Free Bible Commentary
“1 Thessalonians 4:1-8”
Categories: 1 Thessalonians“Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more. For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.”
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Paul had prayed that his brethren would increase their love for one another and all people (3:12), and in today’s passages he exhorted them to “excel still more” in their endeavors to please God in their daily walk of life (verse 1). It is not spiritually healthy for us to remain stagnant in our love and faith. While it is true that sometimes we may struggle to try to stay the course and hold on to what we’ve got (Philippians 3:16), our goal should be to excel, increase, and abound as much and as often as possible.
In order to please God and do His good will, it requires our personal, intentional “sanctification” (verses 2 and 7). Things that are sanctified are separated from common and ordinary usage, and dedicated to special service to the Lord. That means that the words, actions, bodies, minds, and lives of God’s chosen people must be removed from typical, worldly, sinful activities, and devoted to holy, consecrated attendance to Him and His desires for us. Paul specifically hones in on sexual purity in the context for today.
A Christian is commanded to “abstain from sexual immorality” (verse 3). No matter how a person may try to justify sexual sin, if we have intimate relations with anyone other than the husband or wife that God has blessed us with, we are transgressing God’s will and committing a heinous sin against Him. Worse still, we also wrong and “defraud” our brother (verse 5) when we overreach our legal and moral boundaries and try to “possess” more than is rightfully ours by sinning this way against a member of his family.
Friends, we are not mindless, instinctual animals. God fully expects us to, commands us to, and will help us to “possess” our “own vessel in sanctification and honor” (verse 4). The matter of lust-control is an extension of self-control, and a critical hallmark of sanctification in Christ Jesus is the desire and willingness to control that rascal that looks back at us in the mirror (Galatians 5:23; Titus 1:8; 2 Peter 1:5-9, etc.). Don’t justify any sin, including sexual sin. It will not wash with God. It doesn’t matter how lonely you are, how unloved he makes you feel, how un-nurturing you think she is, God’s judgment is against fornicators and adulterers (verse 6; Hebrews 13:4).
Please read 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12 for tomorrow.
Have a great day!
- Louie Taylor
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