Christian? Does it mean that we go out and live by our self in the desert? Does it mean that we have to become a pastor or missionary? Does it mean we have to read theology books all the time? Does it mean we don’t go to the theaters? Does it mean we shave the top of our heads (tonsure)? Does it mean we visit the confessional all the time and say our “Hail Mary’s”? What does a life devoted to Jesus look like?

Paul is about to explore that very topic in the following passages. We are going to see what this entails:

1. Our sexual purity (4:3-8)

2. Our brotherly love (4:9-12)

3. Our attitude toward the dead (4:13-18)

4. Our readiness for Christ's return (5:1-11)

5. Our labors and good works (5:12-22)

And before we dive into these specific topics that Paul brings to the forefront, we are going to look at the first two verses as Paul explains the importance of a sanctified life.

Teaching How to live a life pleasing to God is important

1 Thess. 4:1-2 “Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.”

Paul says, “that as you” (the Thessalonians) “recieved from us how you ought to walk and to please God. . .”

Of course the time that they “received” this was when Paul and his companions were living with them before they were kicked out of the city. The word “walk” there is a figure of speech used throughout the Bible to describe someone’s style of life or overall behavior, desires and attitude.

So Paul taught them a lifestyle, a code of ethics if you will, that was pleasing to God. Paul believed teaching how to live a life pleasing to God was important. The gospel, theology, and doctrine and central to our faith. There are certain doctrines core to the Christian faith that if removed the entire belief system falls apart. For example, take the resurrection of Jesus. Paul says in 1 Cor. 15:12-19 “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

If you take away the resurrection, the Christian faith is absolutely pointless. Although doctrine is a core distinctive of our faith, if it does not lead to a changed life, then it is pointless as well. Right doctrine leads to right practice. Orthodoxy leads to orthopraxy.

James makes this clear. James 1:22-25 “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”

Jesus himself addresses people in the final judgment who had right doctrine but did not walk as they ought to walk. Matt. 7:21-23 ““Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

Notice what these disciples said. They acknowledged Jesus as “Lord.” They had right doctrine. Not only that, but they did mighty works in Jesus’ name: prophesy, cast out demons. But what was Jesus’s final assessment of these false disciples? They were “workers of lawlessness.” That is, they lived as though Jesus never gave any commands.

Hear this verse as the clarion call, the warning of our age! You see many Americans, especially in our area here in the South believed themselves to be saved because they prayed a prayer, or were baptized, or became a member at a church. Aren’t all these things signs of faithfulness? Of course they are. But I want you to hear this carefully. Just because someone prays a prayer, gets baptized, and becomes a member of a church does not mean that they are faithful to Jesus. Does your life please God?

Americans are concerned with so many things: politics, finances, entertainment, and on and on the list goes. Not many Americans are concerned with whether their life pleases God.

Yes, but what about those people seeking for God? What about the seekers? Well, to those that may bring up this issue I would just point you to your Bible. Have you never read, Rom. 3:10-11 “as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.”

People who do not God and are searching are not seeking God, more than likely in the US they are searching for the number 1 idol of our day: self-fulfillment. Psychological and therapeutic fulfillment. You see this idol all over this place, “find purpose, find meaning” American Christianity advertises. Do you know who self-fulfillment pleases? It’s not God. It’s yourself. We live in a self-gratifying culture, anything we can grab at to please ourselves we’re going to take and we’re going to take it now. That’s our society. Why do you think so many lost people go to church in America? Because we’ve convinced this sinful people that they can be self-fulfilled in our services. We’ve done a good job training people how to please themselves rather than God.

Then we sit back and wonder, why is divorce as prevalent within the church as outside the church? Why is abortion as prevalent within our churches as outside? Why is sexual abuse just as prevalent within our churches as on the outside? Why? I’ll tell you why. Because American Christianity by and large is more concerned with pleasing self rather than God.

Let me illustrate this for you. I lead a praise team at the school where I teach. I had each person who was interested in joining the team fill out a questionnaire. One question I asked was, “Is it more important to create an atmosphere of reverence or excitement?” The majority of these teenagers said that excitement was more important. Get the people entertained and they’ll keep coming back for more! You know the old pagan rituals would do the same things? Shout “ecstatic utterances,” cut themselves. . . on and on. They wanted to feel something in their worship to a pagan god that they couldn’t feel elsewhere.

I can tell you the same thing is true from children and youth ministries today. Create excitement, make the next best thing happen. Do something wild and crazy so the kids will keep coming back here. Parents look for a church that their children are excited to come to.

Let me take some time to dig up this idol for a moment. If your coming to church to feel good about yourself. If your number one concern is that you or your children or grandchildren are excited to come to church then I can tell you that you’re not concerned with pleasing God but with pleasing yourself. If you’re excited about the God who created all things, thew God who no matter how many times we fail him still pursues us, the God who sent his own son to die a shameful death, the God who will return to judge the living and the dead; if the God of the Bible causes your heart to burn within you I can tell you you will want to gather with other believers to worship him. You won’t look to the church to burn false fire on his altar to get excited because your heart already burns inside for him.

Do you want to live a life pleasing to God?

The Transformed Life

This is what Paul was concerned with teaching. I’ve come to the conclusion recently that teaching a skill is much different than teaching morality. I’ve been coaching my son’s soccer team since the end of July. My oldest son has been my main goalie for a while. In one game a teammate passed the ball back to him. Now a rule of soccer is that if a teammate passes the ball to the goalie, the goalie is not allowed to use his hands. I remembered screaming out to him, “don’t pick it up.” But before I could even get the words out to him he had already kicked it away. He remembered from a previous season that he’s not allowed to pick it up in that situation.

Then that same day he had gotten in trouble for something. The same things that he’d gotten in trouble for over and over again. I asked him, “I taught you about the rule for soccer once and you were able to remember it; but I’ve taught you to behave in this certain way so many times, and yet you still don’t do it.” My son’s sinful heart does not interfere with the instruction I give him in soccer skill; however, it does interfere with his moral instruction.

Paul says of the Thessalonians “Just as you are doing.” Paul has confidence in the behavior of the Thessalonians’ behavior, why? Was it because of their socioeconomic status? Was it because of their upbringing? Was if because he believed he was such a great teacher?

Notice what Paul says in 1 Thess 2:13 “And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.”

Paul was not confident in his ability; nor was his confidence in the Thessalonian’s ability. His confidence was in God who he knew what was working in the Thessalonians. A life pleasing to God is predicated on a transformed life. It almost sounds like common sense: if I don’t want to please God, I’m never going to do things to please him. If the Holy Spirit has not regenerated someone, then he will not do things to please God.

How does the Holy Spirit do this? Well his work is mysterious. Jesus compared it to wind in John 3. What can we do in order to promote the Holy Spirit working in people’s life? Rom 10:17 “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

You know how American Christianity works? We tell people they’re saved, march them through the baptismal waters to brag about how many people we got baptized this year, then tell them, “you can’t do that, you’re a Christian.” Let me give you a principle we see reflected in this text: if someone does not have any desire to please God, there’s a high possibility he is not a Christian.

You see, Paul has confidence that the Thessalonians are living lives pleasing to God. Again, as he says in verse 1, “just as you are doing.” Paul has this confidence because he has seen their lives transformed, not by his teaching or rhetoric, but by the Holy Spirit himself. Once the Spirit regenerates a man’s soul, he will want to live a life pleasing to God.

Some implications of this:

First, it is problematic that so many Christian children’s curriculum and now adult teaching series as well focus on morality without the gospel. I’m not trying to say that moral instruction is unimportant or should never be done; however, it is futile to expect a goat to act like a sheep. If the Holy Spirit has not transformed someone’s life, we should not be surprised that they don’t want to please God.

Second, teaching the gospel is priority. Teaching the truth of Scripture: how from Genesis to Revelation, the entire Bible points us to Jesus.

Sanctification is a Process

Look at the final statement of verse 1, “That you do so more and more.” Paul’s initial request and urging is completed in this phrase. What is interesting is that even though Paul has confidence that these believers are living lives to please God, he also things they have room for improvement.

This process of growing and increasing in our capacity to please God is known as sanctification. Sanctify is simply taking the word “holy” and making it into a verb. Sanctification is the gradual increase in holiness. This process will probably not be a straight line, but more like the stock market charts. You know, there’s a lot of ups and downs; but you step back and look at the past ten years and see there’s overall been great growth. The same can be said of our sanctification, we can have up days and down days in our holiness, but when we step back and look at the big picture we can see how we’ve grown in holiness over the years.

What’s not a process is the Holy Spirit’s work of regeneration and Christ’s work of justification. Once the Spirit transforms your life, you gain new desires that have not been there before, desires to please God. How much you grow in the desire to please God can grow and wane, but what’s undeniable in a regenerate person is that the desire that once was not there is now there.

The work of justification is also not a process. Justification has to do with our legal standing before God. On the great day of judgment will God declare us guilty or innocent? If we are in Christ, our good works or sins do not add to or take away our justification. If we are in Christ, our standing before God is righteous because of Jesus in our place. 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.”

God is willing to see the process of sanctification through to the end. Phil. 1:6 “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Consider for a moment the Old Testament example of Jacob. Jacob was someone who thought his life was pretty much good and he didn’t really need God. He got by in his life making his parent happy. He got everything he wanted by trickery and deception. He ran off so he wouldn’t get killed by his sister. On the way there God showed up. His response to God is rather lackluster: Gen. 28:20-22 “Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house. And of all that you give me I will give a full tenth to you.””

Jacob’s experiences with Laban break him down. He realizes, now that he is the one getting tricked, he can’t live his life on his own. God has to break him of his pride and self-reliance. And its through this wrestling with God (literally and figuratively) that Jacob recognizes his need for God.

God works in ways in our life to produce holiness. And thus Paul urges the Thessalonians, and so he urges us, to continue walking in ways that please God more and more.

True Moral Instruction is Rooted in Jesus

Now look to verse 2: 1 Thess. 4:2 “For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.”

The phrase “Lord Jesus” forms the bookends for this passage. You also see it in the beginning of verse 1: 1 Thess. 4:1 “Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus. . .”

Paul urges them in the Lord Jesus. And gave the instruction to them through the Lord Jesus. Most likely, the preposition here, “through” the Lord Jesus indicates the origination of this instruction. In other words, this instruction about how to live a life pleasing to God came from Jesus himself.

It’s important to keep this in mind. I believe there are a lot of things that are important and good but are dangerous without Jesus. I believe counseling is good. I believe history is good. I believe science is good. I believe philosophy is good. I believe morality is important. But all of these things without Jesus can quickly become a poison to the soul.

And you may wonder, “can’t people be moral without Jesus?” There is, I would argue, and understanding of right and wrong woven into the fabric of the universe. Some call this natural law. Jesus himself seems to allude to this in the golden rule Matt 7:12 ““So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” People have an innate understanding of how they wish to be treated which does not need to be taught to them.

However, when we unmoor morality from Christ and his created reality, all sorts of dangers begin to ensue. Look at what the previous American generations have done. They took away any type of stigma from sex outside of marriage. They took away the stigma from divorce, so now you can have a “no fault divorce.” They took the parents out of the home to make more money, so the state has ended up raising the child.

Then these same older people look around at the LGBTQ movement and degradation of the American school system and wonder, “how could this happen?” I just want to let you know, that you started it.

Now, a great many Americans believe we can form a nuclear family however we choose without any consequences. And now the majority of our American government will make legal the redefinition of “marriage.” (Or better called “mirage”) Nevermind all the studies which have focused on the effects of one-parent homes on children. Nevermind God’s intention in creation for one man and one woman for life.

Morality that does not acknowledge the lordship of Jesus and his created reality is no morality at all. Behaviors and attitudes that work against Jesus lead to the destruction and enslavement of the human race. The modern secularist balls his fist at the God of the universe. Should the Church sit back and do nothing? By no means!

Another implication of this is that Christless morality or moralism leads to legalism. In the early 2000’s Christian Smith and Melinda Denton interviewed several American teenagers. No matter what religion they claimed to hold to, the interviewers found these teenagers believed 5 major things:

1. A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth. 2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions. 3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself. 4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when he is needed to resolve a problem. 5. Good people go to heaven when they die

I remember a children’s ministry I served in several years ago. Every month they would teach a new virtue. They would use skits, lots of fun music, and silly gimmicks. Anytime a Bible story was used or given it was used to teach that virtue, “be nice, forgive people, show mercy,” and on and on.

Can you imagine this? Teachings in the church, teachings that use the Bible, but that are not rooted in Jesus Christ? If someone comes out of a church believing “If I’m good, I’ll go to heaven” that’s not a gospel centered church.

Paul was not teaching these people to be good for the sake of being good. Rather, these people already wanted to please God, and Paul was showing them how to please God. And the next several weeks as we walk through the rest of Paul’s instructions in how to please God keep in mind that obeying these things will not get you into heaven.

Jesus says, John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

The truth of the matter is this: we have wronged the eternal God creator of heaven and earth. A lot of times our sinful condition is pictures as us lost at sea drowning until God threw us a rope. No, my dear friends, we were not drowning at sea, we were storming God’s castle. We were in open rebellion seeking our own ways and looking to overthrow God’s sovereign rule. No matter what goodness and kindness God showed us we harbored hate against him. We looked for any opportunity to please ourselves. If we did something good, it was for ourselves, to make ourselves look good. And you may even think, “no, not me, I’m wasn’t selfish or rebellious before I was a Christian,” and that shows how deceived you are. Jer 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

God had every right to crush us for our iniquities. He has the power and the right to punish us for all eternity. All creation could be healed if he wiped off the blight of the sinful human race. But in his goodness and grace he chose to redeem us. And in this way, the work of salvation is more miraculous than the work of creation.

You see, with creation, God created out of nothing. In salvation, God takes something less than, something worse than nothing, our sinful, selfish heart of stone, and transforms it into a heart of flesh. He makes all things new. He breaks the chains that enslaves us to the beast of sin. He brings you joy and peace that you could never have before, nor did you ever realize you were in such desperate need of it.

And you may wonder, how is it that I can come to this saving relationship with God? It’s because He sent his own Son to live in your place and to die in your place. Because Jesus never sinned, you inherit his righteousness by which you are adopted into the family of God. Because Jesus died in your place, you are no longer subject to God’s eternal judgment. And once you get a glimpse of this great savior, how could you live for anything less? Just being good isn’t good enough anymore because you yearn in your heart of hearts to please Him.

Moralism does not save you, my friends. Jesus saves.