1 Thessalonians No.5 The Christians Lifestyle

Mighty God, Father of all mercies, we, your unworthy servants, give you most humble and hearty thanks for all your goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all men. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life, but above all for your immeasurable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace and for the hope of glory, and give us, we pray, such a sense of all your mercies that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful and that we show forth your praise, not only with our lips but in our lives, by giving up ourselves to your service and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with you and the Holy Spirit be all honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

Finally, brothers, 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, for you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. 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 lusts like the heathen who do not know God, and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him.

The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore he who rejects his instruction does not reject man, but God who gives you his Holy Spirit.

Now about brotherly love, we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other, and in fact you do love all the brothers throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you brothers to do so more and more. Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders, and so that you will not depend be dependent on anybody.

601. Please be seated. 1 Thessalonians and 4, it is God's will, verse 3, that you should be sanctified.

Verse 7, for God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Verse 10, the latter part, we urge you brothers to do so more and more. We're looking into the letter that Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica, obviously now some 2,000 years or nearly so ago, and I explain as always to visitors at the Tabernacle that what I try and share from the pulpit is prescribed by the Holy Spirit.

That perhaps sounds pious at first hearing. What I mean is this, we're making our way through Scripture, therefore Scripture itself determines the subject matter that we are to look into. In one sense I'm very grateful.

It relieves me as a preacher from always having to determine what particular slant to take from the Bible. It also ensures that I'm directed to deal with subjects that perhaps on a preferential basis I would not look into. But the whole of this book I believe to be the inspired, inerrant Word of God, therefore what's recorded needs to be looked into and applied to us today.

Because this is a very special book, you see. It's not just a history book. It's a book which has the miracle of being always up-to-date.

It's contemporaneous. It's always speaking to us. This is the the major way in which God makes his voice known even in the 20th century.

So as I say, we're looking into 1 Thessalonians. We're on to our fifth study and I've entitled this study The Christian's Lifestyle. The Christian's Lifestyle.

I have a book in my library written by Francis Schaeffer. I believe it's co-authored with an American, the Surgeon General of the United States of America, if my recall is accurate. It is entitled How Then Should We Live? How Then Should We Live? Well that's precisely what the Apostle Paul is telling these early Christians at Thessalonica.

You see, he spent a chapter or so explaining to them why it was that he couldn't be with them physically. He has a great concern for them. We've looked at that.

We've talked about the pastor's heart as well as the people, the model people in this congregation at Thessalonica. But now as is often Paul's practice, as he comes towards the end of the book, he takes what he has previously expressed and he starts to apply it in a doctrinal, in a pastoral fashion. And so he's dealing with how the Thessalonians ought to live in a society which is anything but godly.

I wonder if you've got the vestige of an idea as to what it was like living as a Christian in the early days of the Christian church. Well actually you do have an idea and I'll tell you why. Because a great deal of what went for normal lifestyle 2,000 years ago has resurfaced and has alas become the norm in the 20th century.

So although we're distanced by the years, in one sense the Apostle Paul is speaking to a situation that is almost comparable, almost identical to that one which he was directly physically addressing so many centuries ago. A friend of mine in the ministry, an older brother, Dr. Alan Redpath says this, unless grace has radically altered my behavior, it cannot possibly alter my destiny. Did you hear that? Unless grace has altered your behavior, the way that you conduct your affairs, then it cannot alter your destiny.

We are Christians in more than word only, we're Christians in action. We are called to be a holy people. One of the most insensitive groups of people that you come across in the New Testament, unfortunately, were the Pharisees.

I say unfortunately because basically there was nothing historically wrong with Phariseeism. It actually comes from the Hebrew word kasadim, which means separated. And these people believed that they were to live lives which were different from other folk.

And in one sense that was very honorable. But as the decades went by, Phariseeism became the unlovely thing that we attribute it as being now. Because, well, they had a series of regulations governing the external things in which they were involved, how to wash their dishes, how far they could walk on a Sabbath day, and so on and so forth.

And they forgot all about the change in the heart. And that a man is separated, not so much physically from the world, but spiritually, in his life pattern, in the way that he has ethical standards which are far distant from the standards of ordinary people. And now in one sense, when the Lord Jesus came, he came to call his followers to be Pharisees.

Not in the sense in which the Pharisees example their exclusivism in his day, but in the sense of the reality of the word. They were to live in the world, but not of the world. A salt that would savor, as light that would illuminate, they would show that living for Jesus Christ was a course that had for them, as their objective, holiness.

And because they were holy people, they would be happy people. And I want to tell you this right now, that you'll never be happy unless you're holy. Happiness is correlated to holiness.

And you'll never be holy by a mere attempt to turn over a new leaf. Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, was directing his letter into a very, very difficult society indeed. The politicians in Rome were men whose lives were very often immersed in a cesspool of immorality.

A lot of the Roman emperors, are you aware of this, were homosexuals. Homosexuality was an admissible state of life in Rome. Eventually it was one of the things that contributed to the fall of the Empire.

Rome did not fall because she was politically weak, or military weak. She fell because of promiscuity, of permissiveness, that ate like a cancer into the very heart of that once strong Empire. Now, it's in those circumstances that Paul directs his epistle.

And don't you see, therefore, with being the intelligent folk that you are, that immediately what I have to say springs to life in the modern context. Because what went as norm in Rome in 2,000 years ago is being accepted as norm today in the Western world. And it needs men of the ilk of Paul, men who know something of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, who know what it is to come into the presence of God, to confront society in these days and say, this is wrong.

This is wrong not because it's inconvenient. This is wrong because it's ungodly. This is wrong because this is not how the creator of the world expected men and women to live.

And so the Apostle sets down these instructions in which he touches on some of the most sensitive issues that confront human behavior in our relationships one to another. And as he does so, there is first of all what I have called the authority which endorses it. He's pleading for a Christian lifestyle.

The authority which endorses it. Look at verse 2 for a moment. You know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.

That word instruction there is a military term. Our Savior is the captain of our salvation, not so? And the lifestyle to which he calls us is a lifestyle which has as its basis the command of the Lord Jesus Christ. What Paul is going to say about their living we'll discuss in a moment or two.

I seek just at this moment to inform you, to underpin in your mind, the authority which endorses the lifestyle that Paul is advising. It's part of the command of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, when a man speaks on the pulpit, assuming that he has the Spirit of God resting upon him, he speaks in the authority of the Lord.

If you receive what he says, says the Lord Jesus, speaking to his disciples and their subsequent ministry, if they receive what you say, they will in effect be receiving what God says. Because you are passing on what has been given you from the Lord. This is precisely the case with Paul, you see.

He's teaching these Thessalonians, but he's not doing so as a result of any inbuilt authority that he has on a natural level. He is bringing them instructions, commands, from the captain of their salvation. The authority which endorses it? The command of the Lord.

What's more, there is the call of the Father. Paul is Trinitarian in his argument. Look at verse 7, will you? For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.

Therefore he who rejects this instruction does not reject men, but God who gives you his Holy Spirit. The call of the Father. Who brought you into Christianity? You say you decided yourself? Not a bit.

It's impossible for you to decide, surely of your own initiative. I can prove this to you time and time again in Scripture. The Bible tells us that we were dead in trespasses and in sins.

How does a dead man get up? Obviously he can't. The only way in which as a Christian, or the only way in which you became a Christian, was this. You heard the life-giving voice of God speak to you.

You may not have put it like that. You may not still put it like that, but that essentially is what it is. You came into a church like this, somebody gave you a tract, or maybe you turned the knob on your radio set and you listened to a gospel program, and something hit you with a forcefulness which was utterly peculiar.

It couldn't go out of your mind. You knew that what you'd been confronted with was the truth. You started to inquire into it, and as a result you came to that position where you confessed your sins and you became, in New Testament parlance, in New Testament phraseology, you became born again.

Now you are born again by the command of God. He spoke to you. He brought you to himself, like Jesus says to Peter, stop fishing, stop mending your nets, come and follow me.

And you came, you followed him. You didn't understand it at the time, you perhaps still don't fully comprehend it, but nonetheless this is the case. God called you to belong to him.

So our Lord Jesus commands you, and here is the call of God, not only for you to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, but also to live a holy life. You see this lifestyle, it has the command of the Lord Jesus behind it, it's embedded within the call of the Father, and what's more, it's part of the character of the Holy Spirit. Verse 8, therefore he who rejects his instruction does not reject man, but God who gives you his Holy Spirit.

Tell me what you know about the Holy Spirit. Well, you say I understand in some way, though I don't fully comprehend it, that the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. Well, that will do for a starter.

You'll never fully comprehend it, this side of eternity. We even use the word Trinity as a sort of, as a helpful word. It's not actually a word that you find in Scripture itself.

It's very difficult to come to a full-blooded understanding of the doctrine of the Godhead. But if you know this, that the Spirit of God is the agent who brings you into a relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ, then you are well versed in your understanding of the doctrine of the Spirit. But there's something else.

Why is he always referred to as the Holy Spirit? Time and time again that adjective is used, the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit. Well, for this reason, when he takes up residence within the hearts of men and women like you and me, he wants us to be holy as he is holy. So you see my point.

I'm arguing here that in these first 12 verses of this practical chapter of 1 Thessalonians, the major point that Paul has in mind is the Christian's lifestyle. And I'm showing to you the authority with which he endorses it. Why are you to live differently from the rest of people? Because Jesus Christ, the captain of your salvation, he commands it.

Because God the Father, who brought you to himself by his grace, he has called you to a different life. And what's more, it's in keeping with the Holy Spirit who resides within you, if you are a Christian, that you make him comfortable as you're the resident within your heart by living a life that is pleasing to him, the Christian lifestyle, the authority which endorses it. I ask you, my friend, does this really make sense to you? Are you really wanting to adjust your life in such a fashion that it pleases God? Do you recognize that when someone brings to you scriptures like this, in one sense the very act of exposing yourself to the page of scripture brings with it a responsibility? You see, it doesn't really matter who's preaching.

Now I really say that quite humbly and quite sincerely, whether it's Brother Ted Davey, one of my elders, or one of these illustrious men that we often bring to the pulpit when I'm abroad, for in God's grace we've been able to invite some of the greatest preachers that we have in this country from this pulpit. But in one sense that doesn't matter. You see, what really matters is this, that you appreciate that what is being taught has the authority of God behind it.

And woe betide that man who listens to this message, despite who the messenger may be, and then rejects the message, does not allow his life to be influenced by the message. In one sense he would be better not hearing the message than having heard and having appreciated that it comes not from the mind of man, but with the authority of God, doing nothing about it. The Christians' lifestyle, the authority which endorses it, it's a threefold authority from Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Did you know that in the early church the Christians were not called members of the Christian Church? They were called followers of the way. Did you know that? Acts chapter 9 verse 2 makes reference to this. Why did they call them followers of the way? Well, you see, the way that they lived, the manner of life, was so completely different to the way that the Jews were living in Jerusalem.

So they refer to these Christians as people who were followers of the way. I cannot prove this, but maybe one of the reasons why that little title was employed has its origin back to our Lord Jesus, who said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. You see, you follow me, you will lead different lives.

Your lifestyle will be different. Followers of the way, the authority which endorses it. Says one Puritan preacher, Christ comes with a blessing in each hand, forgiveness in one and holiness in the other, and neither gives either to any who will not take both.

Did you work that out? Almost like a conundrum, but it's worth repeating. Christ comes with a blessing in each hand, forgiveness in the one, and holiness in the other. Now let me help you with a conundrum.

He won't give you the one and not the other. You cannot have salvation without sanctification. The two work together in harmony.

Are you aware of that? And when that's worked through, it makes you different. You're followers of the way. Well, there we are.

The authority which endorses it. But let's move on quickly. The promiscuity which endangers it.

You see, this is the problem at Thessalonica. It's the problem today, isn't it? It is God's will, verse 3, that you should be sanctified, but you live in a society which is very contrary to God's will. And the natural characteristic of human beings is to allow society to determine their own personality.

Let me express that more succinctly by giving you J.B. Phillips' translation of Romans 12-2. Don't let the world squeeze you into its mold. That's what it's doing.

You see, you can't live in society as sixth form college, a primary school, a secondary school, your Derby and Joan Club, wherever you are, whether you're in the exotic ranks of living in Goring or, more humbly, on Shakespeare Road, wherever you live, in one sense, your society is helping to fashion who you are. And this the Apostle Paul recognizes at Thessalonica. And so he speaks against this.

And he speaks, therefore, warningly, about the promiscuity which endangers it, which threatens the Christian lifestyle. And he does so, for convenience sake, as far as my teaching from his advice is concerned, in two ways. He enjoins a discipline to be desired.

Look at verse 4. Each of you should learn to control his own body. And also, there's a syndrome to be shunned, not in passionate lusts like the heathen who do not know God. There's a discipline to be desired.

There's a syndrome to be shunned, the Dallas syndrome, the dynasty syndrome. You see, we're back again in the 20th century, aren't we? You thought you were just in the first century. But you see, there's really very little difference.

There in the first century, what were they doing? Well, there was this unlicensed, this expression of passion and immorality, and so on and so forth. It was accepted as a natural standard of life. And here was the Apostle Paul, just a few years before he wrote this letter, and he comes to them at Thessalonica, and he said, you don't live like that.

Why not? Well, you're members of the way. But you see, it's very difficult, isn't it, to live contrary to society. You know, some of you older Christians, and I speak to myself as well, I think that we allow the devil to laugh hollow in hell when he thinks of what we watch on our televisions, which 20 years ago we wouldn't have gone to have watched in a cinema.

The Dallas syndrome, the dynasty syndrome. I've got to the point in my life when I have to explain to young people who come into my vestry the basic ABC of sexual ethics. It's not that they themselves want to cut against what Scripture is saying.

They do not know what Scripture is saying. They do not appreciate the sanctity of marriage, the hallowing of sexual relations. You can't blame them.

They've been born in this syndrome, you see, where most of your popular soap operas have an ethic which is completely contrary to that of Scripture. Not so. We watch this.

We read of this. And there along we're born into this culture that thinks that this is the norm. And do you older people understand how difficult it is for young people to stand up against this? You see, in my day, and I'm only just middle-aged, it wasn't like that at school.

They accepted a Christian ethic, even though they were not Christian people. We're in a completely different ballgame. So here's the apostle, you see.

He's arguing for this Christian lifestyle, but then he's warning against the promiscuity which endangers it. And he gives out this couplet of advice. There is a discipline to be desired.

Verse four, each one of you should learn to control his own body. Actually, the translation there is rather difficult, and you'll find that there's an optional one given at the bottom of your Bible if you're working from the NIV. But whichever translation you have, whatever emphasis you place upon it, whether it is the control of one's own body instincts or whether it is sexual relationships within marriage, what the apostle Paul is here saying is that there is an honorable way to conduct yourself in the area of sexuality as you go through this life.

Now listen and listen carefully. I have no time for the hypocrisy of the Victorian ethic. I have very little time for the Victorians as such.

Maybe that needs to be qualified historically. I don't know. But there was a lot that passed as being just a veneer of ethics and Christianity in the Victorian era, and it's the hypocrisy that I don't like.

And there was a sort of prudery that came into the handling of sexual things and so on and so forth, that this was the standard and this is the way that they behaved. And a lot was sort of put under the carpet, so to speak. And one got the impression in the Christian church that dealing with sexuality was in some way synonymous with dealing with something that was sinful.

And there's been no darker proposition than that ever made. The Bible in the most remarkable way will deal with human sexuality. I would argue that any Christian couple about to be married ought to read through the Song of Solomon.

I would go so far as to say that Christian people who are having differences or problems in sex or marriage ought to go to Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 8 and listen to what he has to say and work it through. You see, the Bible doesn't blush about these things. Why should it? Every good and perfect gift comes from the Father who is above.

It's God who has decreed these things, these areas of human relationships. There's nothing immoral about it. There's nothing dirty.

There's nothing nasty. What is made dirty and nasty is the way that these precious things have been taken to the level of the gutter, and perversion has come in, and permissiveness has come in, and the ethic has come that it is wrong to steal a man's bank balance, but you can steal his wife. The former would cause you to lose your job if you are found out.

The latter we accept as being God help us, just part and parcel of private morality, not to be brought into question. In terms of those who lead us in our land, it's just part of what they do sort of in their own time. I argue this, that what you do in your own time qualifies you or disqualifies you for your public performance.

This is what the Apostle Paul is here saying, you see, to these Christians. He's arguing that there must be a discipline to be desired in the way that they control themselves and in the liberty that they give themselves, a God-given liberty within the context of marriage. There's this syndrome to be shunned, not impassionate lust like the heathen who do not know God, and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him.

Thank God the Bible speaks so clearly about these things. Are you aware of it? I wonder if you are. I get so excited with the Bible.

Not only does it deal with sexuality and relationships within marriage, it deals with relationships external to marriage. It talks about men and women having friendships across the sex barrier without the problems of promiscuity and immorality. It talks about men loving women, brothers loving sisters, sisters loving brothers, and so on and so forth in an honorable fashion.

How am I to treat the older women in the church? Says the Apostle Paul, treat them as though they were your mother. How am I to treat younger women? Treat them as though they were your sister, with all purity. You see how the Apostle helps us as he's inspired by the Holy Spirit, as he brings the authority of God to bear on these practical matters.

He's arguing, you see, for a Christian lifestyle, and he's arguing in this context there's the authority which endorses it. It's placed within the heart of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but there's a promiscuity which endangers it. So he asks these Thessalonians to turn back from the standards of society in their day, and to live at a higher level, as God calls you and me, to turn away from the Dallas and the dynasty syndrome, and for all that bespeaks of that, and to realize that as Christian people we are called to a higher existence.

But it's not at the existence of a prude. Am I making myself clear? It is not the existence of those who are frumpish. It is the existence of those who have discovered that happiness is the end product of holiness, and you can never be fully holy until you, you can never be fully happy until you are holy.

Oh my friend, if you forget everything else I've said, then in God's name I ask you to remember that. The authority which endorses it, the promiscuity which endangers it. It says the Apostle, there's also the fraternity which enhances it.

How are we to live as brothers and sisters, having dealt with sexual instruction, having brought to bear Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as his authority? The Apostle now deals with this on a wider basis. The fraternity which enhances it, this Christian lifestyle, now about brotherly love. We do not need to write to you.

Isn't that wonderful? You see these Christians at Thessalonica, they needed teaching. The Apostle had said in the tenth verse of the previous chapter that when he came he'd like to fill out what they didn't quite understand in terms of ethics and sexuality. But he said there's one area in which I hardly need to write anything at all.

Why? Well you see the Holy Spirit has been your instructor about brotherly love. We do not need to write to you. Why? Well they've been divinely taught, haven't they? For you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.

Isn't it natural to do that? I've never understood a carping, cynical, bitter Christian. There are such, but I don't understand it. You see to me the greatest thing in life is to appreciate that God has forgiven me.

When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died my richest gain, I count the loss and poor contempt on all my pride. Now if God has done that for me on the major, how much on the minor am I to express that love to other people? You see it's natural really when you think of it, isn't it? Other people that you don't get on with here. Well I ask you to consider that God reckoned them valuable enough to die for them.

And if God has forgiven you for your sins, then you can get the ability to be able to get alongside these people and love them. You see it's natural. So natural to the Christian, but so unique as far as the world is concerned that the Apostle uses a word in the Greek language which as far as I know is not employed anywhere else in referring to God as teacher.

God has taught you these things. Has God been teaching you? When you sit down and have your meal, do you sometimes think of those who are not having a meal? And you sometimes ensure that what you have in abundance you're prepared to share, but not perhaps so much as meals are concerned. That would be more of a point that one would need to make in the Sudan than in a fairly affluent congregation here in Worthing.

What about your time and your fellowship? What about giving your heart to people, sharing your emotions, sharing your love? Because God has called us together in community. You remember this, don't you? You see this is the one thing that helps single people above everything else, apart from their own relationship to God. They have been called into a community of brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers.

Therefore we share what we have in terms of our affection and our homes and so on and so forth. These people have been divinely taught. You yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.

What's more, it's been practically manifested, hasn't it? And in fact, verse 10, you do love all the brothers throughout Macedonia. Of course, whenever you come across the word brothers here, it's got its bisexual flavor. He's referring to the ladies as well as to the men.

And yet this love of which they've been divinely taught and has been practically manifested, it can be continually enlarged. Yet we urge you brothers to do more and more and more. Here's a challenge for my older friends.

The love that you have should grow the longer you're on planet Earth. Isn't that so? And that's not easy because there are also other inbuilt factors which are a problem. It's not always easy to be gracious if you're riddled with rheumatoid arthritis, is it? Or if you're partner is sick and so on and so forth.

Or if your income is getting less than it used to be in early years. It's not easy to grow in grace and in the knowledge of God. But to that you are called, as I am called.

So you should be able to forgive an 18-year-old, whereas it's not so easy to understand a 70-year-old. Because if you've been working those years with the Lord, then the amount of grace that you have should be increased on those of more tender years. Not so? I speak not harshly.

I speak tenderly. Especially as the years are going by in my own life. You grow.

You grow in grace. You should. And in the knowledge of God.

The fraternity which enhances this lifestyle. It's a love that's been divinely taught. It's practically manifested.

It's continually enlarged. Says Charles Spurgeon to Capitol, the serene, silent beauty of a holy life is the most powerful influence in the world next to the might of the Spirit of God. Did you hear that? The serene beauty of a holy life is the most powerful influence in the world next to the might of the Spirit of God.

You see, this is what Paul is concerned about. The fraternity which enhances it. Which enhances the lifestyle that speaks to other people.

Verse 12, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders. And so that you will not be dependent on anybody. Murray McShane was a great preacher.

Scottish preacher. I often quote him. Died in his early 30s.

I think he was just 32 years of age. And he said this. One of my favorite quotes from McShane.

I often pray, Lord, make me as holy as a pardoned sinner can be. Isn't that marvelous? Make me as holy as a pardoned sinner can be. Do you look upon all your sins? Those faults that sometimes steal into your life.

Do you look upon them as being the crucifiers of Jesus? That's what they were. That's what they are, isn't it? The things that you find hard to be done with. It was those things that led Jesus to the cross.

And if you could just have a fleeting second's consideration of that before you indulged in something that you know to be contrary to what God wants, how much easier it would be for you to slay the temptation and not to bring it into reality. To hate those sins that were crucifiers of Jesus. And when you can do that, don't you see that that's one aid in which you can move along into a greater aura of holiness than you have known before.

The holy man, says W. Gurnell, another Puritan preacher. The holy man, the holy person, is the only contented man in the world. God is calling us to holiness.

It's a lifestyle of the Christian. There's an authority that endorses it. There's a promiscuity that endangers it.

There's a fraternity in which we should find ourselves as brothers and sisters, which enhances it. Let's respond to God's call to us to be a more holy people. And to that end, let's pray as we sing one of our hymns.

Number 15. If we can go to the hymn that I omitted. Oh worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

Bow down before him. His glory proclaim. We'll take the final hymn as we come around the Lord's table.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.