So, we are in the third part of series of sermons that have been preaching called the passion for purity. If you’ve missed the other parts, you go on whole Google and you go on Witbank Baptist Church and you’re going to read or listen to the first two parts of the sermon. If you want to have the book, go back to the beginning and justice follow through as we gain through the book of Thessalonians means – Passion for Purity Part 3 on the topic of sexual purity and pursuit.

There is a humorous account of a child she was returning from Sunday school, where the 10 Commandments had been the topic of the day, and a young boy asked his father, “Daddy, what does it mean when it says thou shalt not commit agricultural?
There was hardly a beat between their question and the father’s reply, he said: “Son, that just means that you’re not supposed to plough the other man’s field.” And answer satisfactory to both of them.
And that’s the reality of our modern-day world. Many are ploughing in other men’s fields when they shouldn’t be. You plough in your own field. If you’re a husband or a wife. Sex is meant… it’s a good thing! It’s a wonderful thing in the confines of marriage.
Every day, millions of minds are blasted with the images of naked women and men committing adultery and fornication – condoned by the world. Sleeping with your boyfriend or girlfriend before marriage is even expected by family to see if you’re compatible to be married, Martin Lloyd Jones said there… there was a time when everybody would agree in condemning sexual perversion or sexual immorality, but not today. It’s almost glorified.
And this is the public opinion with respect to morality currently out there. Brothers and sisters, when we sin in these areas, it’s like diving into a pool of sewage while doing open heart surgery. I think it’s the best illustration I can give, and so the question is why dive into a cesspool of sin so as to prepare for the holy matrimony of marriage?
Marriage should reflect the bride of Christ pure without spite or wrinkle. So, the question that we faced really today is, what is what is God’s standards different from the world?
What does God expect from a child of God?
And then secondly, why should we follow his instructions?
What does God want from you?
As you may remember, having shared previously Thessaloniki, by the way, that is the modern-day term for Tessa. I sometimes say Tessalon Nika as Tesla and Nikki, and you’ll find that when you go and haul it. OK, so you’ll… if you go and check out, that’s the modern-day term for it, but Thessalonica or Thessaloniki in those days was an immoral city. There was no Christian restraints, homosexuality, paedophilia, adultery, fornication, erotic acts. That was common there! It was even ingrained inside of their religion. And as Paul and Silas and Timothy were ministering to the people there, they were pulling them out of a pornographic society. You see, when you come to Christ, you’re moving away from the world. You’re moving away… to a society separate from the world. The society that’s characterized by reflecting God’s character and God’s character is to be holy. For I am holy.
We need to be reflecting that Christ wants his bride, which is the church, to be sanctified, to be gloriously holy. That it would reflect the character of God. And so, what was God’s answers?
We’ve… we’ve learned a number of them. One, if you want to be devoted to moral purity, it means you need to in your heart seek to please God. That was verse one. You need to know from whom these commands are coming from, and we remembered it comes from Christ our Savior, the… the creator of this universe, the one who keeps your soul and body together. The one who died on the cross for you and rose again. The one who felt the nails in his hands. For you’re my sin. The one who will be your judge. The one who oversees the punishment in Hell Revelations 14: 10 and onwards. That one is the one giving us these commands. It’s not commands from man. And what does God’s command?
What is God’s will? It’s… it’s your sanctification and we know that starts at salvation. It’s progressively throughout your life and it ends in in perfect of salvation. Sanctification is when you are when you receive the glorified body. You have no more presence of sin in your life! That’s when you die. But God’s will, is that we should be growing in our devotedness towards God becoming more and more morally pure. We learned that and – I think was versus 3. This is the will of God, your sanctification and then he describes that sanctification with four points.
We learned #1. We need to abstain from sexual morality. Sexual morality is the term porneia where we get the modern term pornography from. But he’s talking about all forms of sexual sin outside of the boundaries of marriage. Abstain like a ship when he sees the rocks and he’s going to drive into that. You turn away. You turn that ship away from anything like that. That will tempt you.
Second principle is you need to know how to control your body. We realized our bodies are… are not ours. It’s meant for the Lord. It’s the temple of the Holy Spirit was bought with the price to be to use our bodies to glorify God. We are to put to death the deeds in the body by the Holy Spirit. We’re not allowed to sin to, to be reigning in our bodies, and we to present the members of our body as an instrument of righteousness. We’re to be setting our minds on the things above, setting our minds on the things of the spirit. And we to do this how?
By walking by the spirit, which means we are relying on the Holy Spirit. We are trusting in him. We’re trusting in his word. We’re following the scriptures. We’re thinking about Christ and we walking and yieldedness moment by moment. Second by second, thought by thought to motion by motion, decision by decision and yielded. Access to the spirit of God. It’s tough. Because your flesh is constantly pulling you away. But if you. Are following in walking and wilderness towards the spirit. You won’t gratify the desires of the flesh. Galatians 5:16 promises that to us. So, there’s the abstaining. There’s the controlling of your body, and then there’s not being controlled by your flesh. Or by the passions of the flesh, like the unbelievers. Like the Gentiles, the and the Gentiles. Here the ethnos is used, not for the non-Jewish because Paul is addressing Gentiles. He’s talking about the unbelievers, those who do not know God. That’s what he was talking about there. So not in the passions of your flesh. That’s first five like the Gentiles who do not know God.
And then the 4th principle was don’t sin against your brother or sister. You need to realize that this is a sin not just against your own body, but it impacts others. A venereal diseases…. South Africa’s got one of the highest rates, I think in terms of… of… of getting HIV on the moment. And why is that a reality?
Because people are ignoring God’s word, God’s standards. And then…. basically, what we’ve discovered so far is we understand, OK, this is your will for our lives. That we be sanctified, that we pursue moral purity, we pursue this deeper devotion with God. And I think this morning we’re asking this question why?
Why should I follow God’s will in this area?
Because it’s always important that we get the motivation, the hot reason. So why pursue A deeper devotion to God and a deeper commitment towards moral purity?
And so, let’s go back to our passage and gonna read the whole passage again, cause in a sense, it’s one sermon. But we’re focusing like now on verses 6B through eight. But just to give us the full scope of this passage.