CALL TO CONFESSION

Ephesians 5:5-10

For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. 7 Therefore do not become partners with them; 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), 10 and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Loving Father, thank you for giving us faith to cry out to you. In our distress, you heard us and rescued us from the punishment we deserved. While we were still sinners, you brought us out of darkness into the light of your love. Our hearts should overflow with joy and gratitude every day for this incredible gift. Yet in our sinful nature, we still drift back to darkness. We forget all you have done and let our hearts be driven by idols and selfish desires. Lord, forgive us for our great weakness and sin.

Father, forgive us for our sexual impurity, for the ways we indulge in impure thoughts, images, and fantasies that seek to use sexuality for our own pleasure rather than your holy design. Forgive us for obsessing over sexual desire while proudly judging others who openly confess their sins. Forgive us for doubting your grace, for believing our sins are too large to be forgiven, and for the pride that magnifies our sin above your great work of salvation.

Lord, help us to walk as children of light. Thank you that we do not have to earn your love through obedience, but that we can obey because we are already fully loved in Christ. Draw our minds to the perfection of your Son, who never gave himself over to idolatry or impurity. Remind us that his life and death have qualified us to share in his inheritance, and let this truth soften our hearts with humble gratitude. Strengthen us day by day to trust in your sufficient grace and to draw near to you as your cherished children. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

“Take a few moments to personally confess your sins to the Lord.”

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

“Hear these words of comfort and assurance.” 

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

• Some of you have driven around after a big storm has passed to see the damage. You've observed how tall, impressive trees are not always the ones that are still standing. Massive pine trees fall and old, twisted oak trees have barely lost branches.
• The difference has to do with everything that you can’t see.  
• One tree had shallow roots spread thin over the soil. The other had roots that went down deep and gripped the earth in every direction. 

• This is a picture of the Christian life. When the storm winds blow: temptation, pressure, loneliness, stressful weeks, the believers who stand are not necessarily those everyone thinks are the most spiritual. It’s the ones who are rooted. 

• We began this series a couple of weeks ago by looking at a young church in Thessalonica that was rooted in faith, chosen by God, radically transformed by the Spirit, with a faith that resounded.  
• Last week, we saw what it looks like to be sent to serve by looking at the pattern of service of the messengers who brought the gospel to them. 
• Today, we will look at how a church that is sent must also be a church that is rooted, not only in faith, but also in holiness. 

• Paul writes something in chapter 3 that is important to help us understand our main passage today. 
• Paul had been forced out of the city after only a few weeks of ministry, and he longed to know how the believers were doing. 
• So while at Athens, he sent Timothy back “to establish and exhort” them in the faith so they could stand firm in the midst of afflictions (1 Thess. 3:2-3). 
• Paul’s fear was that they would be tempted to abandon the faith when suffering came and when things got hard.  
• Timothy returned with good news. The believers were standing firm, their faith and love were genuine and growing, and they longed to see Paul. 

• But Paul is not content just to hear the good news. He prays night and day to supply what is lacking in their faith. 
• And the chapter closes with a beautiful apostolic prayer.  
• He prays, “May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another… so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness…” (1 Thess. 3:12-13). 
• Then he turns his own prayer into instruction. That’s what we’ll see in chapter 4. 

• Here is the main idea of our passage: God’s will for every believer is sanctification: a growing, Spirit-empowered walk that pleases him and makes our ordinary lives of love and work a witness to a watching world. 

• Paul transitions in this chapter from reflecting, thanking, and praying, to how the Thessalonian believers should live.
• First, holiness is a walk. 
• Paul urges them in the Lord to walk out their faith as they were initially instructed. 
• “How you ought to walk…” Paul’s favorite word for the whole manner of the Christian life is that it is a “walk.” 
• It’s language from the Old Testament. Enoch “walked with God,” and Israel was told to “walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you” (Deut. 5:33). 
• The Christian life is a walk. A walk is made up of steps.
• When it comes to holiness, many want holiness to happen in a single dramatic moment and they'll never have to struggle again.
• But that’s not how we grow and walk in holiness. 
• Holiness is shaped by a thousand ordinary decisions on ordinary Mondays. 
• That walk is made of steps. Lots and lots of steps. 

• Second, holiness has an aim. That aim is to please God. 
• “How you ought to walk and to please God.”
• In chapter 2, we saw how Paul expressed that the aim of his gospel proclamation and ministry was “not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.” 
• God is the audience he is seeking to please.
• There is enormous freedom when that is your aim. 
• Think about how much of our moral life is a performance for an audience. 
• How we behave and conduct ourselves when we know others are watching us and how we relax when we’re not being watched. 
• But the audience of holiness is God. 
• How is it possible to please God? 
• Here is the wonder of the gospel: in Christ, it is possible to please him. 
• Pleasing him is not about earning his favor; that has been given freely to us in his Son. But it is about bringing him delight.
• Our confession states that the good works of believers, though weak and imperfect, are accepted in Christ. And God is pleased to reward that which is sincere (1689 LBCF 16.6). 

• Third, holiness always has more room to grow. 
• Paul continues, “…just as you are doing, that you do so more and more.” 
• Timothy brought back great news of their walk of faith. But even so, “keep doing what you’re doing, more and more.” 
• The verb in the Greek means “to overflow.” 
• You’ll never arrive at a place in your Christian walk where you no longer need to grow in holiness.
• There is always more of Christ for you to know. There is always more sin to put to death. There is more love to give.
• Now, our struggle with sin and temptation should not lead us to despair and conclude we will never overcome those things. 
• The Christian life is not measured by arrival but by direction. 
• Are your feet pointed toward Christ and are you heading toward him more and more? 

• Fourth, holiness rests on the authority of the Lord Jesus. 
• The instructions for how to walk and to please God, Paul says, “we gave you through the Lord Jesus.” 
• These are not Paul’s opinions. They are from our Lord and King. 
• What Paul says carries the authority of the risen King. 
• Verse 1, “we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus…” 
• The Greek word for “urge” is related to the Greek word which means “the one called alongside.” 
• Paul doesn’t stand over them with a whip commanding them to fall in line. 
• No, he comes alongside as a brother making a tender appeal. That is the pattern we should follow.

• Now Paul will get specific. 

• Verse 3, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification.”
• How many believers are anxiously trying to discover the will of God for their lives?
• But we can know the will of God. God does guide his people. You will find the will of God in the word of God. 
• Here it tells us plainly, “this is the will of God.” 
• It’s not telling you what job to take, but it is telling you what kind of person to be. 
• God is far more concerned with your growing in Christ-likeness than with what career you choose or which city you live in. 
• If you are pursuing sanctification, you are in the center of God’s will, wherever you work, whomever you marry, whatever job you take. 

• God’s will is not hidden. God’s will is your sanctification. 
• The word sanctification is the Greek word “hagiasmos.” That comes from the family of words that are often translated as “holy” and “saint.” It means to be set apart for God. 

• It’s important we understand our sanctification.
• In one sense, every believer is already sanctified, set apart once for all. 
• In 1 Cor. 6:11 Paul declares, “you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified.” 
• These are already realities for the believer. 

• But there is also the ongoing reality that we have to grow in our sanctification. 
• Our sanctification is progressive; it’s a lifelong process of becoming what God has declared us to be. 
• And that is the sense Paul is writing about here. 

• We’ve already been justified, declared righteous in Christ. That is God’s once-for-all verdict. 
• Sanctification is God’s ongoing work in us, and it grows. 
• Don’t confuse justification and sanctification. 
• If you confuse them, you will either despair because your holiness never feels completed, or you will grow self-righteous thinking your obedience earns your standing before God. You are not justified by your sanctification. 
• But it is also true to say no one who is justified remains unsanctified. If you are in Christ, you will bear the fruit of sanctification.
• Our confession, in its chapter on sanctification, holds this promise for every believer: that in the war between the desires of the flesh and the Spirit, though the remaining corruption may greatly prevail for a time, the Spirit of Christ will provide a continual supply of strength so that the believer overcomes. We will grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord, and we’ll pursue a heavenly life in gospel obedience to all that Christ has commanded in his Word. (1689 LBCF 13.3)

• Now here is something specific about God’s will for our sanctification. We are to abstain from sexual immorality. 
• The Greek word covers any sexual activity outside the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman. 
• Paul writes this specifically because these believers were in a city that steeped in sexual idolatry. Men could keep mistresses and concubines, and it wasn’t considered scandalous but normal.
• And now these brand-new baby Christians, converted out of that world only months earlier, are told: “That’s not you anymore. You need to abstain from all of that.” 

• We’re not that far removed from Thessalonica. Sex in our culture is treated as recreation, identity, and entertainment. Pornography is readily accessible on the phone in your pocket. 
• And God’s word to us is the same now as it was then: abstain. 

• Verse 4, “that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor.” 
• God’s people are to exercise holy and honorable self-control over their sexual lives. 
• There is only one God-given outlet for the expression of our sexual drive and desire, and that is in marriage. 
• Sex is a good gift given by God. The Bible is not anti-sex. God made our bodies, gave the gift of marriage, and called it very good. 
• But a good gift becomes a destructive idol the moment we take it on our own terms. 

• Verse 5, "not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God."
• Those who live driven by their passions, especially in sexual sin, “do not know God.”
• Sexual sin is ultimately a theological problem. When we don’t know God, we treat our appetites as gods.
• To live this way is a failure to know his goodness, his holiness, his love, and his wisdom. 
• When we know God, our appetites find their proper place. 

• Then Paul writes that our impurity is never a private matter; it wrongs a brother. 
• Verse 6, that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter. 
• The word translated 'wrong' means 'to take advantage of.' 
• Sexual sin is a form of taking advantage of someone. It takes what does not belong to you. 
• Adultery steals from your spouse. Fornication steals from a future husband or wife. Pornography steals from men and women, someone’s son or daughter, whose bodies are objectified and bought and sold on a screen. 
• Sexual sin always has victims, even when someone thinks that what they’re doing is not hurting anyone else. God says someone always gets hurt. 
• And in a church, it is a betrayal of family: it wrongs your brother, your sister, and the body you belong to. 
• When one member falls, the whole body feels the wound. 

• In verses 6-8, Paul lists four reasons God gives for purity. 
• First, the Lord avenges (6). God will bring justice. For those in Christ, he bore that judgment for us, but it is a sobering reason never to treat sin lightly. 
• Second, the Lord calls (7). He has called us in holiness. Our calling is not merely out of something but into something. Peter wrote, “As he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct” (1 Pet. 1:15). Your calling in Christ defines your conduct. 
• Third, the Lord is the one we reject (8). When we disregard God’s command for a walk of holiness, we are setting him aside, treating him as nothing. When we act like the apostolic commands are just ‘Paul’s opinions,’ Paul answers: “It’s not me you are rejecting. It is God.”
• Fourth, the Lord gives his Spirit (8). God gives us his Holy Spirit, and he keeps giving us his Holy Spirit. “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:19-20).  What God commands in verse 1, he enables in verse 8. 

• This is where the gospel turns the command into hope. 
• If you have battled sexual sin for years, you may feel like holiness is unattainable.
• But here’s the good news. God gives you a command and he gives you his Holy Spirit. 
• Holiness isn’t our attempts to try harder, it is God working in you “both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). 
• You have a part: you must abstain, you must flee sexual temptation, you must fight against sin in the flesh.
• But you do not fight alone or without hope. The Spirit who raised Christ Jesus from the dead lives in you. 

• In verse 9, Paul writes, “Now concerning brotherly love…”
• He’s not introducing an unrelated theme now. It’s still about holiness. 
• Holiness is not only what we abstain from; it’s also what we give ourselves to. 
• Sexual immorality takes from your brother. Brotherly love gives to him. 

• Verse 9, “You yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.”
• The word for 'love' here was almost always used for love between blood siblings. 
• Christians applied it further to Jews and Gentiles, slaves and masters, rich and poor, because they were now related by a deeper blood bond: the blood of Christ. 
• In Christ, strangers become siblings as they become part of the family of God. 
• Paul draws from Isaiah 54 and Jeremiah 31. Under the new covenant, God’s people are taught by the Lord: he writes his law on their hearts, and the Spirit himself is the teacher. And the first lesson the Spirit teaches is love. 

• Love is the mark of everyone God has taught. Jesus said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).
• One of the distinguishing characteristics of early Christians that made them stand out was how they loved one another.

• And just as we should be increasing in holiness, our love should keep growing. 
• V10, Paul says they’re already loving one another, “But we urge you brothers, to do this more and more.”
• Love has no ceiling. You never reach a point where you have loved enough.
• This is the answer to Paul’s prayer. This is how God grows his people: by his Spirit, through prayer and the Word. 

• Now, what is the evidence that the believers are loving one another more and more? 
• Well, it becomes evident in one’s day-to-day life. 
• “Aspire to live quietly.” Make it your ambition to be unambitious. Don’t seek recognition. Paul says the Christian’s greatest ambition is to live a quiet, faithful life. 
• “Mind your own affairs.” Don’t be a busybody. He gives this command again in 2 Thess. 3:11. People who are not occupied with their own responsibilities tend to become occupied with everyone else’s.
• “Work with your hands.” In the Greco-Roman world, manual labor was looked down on by the social elites. But Paul affirms that all work is good and it is holy when done unto the Lord. Paul showed them by example; he worked night and day to not be a burden to them. Some in Thessalonica may have stopped working, living off the generosity of other believers, thinking the Lord’s return made ordinary work meaningless. Paul’s answer reveals that the hope of Christ’s return does not make ordinary work meaningless; it makes it holy. 

• Verse 12, “so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.”
• There is that word 'walk' again. The walk that pleases God is the walk that commends God to the watching world.
• To walk “properly” means to walk in a way that fits, that is becoming of a Christ-follower.
• Your unbelieving neighbors and co-workers and family members are watching you. They see how you work, how you speak, how you treat people, whether you pay your bills, and whether you are faithful when no one notices. 
• A second-century letter described Christians this way: they live ordinary lives, yet display a remarkable way of life; they marry and have children like everyone else, but they do not abandon their infants; they share their table with all, but not their marriage bed. 
• That is this chapter lived out, and the world noticed. 

• “Be dependent on no one” is not a call to proud self-sufficiency. The church cares for those who truly cannot provide for themselves. But those who can work should work, so they have something to give. 
• An idle Christian burdens the church. But a faithful, hardworking Christian adorns the gospel of God. 

THE ROOT OF OUR HOLINESS

• This is not simply a list of moral instructions. 
• Everything Paul commands here, Christ first fulfilled for us. 
• We’re called to walk in a way that pleases God. Jesus did this perfectly. Jesus said, “I always do the things that are pleasing to [the Father]” (John 8:29).
• We’re called to control our own bodies in holiness. Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life. He was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin (Heb. 4:15).
• God’s will for us is sanctification. Jesus was completely set apart for God and could thus offer his body for us. “We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb. 10:10).
• We’ve been called to quiet lives of ordinary work. Jesus displayed this for thirty years as he lived quietly in Nazareth as a carpenter. The hands that formed the universe sanded wood and drove nails. Then those same hands were nailed to the cross for our sins. 
• We’ve been called to brotherly love. Jesus calls us brothers. He laid down his life and gave everything as our true elder Brother. 
• And now the risen Christ gives his Holy Spirit to us. We are not holy because we try hard; we are holy because we are united to the Holy One. 
• Jesus said, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me” (John 15:4).
• A tree is not rooted by its own effort. It is rooted in soil that gives it life. Our soil is Christ.

CONCLUSION

• How do we maintain sexual purity in an age where everything is sexualized? 
• Put boundaries on your devices. Delete apps that continually cause you to stumble. Make no provision for the flesh. 
• Be honest with a trusted brother or sister in Christ about your struggles. 
• Married couples, guard your marriage. Tend to it with time, tenderness, and honesty. 
• Parents, teach your children about their bodies before the world teaches them something else, not with shame and fear, but with the beauty of God’s design and the hope of the gospel. 
• How do we practice living quiet lives that adorn the gospel?
• You don’t have to be impressive. Do your ordinary work faithfully even when no one is watching. Parents, let your children see you work with diligence and love and serve your church family with joy. 
• If you are a seasoned saint, remember temptation does not retire, so keep a watch over your heart and your eyes. Your prayers, your steady presence, and your encouragement to younger believers are the display of more and more brotherly love that we desperately need. Your work is not finished. 

• Some of you carry secret sin or past failure and feel disqualified. But here is the promise of the gospel: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
• Repentance means coming into the light, confessing to God and, where appropriate, to a trusted brother or sister in Christ. Ask the Holy Spirit for help and strength. 
• Holiness begins with honest repentance. 

• If you’re here today and you’re thinking, “this is impossible,” on your own it is. If you’ve not yet trusted Christ, you need what all of us needed: a new heart. That is what Jesus came to give. He lived the holy life you have not lived, died the death your sin deserves, and rose again.  He offers you forgiveness and his Holy Spirit to make you new. Turn from your sin and trust in him today. 

• Church, the storms of life will come. Temptation will knock. Culture will exert its pressure. Our own hearts will pull us toward sin. 
• But if we are rooted in Christ, rooted in holiness, we will stand. 

• That is God’s will for you: your sanctification. A walk that pleases him. A body that is kept pure for him. A life of love and work that commends him. And all this, more and more. 
• Paul says at the close of this letter, “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it” (1 Thess. 5:23-24). 

• Examine your walk: where do you need to grow “more and more”?
• Repent where needed, bringing your sin into the light. 
• Believe the gospel afresh: you are made holy not by effort but by virtue of your union with Christ. 
• And take one concrete step this week: one boundary set, one confession, one act of brotherly love, one day of faithful, quiet work for the glory of God. 

• A church that is rooted in holiness is a church that can be sent with power. 
• May our walk be pleasing to the Lord so that it commends the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to a watching world.

APPLICATION AND REFLECTION

In light of today's message....

• What did I learn about the gospel?
• How can I apply what I learned about the gospel to my life?
• With whom can I share the gospel this week?