1Finally then, brothers, we beg and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, that you abound more and more. 2For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. 3For this is the will of God: your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, 4that each one of you know how to control his own body in sanctification and honor, 5not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who don’t know God, 6that no one should take advantage of and wrong a brother or sister in this matter; because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as also we forewarned you and testified. 7For God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification. 8Therefore he who rejects this doesn’t reject man, but God, who has also given his Holy Spirit to you.
9But concerning brotherly love, you have no need that one write to you. For you yourselves are taught by God to love one another, 10for indeed you do it toward all the brothers who are in all Macedonia. But we exhort you, brothers, that you abound more and more; 11and that you make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, even as we instructed you, 12that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and may have need of nothing.
13But we don’t want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you don’t grieve like the rest, who have no hope. 14For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15For this we tell you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will in no way precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with God’s trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise first, 17then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So we will be with the Lord forever. 18Therefore comfort one another with these words.
So what does it mean to be sanctified. "No one should wrong his brother/sister and take advantage of them."
Paul is saying I realize you are all doing this, but I want you to do it more. Paul was always encouraging them to press forward, and to move on in working for the Lord. It is easy for us to let our faith become routine and to become complacement. We lose our freshness. I hope that I keep encouraging you all on to be ALL THAT YOU CAN BE IN CHRIST. We are here for a very short time. I've become so aware of this recently. Let's PRESS ON. Let's don't give up now. Let's love one another. Let's do this thing right. Let's play out the 4th quarter correctly. Let's don't grow cold. Let's inspire one another. Let's encourage one another to be God's best.
What God wills for me is SANCTIFICATION! He wants each and every part of me that is not Christ-like to be cut out and replaced with stuff that looks like Jesus. Some of you push me and challenge me to do the right thing. You challenge me to let God have all of me. I need that. I don't always like that, but I need that. It's easy without a challenge to sit on our hands and make excuses. I've been pushing some of our men to do better! It's like some don't come to Sunday School and they don't come to men's Bible Studies, and they always find something else to do to take up their time and eternity is at stake.
These are not instructions to be saved. Most of us are already born again. This is about your sanctification. When we come to the Lord we are saved by His grace and that alone, but it is the work that He does in us that pushes us to be all that we're supposed to be in Him. We are trying to please God because we've already been saved. I just want to emphasize that so many questions I get have to do with God's will for their lives. So, these things are helpful to us to know what God's will for us is.
"Sanctified" describes something that has been taken and SET APART for God's use. In the Old Testament, in Hebrew, that was called KODESH. It was HOLY. That means "SEPARATED TO GOD". That means for example when they had tables, utensils etc that were used in the temple, couldn't be used for normal common uses of those things. It's the same thing with us. When you've been set apart by God, your life is NO LONGER FOR COMMON USE. When can never say, "This is my body, and my life, and I'm going to do with it what I want to." Why? Because our bodies don't belong to us.
"Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit." He has purchased us and He has proof of that.... the marks on His hands and His feet and His side. We must live our lives to honor Him and serve Him. THAT is sanctification. We must understand the difference between divine purpose and common purpose. In the Old Testament God gave orders that just had to do with obedience. (ex. Mr. Levy)
Why were these commandments given? In Leviticus 10: 10 "10 that you may distinguish between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean," We must learn to distinguish between things that are clean and unclean.
Paul then talks about sexual immorality. Paul knew what these Thessalonians were working with. In Greek culture, sexuality was deified. There were temples everywhere with sex acts going on with temple prostitutes. It is estimated that there were 1,000 of these temple prostitutes up in acro-Corinth. We may not worship sex in church, but our culture still sort of worships it as a centerpiece of everything. I don't watch television, but people tell me that programs now just focuse every single episode on sexual matters. In our day, things weren't available like they are now. Sexual immorality is now being piped into our computers and our homes. This is affecting the minds of of society.
This turns bodies and the sexual acts into objects of perversion and worship. Then in verse 4 it says that each of us is to learn to control our bodies in a holy way. We are not forced to be slaves of our bodies. Paul says we're to be holy and honorable. That means that it is possible. It is not the impossible being demanded of us. One of the fruits of the Spirit is "Self-control". When we reject that life we're rejecting the Holy Spirit.