1 Thessalonians 4:1-12--A Life Pleasing to God

1 Thessalonians 4:1-12
English Standard Version

A Life Pleasing to God
4 Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. 2 For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. 3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, 5 not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6 that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. 7 For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. 8 Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

​9 Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, 10 for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, 11 and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, 12 so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

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After three chapters, Paul is "finally" done with his introductory remarks and is ready to get to the meat and potatoes of the letter.  We may think with the word "finally" here that he's on his last paragraph, but he's not, but only chapters 4 and 5 are left.  He starts the body of the letter by urging the Church that they should walk in a way similar to what they had seen from Paul and his companions (follow the example set for them), and in any area where Paul and his companions had failed or left an incomplete example to follow, the Church is to walk in such a way as to be pleasing to God.  Paul tells them that he knows they are already doing this, but they need to keep on doing it, because they will have to work at and fight for the good instructions (the gospel) that they were given by Paul and his companions.  Many will come along and ask them to compromise, and it will be easy to do so if the Church is trying to please men instead of seeking to please God.

Paul tells them that God wants them to be sanctified (to be made holy--set apart for His use and purposes), and to abstain from sexual immorality and all kind of behavior that uses their bodies as instruments of sin.  Instead, their bodies are to be seen as temples of the Holy Spirit and treated as holy and with great honor.  We do not desecrate the temple of the Holy Spirit by letting our passions and lusts (for food, alcohol, sexual pleasure, etc.) reign over our mortal bodies.  We also don't let our emotions control us and have fits of rage, outbursts of anger, or times where we let jealousy, greed, envy, erotic love, or other feelings lead us to sin--especially watch out that these emotions don't cause us to sin against another brother or sister in Christ.  The world may be fickle and controlled by their emotions, but we should be sober-minded and self-controlled (really Spirit-controlled).  God has not called us to live the lives of impurity that we were living while we were walking in darkness and part of the kingdom of this world when we were controlled by the flesh and servants of the world and the devil.  No, God has called us to be holy and set apart as ambassadors of Him and His Kingdom.  We are now new creations that have received the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ whose resurrection power is alive and at work within us to make all things new.  We are now children of God by Adoption and no longer children of the devil.  We are citizens of the Kingdom of His marvelous light, so we are no longer to walk in the way of darkness.  We are to be on the narrow (and hard) road that leads to life and no longer be on the broad (and easy) way that leads to destruction.  God has not simply called us to have a salvation experience where we said a prayer and got our "fire insurance," but to be transformed and go through a metamorphosis that is a permanent change like a caterpillar that becomes a butterfly or coal that becomes a diamond.  We are not saved so that we have license to keep on sinning, but we are saved to break the power and curse of sin over us so that we might be freed from that slavery and captivity which we were born into in order that we may willingly become slaves of righteousness.  We desire to serve the Lord with gladness and to live in a way that pleases Him and glorifies Him.

With that in mind, Paul also has some instructions for how they are to treat their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.  They already had a brotherly love and affection for one another that drove them to love sacrificially and put the interest of others above their own interests.  Paul said they were already acting this way towards all of their brothers and sisters in Christ in Macedonia and the surrounding area, and that all he wanted to tell them on this matter was a word of encouragement to keep up the good work.  He warned them not to be busybodies that were always in each other's business, but to live quiet lives tending to their own lives and affairs (don't try to be the Holy Spirit in someone else's life to tell them what you think they should be doing, how they should be raising their children, and so on.  You take care of yourself and your home and let God tell them how to take care of their lives and homes, except in the case where there are clear issues of sin where you are attempting to help a brother or sister see a blind spot and help restore them.)  In this way, everyone will be subject to the Lord and the elders that He has put over them, but God has given each man responsibility for the affairs of his life, including the works of his hands and the issues related to family.  We are to be salt and light wherever God puts us, but that is going to look different for each one of us based off of the equipping that the Lord has given to us.  In this way, our conduct will be part of a living testimony to others about our faith because our words and our works will speak together in harmony.  We will not say one thing and do another, and we will live in such a way where we will hopefully not be indebted to anyone and therefore enslaved to the one who is the lender.  We should make wise use of the talents and resources that have been given to us to take care of ourselves and our families and to enable us to do the work of the ministry that the Lord has called us to do.  Of course, we support those who are working in full-time ministry (pastors, full-time missionaries and so on), but we encourage fiscal responsibility across the board, even for those in ministry.  We'll be told in other places in Scripture that if a man does not provide for himself and his family, he will be seen as being worse than the Gentiles of the world that are pagan and godless--even they know how to care for their own.  If we live in such a way, the world will not want to listen to our message because it will appear that they already have something better, though we know Christ is of immeasurable value.