成績單

Many years ago, the Winter Olympics had a surprise team qualify to compete in one of the featured sporting contests. They would become a rather famous bobsleigh team because they were from the country of Jamaica, a nation that does not have snow. So, here comes this bobsleigh team from a tropical nation, competing in a cold-weather sporting event.

As you would imagine, they did not win a medal. They did not even come close. They were happy to represent their country, but they were not satisfied coming in last. Through dedicated practice and special training, they improved through the years. And though they have never won an Olympic competition, they have finished ahead of other countries at times, including the United States, France, and Russia.

Beloved, you represent your home country of heaven. You might feel like you have entered a race you are not qualified for, but the Lord urges you to stay at it, to practice and to improve—to not just run your race, but to excel in every area possible.

As we set sail today into chapter 4 of 1 Thessalonians, Paul sounds like a coach for an Olympic team. He urges us on in our efforts to represent our home country well.

He begin the chapter with these words:

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. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. (verses 1-2)

The Thessalonians are following the teaching they have received about how they should “walk,” or live, to honor God. Now Paul is urging them to “do so more and more.” The idea is to excel as Christians in their testimony for Christ.

Paul gives us three areas where we can excel in life today. First is in the area of personal purity. Verse 3 introduces this by saying, “This is the will of God, your sanctification.”

The word translated “sanctification” can be translated “holiness,” as it is in verses 4 and later in verse 7. Sanctification basically means “set apart, or separated, to God.” Theologians call this progressive sanctification—that is daily, continuous growth in holiness, becoming more and more like Christ. It is a process that will be completed when we are glorified in His presence. But in the meantime, like any athlete who diligently practices his or her sport, we get a little better at it through commitment and discipline.

Paul writes that God’s will for us is to grow—to excel—in holiness, day by day. Holiness is not living without laughter or enjoying anything fun. Holiness is a life that avoids being disqualified through unrepentant sin.

That first bobsleigh team from Jamaica I mentioned earlier were eventually disqualified in their first Olympic competition because they made some errors that caused them to crash. Well, holiness is following God’s guidelines in order to avoid a moral crash.

This was Paul’s own personal concern when he wrote, “But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:27).

So, now Paul writes to the Thessalonians, giving them some of God’s guidelines for holy living, beginning again in verse 3:

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God. (verses 3-5)

Paul says you need to abstain from sexual immorality. And the verb tense for “abstain” here in verse 3 indicates an ongoing, constant commitment.

These Thessalonians were surrounded by what we could call a sexually saturated culture. And that is very much the culture we live in today, where selling everything from automobiles to toothpaste is put in a sexualized context.  

There is an unrelenting push today to normalize every possible sexual activity. Paul calls it all lustful passions. In other words, outside of God’s guidelines for sexual relations, people are simply going to use each other to try to satisfy their own selfish sexual desires. Everybody uses everybody; and everybody loses in the end.

Paul now offers three reasons to abstain from immorality. First, he says that sexual sin invites divine judgment. He writes in verse 6, “The Lord is an avenger in all these things.” This is not something God takes lightly. Back in the Old Testament, sexual immorality brought the death penalty in Israel. We do not live under the Mosaic law today in the dispensation of the New Testament. But while judgment might not fall immediately today, Paul reminds us that God’s judgment will fall eventually.

The world is approving what God is condemning. And what people today think they have a right to do in private will one day be exposed in the righteous judgment of God.

We find the second reason to follow God’s moral guidelines regarding sexual activity in verse 7: “God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.” Your calling in life, beloved, is not to see what you can get away with; it is to pursue what God is pleased with. And that is a life of integrity and excellence in how you relate to others.

Here is the third reason in verse 8, where Paul writes, “Whoever disregards this [moral guideline], disregards not man but God.” That is another serious reminder. To reject God’s moral design is to reject God—the moral Designer.

So, as you represent your home country in your race of faith, you need to excel in purity.

Second, Paul urges the Thessalonians—and us—to excel in love. He writes that the Thessalonians have already been “taught by God to love one another” (verse 9). He commends them for being a loving, caring church. However, Paul writes in the next verse, “We urge you, brothers, to do this more and more.” That is, keep practicing, and you will get better at it.

Next, Paul highlights a third area in which he wants us all to excel in life. We need to excel, not only in our purity and in our love, but also in our work. Paul writes, “Aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you” (verse 11).

Living quietly does not mean you cannot have a backyard barbeque where you and your kids make a lot of noise. It means living a life that is “peaceful, not turbulent.”[1] It means being content with what God has given you. So, Paul writes here, “Mind your own affairs”—fulfill your responsibilities.

Paul then adds in verse 11, “Work with your hands, as we instructed you.” Working with your hands—staying busy—is a biblical principle. Not only does honest work provide for yourself and your family; it also keeps you from being a burden to others. As Paul states in verse 12, the result is that you will “walk properly before outsiders [unbelievers] and be dependent on no one.”

Putting in an honest day’s work is a wonderful testimony to people who do not know what Christianity is about. If you show up at the job with a work ethic of excellence, you will be noticed. The way you work with your hands will be an attractive testimony to unbelievers. And it certainly honors your home country and your Lord.

So, let us excel in life today. How? Through a life marked by purity in our morals, by love in our actions, and by honest work before others. And remember, you never know who is watching you run your race of faith.