How You Can Please God in: Sex, Work, Death (2)

We are to make it our goal, as Christians, to live a life that pleases God.

Writing to the new Christians in the fledgling church he had left behind in Thessalonica, Paul “asked and urged” them “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.” (1 These 4:1)
He then goes on to elaborate how they can please God in the areas of sex, work and death.

Sex, work, death loom large throughout our lives and “continue to be three major human preoccupations.” (Stott)
This is not surprising as the first two were established by God Himself as honourable in the perfect world He originally created. While the third has permeated society ever since that perfect world was corrupted by the Fall.

In the beginning…

In the beginning God ordained marriage to address Man’s need for companionship (Gen 2:18,21-23). As a vital part of marriage God designed sex for one man and one woman to give unique expression to the closeness which is theirs alone (Gen 2:24).
Hence marriage, along with sex within marriage, is holy and honourable. “Marriage is honourable among all, and the bed undefiled.” (Heb 13:4)

Also marriage (and hence, sex as the unique expression of the marriage union) is the image of a greater Reality: “This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church” (Eph 5:32).
Even in that perfect world, God was preparing to remedy the death that would follow the Fall, by an institution that would prepare us for the redeeming work of Christ.

Following the Fall, sex and work became corrupted by human society.
And we lost hope in the face of death.

And (as Alistair Begg noted recently) “especially in the area of sex, marriage, and family” “we live in a crooked and a perverted generation.”
It is a sad fact that “sex, marriage, and family”, which God instituted to be the source of the greatest earthly pleasure, are so easily transformed by sin into the cause of the most torturous pain and suffering.

Displeasing God in: Sex, Marriage, and Family

Paul instructs us as to “how you ought to walk and to please God,” and to “do so more and more.” How?
“This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality.” (1 Thes 4:3)
The will of God for you is to pursue holiness. Holiness pleases God.
And holiness requires you to “abstain from sexual immorality.” Sexual immorality, in any form, displeases God.

To abuse the gift of sex is to displease God.
David may have successfully covered his tracks in his adultery with the wife of Uriah, but “the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.” (2 Sam 11:27)

The Greek word for “sexual immorality” is porneia.
It is where we get the word “pornography” from. Though it refers to any form of sexual immorality.

Sexual immorality was around in Paul’s day; and before that has been around since the Fall of Man. Christians, along with others, are susceptible to this temptation, and have always had to guard their souls against it.
But the form of sexual immorality known as pornography has never been more prevalent than it is today.

Gone are the days of the teenage boy almost too embarrassed to sneak into the newsagents, surreptitiously to purchase (or steal) “adult” material, then sneak away to hide it at home.
With the advent of the internet have come the 5 A’s. Pornography is now more:

• Available,
• Accessible,
• Affordable,
• Anonymous,
• Aggressive
  …than ever before.

By this means Satan is waging an unrelenting attack on males, and an increasing number of females, in churches today.
And the current isolation induced by COVID restrictions is only exacerbating the problem.

Pleasing God in: Sex, Marriage, and Family

How a Christian engages in sex can please God: “Marriage is honourable among all, and the bed undefiled.”
Or displease God: “But fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” (Heb 13:4)

In 1 Thes ch 4, Paul’s solution to guard against displeasing God in sex is this:
“Let each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honour.” (v 4)

What does Paul mean by “one’s own vessel”?
There are only two possibilities. Either he means “one’s own body”; or he means “one’s own wife”.

Some more modern Bible translations assume Paul is talking about one’s own “body”: i.e. that we are to use our bodies in such a way as to guard ourselves against sexual immorality.
That is possible, though nowhere else in the Bible, where this word “vessel” refers to other than a literal, inanimate vessel, is it used to refer to one’s “body”.

On the other hand, it is used to refer to the whole “person” (Acts 9:15, 2 Cor 4:7, 2 Tim 2:21), and once of one’s wife (1 Pet 3:7).
Add to this the fact that the word “possess” has the basic meaning of: “to gain possession of, procure for oneself, acquire, get” (BDAG).
Therefore I think, along with “the great majority of modern commentators”, that Paul here is saying that, marriage is, not only God’s best solution that “man should not be alone”, but that the marriage of one man to one woman is God’s provision, and the only God-given context, for sexual intercourse.[1]

To guard against sexual immorality: “Let each of you know how to obtain/possess his own wife.”
This also aligns with Paul’s counsel to the unmarried in 1 Cor 7:2, “Because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.”

“Not in passion of lust…”

Marriage is not just about guarding against sexual immorality.
It would abhorrent to one’s spouse if they thought the only reason you married them was to indulge in sexual gratification.

Paul addresses that issue in what follows:

• This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to obtain/possess his own wife in sanctification and honour, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God. (vv 4-5)

That sounds odd at first: “…not in passion of lust”?
Is Paul against sex in marriage? Or, at very least, is he telling you to “tone down the passion.”

No, as is evident from the advice he gives in 1 Cor 7:5, where he says it is important to maintain a healthy sexual relationship in marriage, or you leave yourself open to the very sin he is warning against here: the sin of sexual immorality.
Normally, a healthy sexual relationship is vital to a healthy marriage.[2]
“Passion” is healthy in marriage. Eg. Prov 5:18f says a husband should “rejoice with the wife of your youth” and “always be intoxicated with her love.”

But what Paul is warning against is, not passion, but “passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God”.
“Lust” is sex without love. “There is a world of difference between lust and love, between dishonourable sexual practices which use the partner and true love-making which honours the partner, between the selfish desire to possess and the unselfish desire to love, cherish and respect.”[3]

The warning is against treating your wife as a sex object, there simply to satisfy your lust.
This, says Paul, is characteristic of “the Gentiles who do not know God”.
It is “like” many a Hollywood movie plot today, where a couple who supposedly “fall in love” have nothing more going for them in their relationship than physical lust.

The Bible says, this is no way to treat your wife.

• “Husbands, likewise, dwell with your wife with understanding.
  Give honour to your wife, as to the weaker vessel
  Treat her as being an heir together with you of the grace of life.
  This way, your prayers will not be hindered.” (1 Pet 3:7)

When your relationship with your wife is like that – and, only when your relationship with your wife is like that – that is the true basis of a healthy sexual relationship together.

“In passion of lust…”

But where your relationship with your spouse is “in passion of lust” you leave yourself wide open to the very temptation to sexual immorality that Paul is warning against.
Where a husband treats his wife merely as a sex object (or, vice versa) there he does not guard his heart against sexual immorality.

Rather, just the opposite. He will soon tire of his wife (with whom he has no personal relationship), and will turn all the more quickly to other outlets – such as pornography, or another woman, even another man’s wife, thereby “defrauding his brother.”
Paul warns against this: “…not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such.”

“Let each of you know how to obtain/possess his own wife in sanctification and honour that you should abstain from sexual immorality”
“This is the will of God.”

For the unmarried

Paul’s  counsel for those who are single is to get married; and then, how to treat your wife.

But what about those who are not married?
After all, even the married spend a good deal of their life single. We are single for some years before marriage, and half of us are single again if our spouse predeceases us.
And there are many who are single who would love to be married, but for whom there is no present prospect.
For all singles it can be a real struggle to please God in this area.

However, the same standard of sexual morality applies.
Rather than give you my thoughts (and run the risk of being told that I don’t understand, which, I probably don’t fully) let me give you what John Stott (who chose never to marry) had to say:

“Those of us who are single lack the God-given context for sexual love.
What about us? We too must accept this teaching (however hard it may seem) as God’s good purpose both for us and for society.
We shall not become a bundle of frustrations and inhibitions if we embrace God’s standard, but only if we rebel against it. Christ’s yoke is easy, provided that we submit to it.
It is possible for human sexual energy to be redirected into affectionate relationships with friends of both sexes, as well as into the loving service of others. Multitudes of Christian singles, both men and women, can testify to this.
Alongside a natural loneliness, accompanied sometimes by acute pain, we can find joyful self-fulfilment in the self-giving service of God and other people.”

Sexual purity and the whole of life

I want to pick up on that last sentence: “We can find joyful self-fulfilment in the self-giving service of God and other people.”
For, having told us what is “the will of God” in 1 Thes ch 4, Paul goes on in ch 5 to say:
“This is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks” (5:16-18)

There is an important connection between:
– “rejoicing always, praying without ceasing, giving thanks in everything”
– and “abstaining from sexual immorality”.
Temptation to sexual immorality is fiercest when I am not “rejoicing always”, when I am not “praying without ceasing”, when I am not “giving thanks in everything”.

• When I am thankless, I become self-focused and ripe for Satan’s temptations.
• When I am not praying, I begin to lose sight of God; I no longer feel the importance of “pleasing God”.
• When I am not rejoicing in my walk with the Lord, I find plenty to grumble about and feel I deserve to please myself – including in sinful ways like this.

Whether single, or married – you will find you are far more tempted to sexual immorality in general, and pornography in particular, when you are complaining, or not praying, or unthankful.

“The wonder of love, and the power of grace”

Many who read this will be struggling.
Some will be weeping bitterly over sins they are concealing.

But there is hope for all of us who come to Christ repenting of our sins.
A great adulterer found this in Psalm 32:

• Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
  When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my vitality was turned into the drought of summer.
  I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
  And You forgave the iniquity of my sin!

Come all you fallen, and come all you broken…
Come to the feast, there is room at the table.
Come let us meet in this place.
With the King of all kindness who welcomes us in,
with the wonder of love, and the power of grace.
.                                                         – Stuart Townend

[1] I won’t go into all the reasons for assuming that Paul is talking about one’s “wife”, not one’s “body”, but commentators like John Stott and William Hendriksen go into it in some detail for those interested.
[2] I say “normally”; sometimes, eg. in some circumstances such as sickness, infirmity or being apart, it is not possible. See also 1 Cor 7:5.
[3] John Stott