Certain Hope for Uncertain Times
12/09/2001 - How to Please God: Your Sex Life
Someone has said that everybody lives to please someone. And the person that we're trying to please can be our parents, our spouse, our kids, a friends, ourselves, or God. But we all live to please someone.
This week I read about a teenage boy who wanted to please his dad. He had just gotten his driver's license and wanted to use the car. So he asked his dad, who was an old fashioned pastor, and his dad said, "Listen, I'll make a deal with you. You bring your grades up, study your Bible a little more, and get your hair cut and we'll talk about using the car." And the boy thought that was a pretty good deal and so he worked real hard in school and started to read his Bible everyday and after about a month he came back to his dad and asked to use the car. His dad said, "I'm really proud of you. You brought your grades up in school and you've been reading your Bible more, but you didn't get your hair cut." His son said, "Well, dad I've been thinking about that. You know, Samson had long hair. Moses had long hair. Noah had long hair. Even Jesus had long hair." And his dad said, "You're right, they did. And they walked every where they went!" We all live to please somebody. Who are you living to please?
And today as we continue our series called Certain Hope for Uncertain Timesthe apostle Paul is going to tell us what it takes to please God. And what he has to say might surprise you. If you have your Bible turn with me to 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8.
In chapter four, Paul turns a corner in his letter to the Thessalonians. In the first three chapters he encouraged these new believers and built them up, he shared his intense love for them, and revealed the depths of some of his own personal struggles. And now in these last two chapters he's going to give them some practical instruction on how they can live lives that please God.
And that's what the Christian life is all about. It's all about pleasing a person, the person who loves you more than anyone else in the universe. Following Jesus is not about performing rituals or keeping a bunch of rules. And when we reduce our faith to rituals and rule keeping we trade in a dynamic, life giving relationship with the living God for dead, life draining religion.
And so Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4:1-2, Finally, 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. 2 For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.
I love how Paul builds these people up. He was such an encourager. It's a lesson for all us who deal with people. He says, "I want to tell you how to live so that you please God, like you're already doing. You're doing a great job. Keep it up. Just do it more and more." Paul affirmed these believers and that brought the best out of them. All of us respond to positive affirmation. We like to hear that we're doing well.
Sometimes as a parent it's so easy for me to point out to my kids where they need to improve and I can forget to tell where they're doing well. I can look at a test they bring home from school and quickly see the 5% they got wrong and not 95% they got right. Our kids need affirmation and so do we. And the Thessalonians were doing well in their faith and Paul affirmed them.
And he isn't going to tell them anything new here. He's just going to remind them of things he's already taught them. Sometimes those of us who've grown up in Christian homes or who've walked with Christ for awhile can be guilty of thinking that if we're going to keep growing in our faith, we need to hear new truth, discover new things about God, and have fresh new insights into his Word. And there's nothing wrong with that. I love the thrill of discovering something new that I didn't know before. But you know what? That's not what we need most of all to grow. What we need is to do the things we already know more and more .
Last week we talked about something as basic as prayer. I doubt that was new truth for most of you. Maybe for some of you it was. But for most of us, it probably wasn't. We just needed to be reminded to pray more and more. And a number of you have told me this week that you needed to hear it, because your prayer life had been sputtering a bit and needed a tune up and that teaching helped get you back on track. Doing the things we know more and more is how we grow in Christ.
So how do we please God? Paul's going to tell us two ways we can please God. We're going to look at one this week and we'll look at one next week.
Follow as I read verses 3-8. I'm reading this out of the inclusive language edition of the New International Version because I believe it's more accurate to the text here, but it will be a bit different than what you're looking at.
It is God's will that you should be sanctified; that you should avoid sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, 5 not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; 6 and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. The Lord will punish those who commit all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. 7 For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. 8 Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject mere human beings but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.
The first way to please God, Paul says, is by controlling our bodies. It's interesting to me that that would be the first thing he points out. He doesn't say, "You want to please God? Go to church. Read your Bible. Pray." As important as those things are, that's not what he says. He says, "You want to please God? Avoid sexual immorality. Control your body."
Two things were going on in the Roman culture at that time that we need to understand. First of all, there was a philosophy of life that was widespread that said our bodies are evil. The only thing good about us is our spirit. So because our bodies are evil we can do whatever we want to them it really doesn't matter. So pig out. Get drunk. Get high. Get wasted. It doesn't matter. Our bodies are no good, man.
The second thing that was going on in that culture was rampant sexual sin. Sexual immorality grew out of that kind of thinking. Today we live in a very promiscuous society. Sexual images are everywhere. I read this week that 90% of all sexual encounters portrayed on television and in the movies are between unmarried people. Before the average American turns eighteen, he or she has witnessed more than 70,000 images of sex between people who aren't married. We can't get away from sexual stimulation.
We live in a society that uses sex to get what it wants. That's what drives many of the commercials we see on TV. I can be watching a football game with my ten year-old son and have to turn the channel when a seductive commercial comes on for "Temptation Island" or "Victoria's Secret" or the next steamy episode of NYPD Blue. We can't get away from it.
But, believe it or not, it may have even been worse in the first century. In Paul's day it was not uncommon for a man to have a wife to bear his children, a mistress for adventure, a slave girl for pleasure, and a temple prostitute. In fact, in most of the pagan religions sex was connected with worship. And so the worshipper would go down to the local temple and have sex with a priestess or a sacred prostitute in order to get close and intimate with God. You had a lot of "religious" men back then! No problem getting your husband to go to church in that culture!
A well-known philosopher of that day named Demosthenes said, "We keep prostitutes for pleasure. We keep mistresses for the day-to-day needs of the body. We keep wives for the begetting of children and for the faithful guardianship of our homes." As long as a man supported his wife and family financially there was no shame in whatever he did sexually.
That's the lifestyle these believers in Thessalonica were living before they met Christ. Is it possible to change, is it possible to please God with that kind of stuff in your background? Absolutely! This letter wasn't written to a first grade Sunday School class of innocent little boys and girls. This letter was written to grown men and women whose lives had really been messed up. It was written to people who became believers after they were adults. They had turned to God from idols, Paul wrote in chapter one. So let me say, before we go any further, that it's never too late to start pleasing God. It's never too late to take control of your body, no matter what you've done in your past. Starting today you can live a holy, honorable life. That's the wonderful truth about the grace of God.
So Paul says in verse 3, It's God's will that you be sanctified. The word sanctified means "to be separate or set apart." God wants us to live separate lives. He wants us to be different than the people in our culture who don't know him. The word sanctified is a very important word in the New Testament. It's one of a triad of three words that we all need to understand-justification, sanctification and glorification.
When I trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior I was justified. That means I was declared "not guilty" of all my sin, past, present and future. We are justified the moment we trust in Christ. We are declared "not guilty" of our sins, because Jesus took them on himself on the cross. We talked about this at length in our series on Galatians. Justification happened one time in my past.
The word sanctification means "to be set apart." It's a process word. Our whole life will be a process of sanctification, of becoming cleansed and more and more like Jesus Christ, of being set apart from the world. It's what happens to us in the present. Justification happens once. Sanctification is on going.
And the third word is glorification. That's what will happen to us in the future , the moment we see Jesus Christ face to face the Bible says our struggle with sin will be over and we will receive a glorified body just like Jesus.
Now in this context, when Paul talks about being sanctified, he focuses in on our sexuality. Avoid sexual immorality. How can we do that when it's all around us? How can we overcome sexual sin in our lives? Paul gives us three ways.
First, decide to say "no." Sexual purity first starts with a decision to say "no." We won't make it in our culture without the decision to say "no." The Greek word "avoid" literally means abstain, not from sex, sex is wonderful thing, but from sexual immorality. You want to find abstinence in the Bible? Here it is, 1 Thessalonians 4:3.
What is sexual immorality? Is there such a thing? Yes, there still is. The Greek word here is porneia, it's the word from which we get our English word "pornography." Some Bible's translate it "fornication." It's a very broad word that covers every kind of sexual behavior outside the bonds of marriage. It includes pre-marital sex and extra-marital sex and homosexuality and bestiality and pornography. Those are sexual behaviors we're to avoid at all costs. We cannot enjoy a walk with God and live an immoral lifestyle. We cannot.
But sometimes saying "no" is so hard, isn't it? Especially in the heat of the moment when the hormones are pumping and the passion is raging. Or when access to pornography on the Internet is a mouse click away. How do we say "no?" Let me give you some help. And it comes by first saying another word. A word that will empower you to say "no." And it's the little word "yes."
Saying "yes" to pleasing God, saying "yes" to healthy relationships, saying "yes" to wholesome entertainment, saying "yes" to sexual purity, saying "yes" to accountability. That's the key to saying "no." Just this week I was talking to a family that just had a purity celebration. There were three or four teenagers involved who put on purity rings, committing themselves to be sexually pure until marriage. And they agreed to hold each other accountable to that commitment. That's the kind of "yes" that will give them the strength to say "no." And more and more teens are doing that. But as adults we need to do that too.
Some of us who struggle with pornography or other kinds of sexual sin need to say "yes" to that kind of accountability with at least one other person. There is incredible power in that little word "yes" to help us say "no." Decide to say "no" by saying "yes" to pleasing God.
Second, accept the truth about your body. Our bodies are not evil. Our bodies are good, created in the image of God. God calls the church the body of Christ. Our bodies aren't just containers that hold our spirits that one day will be thrown into a dumpster. Our bodies, God tells us, are temples that house of the Holy Spirit.
In 1 Corinthians 6:18-19 Paul writes, Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins people commit are outside their bodies, but those who sin sexually sin against their own bodies. 19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?
So Paul says in verse 4, that our bodies are holy and honorable . Our bodies are to be "set apart." We were made to glorify God with our bodies. Take a look at your body, right now, and don't think of it as out of shape, or flabby, or wimpy, and certainly not as dirty, think of your body as being a holy body, because that's how God thinks of your body. It's holy and honorable so treat it with respect.
I don't know if you realize this or not, but the Christian faith is unique in its belief in the resurrection of the body. When Jesus Christ rose from the grave, his body rose from the grave. When we're resurrected from the dead our bodies will be resurrected from the dead and joined with our spirits. They'll be changed into glorified bodies, like Jesus had after his resurrection. He could eat and drink with his disciples, he had the marks of the cross on his body, but he could also disappear and walk through walls. That's the kind of body that we're going to receive. That's part of our glorification.
So Paul's point is, accept the truth about your body. Look at it the way God's looks at it. Treat your body with respect not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God he says in verse 5.
And the third way to overcome sexual sin is to recognize the damage that it does. Sex is much more than just skin on skin. Paul says in verse 6, no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. The Lord will punish those who commit all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you.
It seems like nobody wants to talk about the damage done by sex outside of marriage. About the relationships that are shattered, about the families that are blown apart, about the trust that's broken, about the kids that are growing up without fathers, about the diseases that are transmitted, about the abortions that are performed. Nobody wants to talk about that.
Nobody wants to talk about the damage of pre-marital sex. And how study after study shows that couples who live together before they get married are twice as likely to get divorced after they get married and less likely to be happy in their marriage and more likely to cheat on their spouse. Nobody wants to talk about that.
Nobody wants to talk about the damage done by pornography. About the guilt that it brings, and the depression it causes, about the way it dehumanizes women and children, and impedes a man's ability to relate to women in healthy ways. It's a prison. It won't spice up your marriage. It'll poison it. But nobody wants to talk about that.
This week I read a letter written by a man addicted to pornography and in it he said, "I'm an emotional invalid. I am crippled by my addiction. It paralyzes my spiritual life, it perverts my view of the world, it distorts my social life, it wreaks havoc in my emotional stability ... and I just can't stop ...Lust eats me up, yet it does not satisfy ... Pornography promises me everything, but produces nothing."
Sexual immorality hurts everyone. One of the greatest struggles in our culture today is to be a morally pure teenager. And unfortunately our kids aren't getting any help with this in school where condoms are given out instead of moral instruction. And some homes aren't doing much better in preparing our kids for the onslaught of sexual temptation. Sexual sin always leaves a wound on our soul. And dating couples who are sexually active are giving a part of themselves to another person that was never meant to be given until marriage. And before long they'll experience all kinds of complex marital type problems in their relationship without the benefit of the commitment of marriage to work them through.
Sex is like fire. It's hot and powerful. But fire in the safety of a fireplace is a wonderful thing. It's warm and inviting when it's under control. That's what sex is in marriage. It's so beautiful. But sex outside of marriage is like fire outside the fireplace. That's dangerous. And that kind of fire can quickly burn our whole house down.
Do you want to please God? Control your body. Get a grip on your sexuality. And you know who stands ready to help us? The Holy Spirit.
Paul says in verses 7-8, For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. 8 Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject mere human beings but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.
We don't have to go it alone. We have the help of the Holy Spirit who wants to help us live holy lives. I realize that this is an emotionally charged topic. Our sexuality is a very personal thing. And we've all failed to one degree or another. But we need to shine God's truth on it and accept what he says is true. And like I said already there's plenty grace for every one of us who has messed up in this area of our lives. Accept God's grace and forgiveness and make the decision today to say "yes" to pleasing God more and more in this high stakes area of your life.