1 Thess 4:1-12; Pleasing God (1 Thessalonians 4); Patrice Berger

1 Thess 4:1-12; Pleasing God (1 Thessalonians 4); Patrice Bergerr

Please God

Summary of 1 Thessalonians 1-3

In the battle against the virus of sin, we saw three main things, in the 1st epistle to the Thessalonians:

1) Initiative of God

God is on the initiative to challenge us to take the only possible solution, ie Christ.

2) Not only saved

The idea is not to make us just healed people but people whose miraculous lives:

• point to the divine physician,
• point with simplicity and truth to the only solution, the gospel of Christ.

3) Other life goals

As miracles, our lives have other purposes.
Indeed, our past goals have demonstrated our condemnation. So, in order not to fall back into the same ruts, we are invited to make lots of projects with Christ:

• orientations of life,
• ways of life.

Faith = implications in life
In sum, our faith in Christ has implications for practical life, God likes to remind us of them because we have lost the habit of them through our rebellion: • God
reminds us of them by His Word, the Bible;

• He helps us to live them thanks to the Holy Spirit who always shows us the logic of Christ;
• and the community of believers is as many
• possibilities,
• examples
• and encouragement to rediscover original humanity.

Always more human in God

We are always no longer human when we get closer to God
We always lose more of our humanity as soon as we move away from God.

God is the origin of our existence.

So getting closer to Him helps us to understand ourselves, the reverse takes us away from our identity.

Invitation to continue to progress in two areas
This morning’s text invites us to progress in two areas to represent ever more

• our Lord and Savior
• and humanity where each has his true place.

1 Thessalonians chapter 4.1-8
1 Now then, brothers and sisters, you have learned from us how you should conduct yourselves and please God, [and this is what you do]; likewise we ask you and we encourage you in the Lord Jesus: make further progress.
2 For you know what instructions we have given you from the Lord Jesus.

3 What God wants is your progress in holiness: it is that you abstain from sexual immorality, 4 that each of you know how to keep his body in consecration and dignity, 5 without
the give in to the passion of desire like the members of other peoples who do not know God;
6 is that no one in this matter do harm to his brother or infringe his rights, because the Lord makes justice of all these acts, as we have already told you and testified.
7 Indeed, God has not called us to impurity, but to consecration.
8 Whoever therefore rejects these instructions does not reject a man,
but God, who has also given you his Holy Spirit.

Encouragement to continue

As you can see, this text is an encouragement to continue to please God by representing Him ever better by a life that demonstrates that it is attached to Christ: •
the difference in behavior will show what God has changed in me through Christ ,

• the difference in behavior will demonstrate my attachment to Christ,
• the difference in behavior will communicate that there is a gap between
• the standard of God
• and that which we reproduce instinctively.

Unfavorable environment

The Thessalonica believers were not in the “west”, but their social environment could cause them to lose their way to Christ.
This is why the apostle encourages them to progress ever more and not to slack off.

Two domains

The two encouragements relate to

• the abandonment of sexual immorality (the text of which we have just read)
• and a rich and respectful fraternal life. (we will read the text later).

The first encouragement to progress

Unfavorable Context
The Thessalonians knew the perfect setting in which to express sexuality, ie marriage, but they needed encouragement as the habits around them were so different.

Greco-Roman customs.
Indeed, in ancient times for the Romans and Greeks, sexual relations with prostitutes or slaves were permitted.

Pre-marital relationships were prohibited by Roman law only for aristocrats when those relationships compromised a woman of the upper class.

And history shows that extramarital affairs were far from uncommon…

Need reminder

This is why the apostle recalls

• the difference,
• the holiness
  of those who are attached to Christ.

Text difficulty

Looking more closely at today’s text, I did not know that it contained the greatest difficulty in translating this epistle which has caused much ink to flow.

Indeed, the word “body” here translated in the S21 translation (Bible S21 Société Biblique de Genève & La Maison de la Bible) in verse 3 is originally the Greek “vase”.
But in the context of the verses that follow, it seems better to translate it as “woman.”

Which would make the following understanding:
What God wants is your progression in holiness:
that you abstain from sexual immorality,
Each of the men among you should know how to live with his wife in a way holy and honorable.
without indulging in the passion of desire like the members of other peoples who do not know God;
6 is that no one in this matter do harm to his brother or infringe his rights, because the Lord makes justice of all these acts, as we have already told you and testified.

God’s standard
In a disrupted context, Paul reminds us that the expression of sexuality takes place within the unique framework of marriage.

When the Bible speaks of marriage, it goes without saying that it is about the heterosexual marriage of a man and his wife, during their lifetime.

Apart from God’s standard
For everything else, the Bible uses the term “porniea” for premarital sex, free and extra-marital union, everything that is not of the husband and his marry.

Recommendation of the Lord: the text is very interesting because it underlines that it is not a delirium of an apostle

• embittered,
• patriarchal,
• misogynist,
• retrograde,
  but indeed an instruction coming from the Lord-Jesus.

Two consequences

Honoring God 1
To reject these instructions and live otherwise is to reject God.
So I honor God when I follow His instructions regarding sex.

I am not responding to habits,

• Christian
• or evangelical
  , but I demonstrate my love
• for God
• and also for my neighbour.

Respect my neighbor 2

What these few sentences underline and recall is that by departing from the exclusive framework of marriage, I in one way or another undermine my neighbour, what every man and every woman is in right to live normally.

David–Uria example

King David undermined Uriah through the adultery committed with Bathsheba and the prophet Nathan recalls by his parable that there was an infringement of Uriah’s right, moreover David said “that such a man deserves death”.

2 Samuel Chapter 11

And what the text of 1 Thessalonians reminds us of is that God is very concerned when there is a wrong that affects someone: God does justice to every act.

David example

In the case of David’s adultery, God has done justice. Disorders due to sin always have consequences.
2 Samuel Chapter 12

Not mission impossible, thanks to the Holy Spirit
The Thessalonians are encouraged to persevere, to have a righteous life in this area and God does not give us an impossible mission.

He gives his Spirit to the believer:

• He always points us to the right attitude to have
• and also points us to the right person, Christ,
• so that we have the determination to please God in this area
• and the ability.

Valid for the time
I have just spoken of what God entrusted to Paul to remind the Thessalonians who had a cultural framework which I have described.

Valid for us
I think that we are currently in exactly the same context that nothing has changed in the habits around us.

In this, God’s counsels are addressed directly to each one without any effort of contextualization so that we can honor our Lord and so that we can •
respect ourselves
and our neighbour.

The second encouragement to progress

1 Thessalonians chapter 4. 9-12
9 You need not have anyone write to you about brotherly love, for you yourselves have learned from God to love one another, 10 and that is also what you are doing towards all the brothers and sisters in the whole Macedonia. But we encourage you, brothers and sisters, to continue to progress,
11 to strive to live in peace, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, as we have recommended to you.
12 So your conduct will be honorable in the eyes of outsiders
and you will not be dependent on anyone.

Brotherly Love
The second area where Thessalonians are encouraged to continue in the right direction is in the area of ​​brotherly love.
Obviously they had brought to life this invitation

• from God
• underlined by the Holy Spirit
  “Love one another as I have loved you”.
  John 13. 34

Exemplary
And it was well known that in this area, the brothers and sisters of the church of Thessalonica had a rich life

• among themselves
• and vis-à-vis the brothers and sisters in Christ distributed in Macedonia.

Some precisions to always go in the right direction
On the other hand, the apostle brings some precisions so that their fraternal life remains fraternal.

He gives three details:

The objective of fraternal relations
Exchanges must always aim at

• peace,
• tranquillity,
• calm,
• serenity.
  Otherwise we miss the goal of fraternal life.

For us too, it is a good question:
Do my fraternal exchanges aim at peace?
Are they bearers of peace?

Individual responsibility
The other point is brotherly love; yes, but individual responsibility remains.
I don’t run behind other brothers and sisters to run away from my responsibilities.
Or conversely, my involvement encroaches on the individual responsibility of my brother or my sister.

Financial dependency
OK for sibling life, but that doesn’t mean I’m off the hook for siblings. If I am able to earn a living, then I do, if possible.

Ideas about fraternal life
There are two opposing extremes when we currently speak of fraternal life:

The coldest pole
is the most majority in our Western society, selfish and individualistic, it gives something like this, “everyone at home and God for all”.

The hottest pole
dreams of an idyllic community life like at the beginning of the church where they had everything in common.
As a reminder, it was not so idyllic as that,

• forced by persecution
• and it was in a collective and ancient culture.

Balance between the two, we can be inventive and proactive to show our real attachment to each other.

THANKS !
In this I would like to say a huge thank you to each of you for what you are doing during this complicated period:

• some are welcoming people who would be on the street,
• others are shopping for people at risk,
• still others make a phone call
• and still others place surprises in a basket.
• Etc.

Thank you all that we can continue to enrich our relations.
May it be a beautiful echo of what Christ has done in us.

John 13:35
“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”