More and More | 1 Thessalonians 4_1-12 | Revd Dr Tim Ward

Lord, we ask that as you delight to do as you've

done for us countless times in our lives for

our good. Would you please now, by the power

of your spirit, open our hearts up to receive

you, to receive what you have to say to us here

and illumine this word for us, we pray. We need

that work from you. In Christ's name. Amen. I

don't know what a parent might find themselves

saying to a grown up child when the grown up

child is about to head off and get married. I

have not been in that position. If it happens,

I think I could imagine wanting to say something

like this. And I'll imagine it said to a son

rather than a daughter, because rather simply,

I have a son and not a daughter. I can imagine

wanting to say something like, son, we have taught

you to be a good man. We've taught you to be

loving and gentle. You've been taught that. And

son, you know, I see you living like that. You're

not perfect, but you are loving and you are gentle.

So son, as you head off into your new life, more

and more, just be like that more and more. You've

been taught. You are doing so more and more.

There might be all sorts of times in life, mightn't

there, when we want to say that kind of thing

to each other. You've been taught you are doing

more and more. Isn't that pretty encouraging?

I mean, it seems to me the tone of that is not

the tone of a telling off, oh, come on, you've

disappointed me again, pull your socks up. The

tone is, it's a thumbs up. It's a keep going.

It's an I see you. I see you. I like what I see

more and more. And that is exactly the tone and

actually not just the tone. That is the substance

of what God says through the Apostle Paul to

the Christians in Thessalonica in in chapter

four in this first letter to the Thessalonians.

In fact, what Paul is doing in chapter four is

he picks up what he drops in at the end of chapter

three, and then he just dives into it a bit more

deeply. At the end of chapter three, he's been

talking about the lives of these Christians,

about the quality of their lives. Just listen

to the last two verses of chapter three, verses

12 and 13. There he says, may the Lord make your

love increase. and overflow for each other and

for everyone else, just as ours does for you.

May your love increase. Verse 13, may he strengthen

your hearts so that you will be blameless and

holy in the presence of our God and Father when

our Lord Jesus comes with his holy ones. He says

that he wants two things in their lives, two

things in our lives to increase and abound and

be established and they are love for each other.

And holiness. And in our passage today, as he

gets into chapter four, Paul keeps running with

those two topics of love for each other and holiness.

Towards the end of our passage, he's going to

talk about their love for each other. Before

that, earlier in the passage, he talks about

holiness. And what he particularly homes in on

is sexual holiness. So in our verses, that's

what we've got. We've got these two sections.

One to wait on sexual morality, sexual holiness.

And then verses nine to 12 on love for each other

in the church. That's how this passage is set

up. Now, before I get into some of the details

of that, I want to come back to where I started,

because Paul. He leads into these two sections,

these two sections on sexual holiness and love

for each other in the church. He leads into them

in the exact same way in each section. You have

been taught, you are doing so more and more.

See that in verse one of chapter four. As for

other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed

you how to live in order to please God. As in

fact you are doing. Now we ask you and urge you

in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. Paul

had spent time with them, hadn't he? He taught

them the word of God. He taught them the will

of God. He says here, we instructed you how to

live in order to please God. You know what instructions

we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.

You've been taught. And still in verse one, he

says, as in fact, you are living. You are doing

it. I know you are. And then third, the end of

verse one. Now we ask and urge you in the Lord

Jesus more and more. You see the pattern being

taught are doing more and more. That's how we

lead into the first section on sexual morality.

And then. The second section on love for each

other, we get the exact same pattern. Different

words, same pattern. So verse 9. Now, about your

love for one another, 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 of God's family throughout Macedonia. Yet

we urge you, brothers and sisters. To do so more

and more. You see the pattern. You yourselves

have been taught by God, he says, to love each

other. What does he mean? How would they be taught

by God? Well, two ways. Through their ears. Paul

had been there. Paul had taught them. Through

their ears and in their hearts. God had also

taught them through the Holy Spirit, whom he'd

sent into them, prompting them, steering them.

making it, as it were, internally in their souls,

making it as plain as the nose on their face,

that they should love each other. They've been

taught. Then verse 10, he says, and in fact,

you do love all of God's family. They are doing

it. And third, verse 11, we urge you, brothers

and sisters, to do so. There's the phrase again,

more and more. Do you see it's the exact same

pattern at the beginning of each section. Being

taught, are doing. So more and more. Surely this

resonates with our experience of what it is to

live as Christians. At some point in the past

by someone, you were taught how you should live

as a Christian. It's simple teaching. You're

not likely to forget it. And in the areas Paul

is talking about here, of course, the teaching

is at root. Sex is for marriage between a man

and a woman. And other Christians are your brothers

and sisters, and you've got to love them. Once

that foundation of simple teaching had been laid

in you, it kind of stuck, didn't it? You have

not done the hard work that some people tragically

do of trying to rip up that foundation and chucking

it out because they want to live an entirely

different kind of life now. No, you've been building

on it. You've been building brick by brick, layer

by layer. God has been building that in you.

It's not been perfect. Just to take that kind

of building analogy a stage further. Sometimes

you can look at bits of your building and you

can see they're starting to crumble. Maybe, frankly,

you've been actively taking a sledgehammer to

bits of the building yourself. But you put the

sledgehammer down, you sort it out in God's strength,

you build again, you build some more. To the

Christian who resonates with that, God is saying

to us in these verses, You are a follower of

Christ. You are not having sex with someone you

are not married to. You are not planning to have

sex with someone you are not married to. When

the temptation to enjoy thinking about sex with

someone you're not married to jumps into your

head, what do you do? Well, in the end, with

the Spirit's help, you work to put the danger

into death. Love for others. You really do love

the Christian brothers and sisters sitting around

you here. You really do love the Christian brothers

and sisters you sit with on a Sunday. OK, sometimes

they drive you mad and you drive them mad. But

you are not ashamed out there in the world to

be associated with them. You share your life

with them, your time with them, your possessions

with them. If this is us, because we are Christians,

what is God's message here? Is it not simply

this? God says to us, you have been taught. I

have laid good foundations in you. You know the

teaching. You're not likely to forget it. You've

got reliable teachers who go on teaching you.

You've got the spirit in you to go on reminding

you. Second, God says, I see you. I see. that

you are walking now in the right way. In a world

that thinks your sexual ethics are ridiculous,

thinks they're harmful, I see how you live, says

God. In a world that too often fosters friendships

only when they benefit me, I see you giving out

to Christians and brothers and sisters when you

have nothing to gain and it's only going to cost

you. Third, says God, So more and more. This

is the right path. I have shown you. You have

found it. You are walking in it. Keep walking

in it. You know, as I was putting this sermon

together, I just had the sense that this first

section of the sermon, which is the longest section,

that this first section, it just kind of felt

deeply ordinary. I looked at this and went, is

this going to set the world on fire? It just

felt deeply ordinary and also deeply encouraging.

I love the thought of someone taking this thought

with them into the rest of their week. And this

being halfway through week 12, that's kind of

quite a week for a lot of us. I love the idea

of someone taking this thought with them. God

has laid down his teaching in me. He just has.

I'm not in the business of ripping it up and

chucking it out. He sees how I'm walking and

he says it's good. It is not perfect. It is not

the finished article, but he says I see and it

is good. So now, please, Lord, for another few

days, more and more of the same. More and more

does not seem so crushing. But if you may have

had some. experiences in life some encounters

some relationships where basically what there's

been is a tone of more and more come on more

and more more and more and that's how often is

that just crushing and debilitating but now here

when it's the lord god who says more and more

but he has said to you first you know i've laid

the teaching down in you I see you living in

it and it is good. When that Lord who was first

said those things, when he then says more and

more. Is that not encouraging? And not crushing?

So I've shown you here what God says to a church

that is basically going well in these things,

in sexual morality, in love for each other. But

now for the rest of my time, I'm just going to

get into what Paul does as he spells out that

first section on sexual morality. There isn't

time for me to get into the details of what he

says on love for each other. And in that first

section on sexual morality, I'm going to focus

on God's message here to a Christian. Who, through

this sermon so far, has been thinking to themselves,

well, in that first section of the passage, if

I'm honest, I'm not sure I am going so well in

these things. I'm not sure the Lord would look

at me and say, you are doing. In this first section

on sexual morality. There can be many scenarios

here, can't there? Maybe this might be one in

the life of a Christian. And I'm not picking

this scenario at random. This is exactly the

situation that a Christian I know has been in

recently. Out of the blue, an old flame from

the past got in touch. And it was fairly evident

to the Christian that if they responded to this,

one thing may well lead to another. Because that's

what the other wanted. And we know, don't we,

that phrase, one thing leads to another, what

that can mean sexually. A Christian receives

that message and frankly, they quite like the

thought. They get quite a lot of pleasure from

the thought of what a response to this message

might lead to. And so right now, a Christian

in that situation may well think God is not looking

at me in this area with the thumbs up. Well,

what the Lord gives us here in these opening

verses of 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, what he

1 Thessalonians 4 · chapter mention

gives us is five motivations, five spurs, five

reasons from the Lord not to reply to that out

-of -the -blue message open to the possibility

that one thing might lead to another. Anyone

who needs particular strength from the Lord in

this area right now? Well, you could pick out

one of these five. I'm going to set them out

for you. You could pick out one of these five

that just kind of hits you. That's what you need

to cling on to. Or maybe kind of you just let

the weight of the five wash over you as a kind

of a summary of the Lord's strength for you in

this. First, if one thing did lead to another,

Well, that is simply how people live when they

do not know God. Verse 5. Not in passionate lust

like the pagans who do not know God. When we

know God, we know that he is utterly faithful

to us, know he is utterly holy, know how he utterly

desires and works for us to share his holiness.

How can we live like people who just don't know

him? Second, it harms others. Verse six. And

that in this matter, no one should wrong or take

advantage of a brother or sister. You may well

have experienced, as I have done, people in an

adulterous relationship who are telling themselves

this harms no one. And everyone around them,

especially those caught in the crossfire, know

that that is a lie. Third, God simply condemns

it. Verse six, the Lord will punish all those

who commit such sins. Fourth, it's just not our

calling from God. It's not what he's called us

into. Verse seven, for God did not call us to

be impure, but to live a holy life. If this isn't

too flippant a way of putting it, being holy

is not a nice to have in our calling from the

Lord. Holiness in these sexual things is not

an add -on extra to our faith for the super keen,

like heated seats in a new car if you fancy them

and can afford them. It is just the very essence

of who we are and how we are called, what we

are called to. And fifth, sex outside its proper

place disregards God. It ignores, it ignores,

it works against the reality that God has already

put something into us. He has put into us his

own holy presence and his own holy power. Verse

eight. Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction.

does not reject a human being, but rejects God,

the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit. I

know we know this. In us as Christians is who?

The Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Ignoring that message

that pops up on your phone, where one thing might

lead to another, choosing to ignore that and

walking away. What are you doing when you do

that? From the perspective of verse 8, what you

are doing is you are just living in line with

the presence and the power of God who is in you.

You're going with the grain of what God has built

into your life. You're walking within the power

that God has already poured into your life. So

five strengthening things here from the Lord

to help us. Maybe one of them jumps out as just

what we need. Maybe kind of the five work together

as it were to overwhelm us again. Holding us

in holiness. Calling us back into holiness. And

particularly calling us back when the temptation

is strongest. There's the temptation. But now

that is how people live when they don't know

God. But I do know him. If I do this, I will

harm someone. The God who I trust with everything

else in my life, he condemns this. How wonderful

to be called by the God of the universe to be

something. And this is not his calling. If I

do this, I will disregard the one I love most

of all. Whose own spirit of holiness is in me.

My goodness, there is an awful lot here, isn't

there, with which to feed our own souls and to

feed each other's souls. Let me leave a moment

for your own private prayer. Then I'll close

with a prayer for all of us. Our loving Lord,

we know and believe that your words to us are

truth and life and power. We want to walk in

them. We praise you for every area of our lives

where by the teaching you've laid down, by your

constant strengthening of us in the power of

the Spirit, we are walking in them. Keep us in

this. Call us back to this. Day by day, evermore

we pray. In Christ's name. Amen.