In our last visit we began studying 1st Thessalonians 4:1-12. We found two impact statements that help motivate us to please God and engender respect in the normal, routine challenges of life. Both God and the world are watching? What do they see in the way we live?
To help us do a reality check Paul discusses behaviors in four areas of our lives: sexually, socially, spiritually and vocationally. He begins by affirming the believers in Thessalonica for living in a way that was pleasing God, but urged them “in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more.” He had told them how to live. Now he reminds them, these are not just suggestions. They were given “by the authority of the Lord Jesus.”
Listen to what he said about their sexual lives in verses 3-5, “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God.”
He makes three main points in these verses. You should be sanctified, avoid sexual immorality, and control your own body. To be sanctified means to be set apart for a holy purpose. This is both a commitment and an ongoing process, because daily we encounter temptation to regress into conformity to worldliness. We will look into this danger further in our next visit.