Sermon Notes | 5.21.23
Rise Week 6
1 Thessalonians 4:1–8
[1] 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. (ESV)
THE SACREDNESS
1 Thessalonians 4:1-3
indicative to imperative
the good gift DEMONIZED
[1] Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” [2] But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. [3] The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. [4] For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. [5] Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. – 1 Corinthians 7:1-5
How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O noble daughter! Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand. Your navel is a rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine. Your belly is a heap of wheat, encircled with lilies. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim. Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon, which looks toward Damascus. Your head crowns you like Carmel, and your flowing locks are like purple; a king is held captive in the tresses. How beautiful and pleasant you are, O loved one, with all your delights! Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its fruit. Oh may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples, and your mouth like the best wine. – Song of Solomon 7:1-9
Although God’s Word is never pornographic, it is unashamedly erotic. If this comes as an embarrassment to some Christians, it is only because we are more prudish than God is. The Bible celebrates the sexual act of love—exclusively within marriage—as a gift from God. – Philip Ryken
THE SECULARIZATION
1 Thessalonians 4:3-6
porneia
the good gift DEIFIED
Mistresses we keep for our pleasure, concubines for our day to day physical well-being, and wives to bear us legitimate children. – Demosthenes
“Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. – 1 Corinthians 6:13
Man’s discovery that sexual (genital) love afforded him the strongest experiences of satisfaction and in fact provided him with the prototype of all happiness, must have suggested to him that he should continue to seek the satisfaction of happiness in his life along the path of sexual relations and that he should make genital erotism the central point of his life. – Sigmund Freud
[15] Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! [16] Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” [17] But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. [18] Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. [19] Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, [20] for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. – 1 Corinthians 6:15-20
Sex is a way to say to somebody else, “I belong completely and exclusively to you,” and if you use it to say anything else, it’s a lie. It’s a nonverbal piece of communication God designed, and it’s meant to carry a message. It’s a communication mode, and if you use it in any other context, you destroy its usefulness. – Tim Keller
THE SIGNPOST
1 Thessalonians 4:7-8
the God who never DISREGARDS
[31] “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” [32] This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. – Ephesians 5:31-32
The marriage state is the image of my relationship to God in a profound way. Both my relationship to God and my relationship to my wife involve a covenant structure in which mutual parties are bound to each other by commitments sealed with oaths. Both involve knowing in intimacy. Both create a place where I can be naked and unashamed. In marriage I enter the most intimate of all human relationships. It involves risk, but if it’s to work I must be naked. If I expose myself utterly and discover that my wife is seeing all that I am spiritually, emotionally, and physically, and understands who I am, and still loves me, then I experience at the human level something of the most deep and profound love of all. God has seen all of me. In Christ he accepts me and gives himself to me. – R.C. Sproul
A Prayer for Salvation
“Heavenly Father, I admit that I am weaker and more sinful than I ever before believed, but through your Son Jesus I can be more loved and accepted than I ever dared hope. I thank you that he lived the life I should have lived and paid the debt and punishment I owed. Receive me now for his sake. I turn from my sins and receive him as Savior. Amen.”