Sermon Tone Analysis

Mature Christians are Pure Christians

1 Thessalonians 4:1-8

“Life at Church” slideshow.

·  Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord /is/ the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified.

For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness.

Therefore he who rejects /this/ does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.

(1 Thessalonians 4:1-8)

God has not called us to uncleanness but in holiness.

The word “holiness” in verse 7 is the same word translated “sanctification” in verses 3 and 4. When the Bible speaks of being sanctified it is speaking of the process of being made holy.

Sanctification speaks of the consecration of our life to God and spiritual things and the separation of our life from that which displeases God.

“For this is the will of God, your sanctification,” your holiness, or your purity.

A Sunday school teacher was describing how Lot’s wife looked back and turned to a pillar of salt.

One little fellow spoke up and said, “My mother looked back once while she was driving and she turned into a telephone pole.”

The simplest way I know how to define sanctification is that we turn our backs on the world, the flesh, and the devil and keep our eyes on the Lord, serving him, loving Him, honoring Him, and each day of our life we draw more closer to Him and become more like Him.

As we look at our text, we see that we are called to be pure.

As Christians, we are to be completely and wholly consecrated to God.

We are to be everything God wants us to be.

We are to do everything God wants us to do.

There is to be no hesitation, no reservation.

1.

The Word of God that Directs our Purity

When it comes to how we are live as Christians, the Bible is our source of information and instruction.

I like to think of the Bible as the laws of heaven for life on earth.

When Henry Morgan Stanley started across the continent of Africa in search for the missionary David Livingstone, he had seventy-three books in three packs, weighing 180 pounds.

After he had gone three hundred miles, he started throwing away some books.

As he continued on his journey, his library grew less and less, until he had but one book left and that was the Bible.

That one book is the one book that the Christian cannot do without.

When it comes to the matter of sanctification, living the Christian life as God desires and demands, the Bible is our instruction book.

a.

Our reverence for the Word of God

·  For you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.

(1 Thessalonians 4:2)

Paul declares that the commandments he gave them were more than his opinions or convictions.

He tells them they came from and by the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul was declaring that what he shared with them had a Divine source.

They were more than the words of man.

They were the words of God.

The Bible we hold in our hand came from and “by the Lord Jesus.”

There is not one word in the Bible that should not be there and not word missing that should be there.

There is not one error, flaw, mistake or contradiction in the Bible.

It is the Word of God!

There may be some things in the Bible some find hard to believe, but you can believe them for the Bible is the Word of God.

Because the Bible is the Word of God it deserves our reverence.

b.

Our obedience to the Word of God

In verse 2 Paul spoke of the “commandments” he had given them “by the Lord Jesus.”

Notice the word “commandments.”

The word is a military term that spoke of a commanding officer giving orders to his troops in the field.

I want you to understand that the Bible is more than a book to admire.

It is a book to apply.

It is more than a book to possess.

It is a book to practice.

It is more than a book to have.

It is a book to heed.

It is more than a book to own.

It is a book to obey.

In the Bible God, tells us what is right and what is wrong.

In the Bible God tells us what we are to do and not do.

In the Bible God tells us how to live and how not to live.

It is important to understand that what God tells us is more than suggestions or recommendations.

They are commands.

They are our marching orders from headquarters.

If we are to live a mature Christian life, we must be obedient to the commands God gives us in His Word.

As James said, we are to be “Doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22).

God’s commands are to be obeyed without hesitation or reservation.

2. The Walk with God that Displays our Purity

·  Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God.

(1 Thessalonians 4:1)

In the verses that follow he speaks of this walk as one that is distinct and set in contrast to those who are not saved.

·  That each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God.

(1 Thessalonians 4:4-5)

He speaks of the Christian lifestyle as opposite of the lifestyle of those who do not know God.

How a Christian walks is different from how a non-Christian walks.

In other words, when one looks at how a Christian lives, they are to see a different kind of life than the one lived by those who are not saved.

As is indicated in verse 4, a lost person lives after the flesh.

A Christian learns how to possess his vessel (body) in a consecrated way.

While others may cheat, steal, and lie in the workplace the Christian is to be different.

While others may live like the devil, the Christian is to live like Christ.

Our practice is to correspond with our profession.

Our walk is to match our talk.

A sanctified or consecrated life is one that is displayed in how we walk.

a.

The goal of our walk

·  Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God.

(1 Thessalonians 4:1)

Too often we do things to please men.

The objective and goal of our walk ought to be that of pleasing God.

Our testimony ought to be that of the Lord Jesus: “for I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29).

In short Paul said, “I have made it my goal to please Christ.”

Pleasing God ought to be our goal and a goal that is taken seriously by every Christian.

b.

The growth of our walk

We not only see that our walk involves pleasing God, but also one in which we, “would abound more and more.”

Instead of a Christian life that is like a telephone pole, it is like a tree.

Both are made of wood, but in one there is growth and change.

As a Christian we should not only get in but also go on.

There is to be spiritual growth.

We are to abound more and more.

I think of how it must thrill the heart of God as He sees His children growing and abounding more and more.

Living a life of sanctification is one of abounding more and more.