Keep on Keeping on 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12
As we instructed you, now live it out in every increasing faithfulness
- Live lives of sexual purity and that honor the sanctity of yours and other’s marriages
- Increase in your love for one another and for all fellow believers.
- Conduct yourselves in such a way that you do not become a financial burden to others and that will earn respectfrom those who might oppose you.
Keep on Keeping on 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12
As we instructed you, now live it out in every increasing faithfulness
- Live lives of sexual purity and that honor the sanctity of yours and other’s marriages
- Increase in your love for one another and for all fellow believers.
- Conduct yourselves in such a way that you do not become a financial burden to others and that will earn respect from those who might oppose you.
Keep on Keeping On 1 Thessalonians 4:1-2
A. There is a growing number of colleges who believe that the current way of evaluating prospective students is obsolete
1. In the past the primary was GPA
**I think we overvalue content knowledge. Just because someone has mastered subject matter in high school does not mean that they will be type of person a college is looking for.
2. More and more going to broader evaluation on how they live –skills in various areas.
B. More than a few have raised concerns in the church, we can “over-value content knowledge.
1. We can too easily be satisfied with knowing right things, but then fail to live rightly.
2. John Page: We can read Scripture about love, do a word study on the different types of love, enjoy a small group discussion on love and what it means in our life, listen to an insightful sermon on applying the concept of love in our lives, and meditate on a thoughtful devotion regarding love. But until we actually go about loving another person, loving those around us, then we won’t truly have learned what love is, learned to love. This could be applied to any other concept in the Bible.
C. End not one or other but both
1. Knowing without doing is inadequate.
**James 2:18-19 Show me your faith w/o deeds, I’ll show faith by deeds. Even….
2. Doing without knowing is inadequate.
**Romans 10:1-3 Paul grieves for Jews. Have the zeal but w/o knowldge
Biblical Faith is right living directed and driven by right knowing
Transition: Study Living Today in Light of Tomorrow
A. 4:1-2 and 10 - You know the information, now keep on living it!
1. Not a perfection who is never satisfied but one who is encouraged and grateful for how well they have done and is encouraging them to
First is in the matter of sexual morality
A. Scholars try reconstruct the moral climate of First Century Thessalonica, specifics are sometimes hard to nail down, safe overall moral climate hostile to Christian morality
1. Honoring the fertility gods Dionyus and Cabirus (patron deity of Thessalonica) created a licentious culture.
2.Faithfulness in marriage for many not an honored/expected goal
**Seneca:Women were married to be divorced and divorced to be married
**Demonsthenes: We have courtesans for the sake of pleasure; we have concubines for the sake of daily cohabitation; we have wives for the purpose of having children legitimately, and of having a faithful guardian for all our household affairs.
3. Wm Barkley: “Morality was dead…In Greece, home and family life were near to being extinct, and fidelity was completely non-existent
4. Wm. Lecky: There has probably never been a period when vice was more extravagant or uncontrolled than it was under the Caesars.
B. Within this atmosphere Paul writes
1. 4:3 It is God’s will that you should be sanctified*: that you should avoid sexual immorality...**
*Live “set apart lives” that honor God by reflecting His values/priorities.
**Greekpornia includes any form of sexual sin
2. 4-6 that each of you should learn “Possess own vessel*
Either “control his own body” or “take/live with his own wife.”
3. Defraud brothers?: This sort of “wife swapping” is not only harmful to you, your spouse and your marriage, but it undercuts the marriage of others in the church.
*Exodus 20Not Covet neighbors wife
*Malachi 2 God’s not blessing, abandoned wife youth
*Hebrews 13 Keep marriage bed pure
4. Sexual Purity - Holiness (towards God) and honorable (with spouse and before others.)
5. Vs. 8 and the Holy Spirit?
**Romans 8:7-9 Cannot please God in flesh, only the Spirit
**1 Cor. 6:18-20 Temple of H.S. Sexual sin involves body unique way
C. No can argue that in our cultural standards for marriage sexual morality are increasingly distant from biblical standards that are encroaching into church.
1. Though in fact, as strong Christ centered marriage will make it less likely to divorce than overall culture, the percentage (30%) alarmingly high.
**All divorce due to sin and our human brokenness; not all divorces are sinful.
2. Ready availability of pornography has resulted in a growing problem among Christian men of all ages (68% men, 76% men 18-24) and growing number of Christian women
3. 41% of “practicing Christians” (Those attend a religious service at least once a month, who say their faith is very important in their lives and self-identify as a Christian) approve of living together before marriage. Study by Christian Mingle, Christian Singles between the ages of 18 to 59 were asked, "Would you have sex before marriage?" Sixty-three percent of the single Christian respondents indicated yes.
Kenny Luck: In my 30 years of youth and adult ministry experience, this is as unfiltered, direct and honest as a question and answer can be. In practice, [Christian young adults have become] sexual atheists. In other words, God has nothing to say to them on that subject of any consequence or, at least, anything meaningful enough to dissuade them from following their own course of conduct. It is the ultimate oxymoron. A person who at once believes in a wise, sovereign and loving God who created them and all things, can also believe simultaneously he should not, cannot or will not inform their thinking or living sexually
D. What to do?
1. Importance of Christ centeredness in marriage.
53% of Very Happy Couples agree with the statement, "God is at the center of our marriage" (compared to 7% of Struggling Couples).,
Highly happy couples tend to put God at the center of their marriage and focus on Him, rather than on their marriage or spouse, for fulfillment and happiness" Shaunti Feldhahn
Not a magic answer to daily struggles, but foundation. Toothpaste sleeping Fun Veg.
2. Importance of a biblically centered view on sexuality.
Q. I'm a 16-year-old Christian who recently gave up my virginity. I waited until I really loved my boyfriend, and I knew he loved me. I don't think sex has anything to do with the fact that you're married or single.
I think it's a choice each person has to make by asking themselves if they're prepared for the outcome if something goes wrong. I talked to my partner about the possible outcomes. We used protection and nothing bad happened. My boyfriend broke up with me recently. I know it wasn't because of sex, it was just because we had grown apart in our relationship. We're still best friends and we talk all the time. I still don't regret anything I've done because I know I loved my boyfriend, and I always will. So why do people judge me when they find out that I'm not a virgin?
Answer: Commended girl for articulating the prevailing philosophy of our culture, and if that is your guiding perspective you did nothing wrong. However offer a different philosophy based on Christian truth and Scripture
(You say) As long as you used protection, "nothing bad happened." But I'd say that something bad did happen to you and your boyfriend. A bond that was meant to be permanent was thrown away. People who love each other enough to expose their bodies and their love to each other in total vulnerability aren't meant to ever be torn apart. Even though you don't regret anything, I'd be surprised if the memories of that first, failed relationship don't stick with you. Sex is not just a physical thing. It's spiritual. When you tear apart after sex, there are consequences.
(One addition her statement that she is “judged” for not being a virgin. If that means Christian community sat back wagging their fingers, labeling her as “no longer a virgin” then they’ve missed the mark. Love and clarity upheld biblical standards than walked with her to a God who welcomes those who in honest confession and repentance bring their sins, he forgives and cleanses.
1 John 1:8-2:2 (Label not the sin we’ve committed, but “Forgiven in Christ”)
Verses 9-11
A. Urge to love one another more.
1. “I grew up believing Christians will just naturally love one another.” Believe in Jesus have the same Holy Spirit, should be a no brainer
2. Read New Testament not assumed. Something that has to be intentional and focused.
**Ephesians 4:2-3As a prisonerfor the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthyof the callingyou have received.
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one anotherin love.Make every effort to keep the unityof the Spirit through the
Thess. 3:12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each otherand for everyone else, just as ours does for you
B. Yancey Daily Bread 7/24 quotes Nenri Nouwen. “Community is the place where the person you least want to live with always lives.
1. Church first institution bring together equal footing Jew/Gentile men/women slave/free
2. God’s Spirit and hard work make a conglomerate of people into community.
C Not only that church, but love to all churches
4:11-12 Two instructions
1. Keep a low profile: Under a microscope, what you do can impact others
2. Work with your hands
**Manuel labor not prized in Greek world. Some believe that Thess. was destination for more wealthy retired people, so manual labor had even more negative
**Expectation of return of Christ – Why work if he’s coming back?
B. Two reasons
1. Not be a burden on others.
**Those not working were depending on others
**Church place help one another (CCF) not loving to support someone who can is not.
2. Earn the respect of outsiders
**Paul know they had an uphill battle. You have to earn the right to be respected. Won’t come on its own. True Today
(Brian Wilkerson, “Stop Witnessing, Start Working”)
Randy Kilgore vice president of Marketplace Network, interested in integration of faith and work. He writes an on-line devotional for people in the workplace called Marketplace Moments. Describes a conversation with a woman on a commuter train. Got talking about faith and work. Woman not a believer and clearly had some issues with Christians in the workplace. Randy asked her a question been asking people like her for years:
"What are the five things you want from co-workers who claim to be Christians?" He got quite an earful, but in the end she identified the same five things Randy hears every time he asks this question.
First: "I wish my Christian co-workers … knew more about their faith—what they believe and why."
** Thought out, no glib answers or cliché.
Second: "I wish my Christian co-workers … had more hope in hard times."
**They are looking for positive perspective on what's happening, for some source of strength or courage.
Third: "I wish my Christian co-workers … were more curious about the hard questions of life, so that when asked those questions, they would already have answers."
Fourth: "I wish my Christian co-workers … behaved more honorably." It seems that people expect Christ-followers to live distinctive lives and are disappointed when they see no difference in the way we live or work.
Fifth: "I wish my Christian co-workers … were more compassionate."
It seems that many Christians come across as harsh, judgmental, insensitive, and intolerant. People aren't bothered by the fact that we're passionate about our faith, they just wish we weren't so hard on people who don't share that faith.
Dr. John Stott's last bit of advice to his assistant before he died in 2011 was simply this: "Do the hard thing."
Paul asks hard things
**Goes against culture
**Goes against might make sense to us
**Goes against our own inner desires.
Psalm 1:1-3Blessed is the one…whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and who leaf does not wither - whatever they do prospers