1 Thessalonians 4:3 says, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification.” Sanctification is God’s will for every child of His.
1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 discusses sanctification in its negative form. By 'negative,' I mean actions we must avoid if we want to be sanctified. God’s will is our sanctification, and to be sanctified, we must refrain from certain behaviors. These forbidden actions include sexual immorality, pursuing fleshly desires, and taking advantage of or cheating others.
As we continue through 1 Thessalonians 4, verses 9 through 12 address sanctification in a positive light. By positive, I mean things we must do to be sanctified, which is God’s will for us.
In the first verse of chapter 4, the writers say, “We urge and exhort you in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more.” In verse 10, they repeat this call to abound more and more.
Just as we must eliminate the things that destroy sanctification from our lives, we must seek to increase the things that build sanctification.
Let me show you what I mean.
Think of your life as a garden. Imagine a garden with me. You want your garden to have beautiful, healthy plants. So, you plant your choices. Some of you might plant corn and tomatoes, while others might plant violets, lilies, and daffodils. But, alas, weeds appear. Weeds grow everywhere. These are strong, healthy weeds. So you pull the weeds, hoe the weeds, and spray the weeds. Yay! You are a great gardener, but if you don’t water the plants you want to grow, they will die.
Weeding is cutting out the things we do not want, while watering is increasing the things we want. 1 Thessalonians 4, verses 3 through 8, tell us what weeds need to be cut out, and verses 9 through 12 tell us what plants need to be cultivated.
There is only one plant that we need to cultivate: love. The Apostle Paul urges us to abound more and more in brotherly love.
In verse 9, Paul says,
1 Thessalonians 4:9 (NKJV) But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another;
God commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and we are also told that love does no wrong to a neighbor.
Romans 13:10 (NKJV) Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love [is] the fulfillment of the law.
In 1 Thessalonians, we see that God teaches us to love one another. How does this work? And what has God taught us?
Let’s take a closer look.
In 1 John 4:8, John writes:
1 John 4:8 (NKJV) He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
If we know God, we will know how to love. Therefore, we need to study diligently to know God. This is the quest for our everyday lives.
If we want to know what love is, we find love in God. 1John 3:16 tells us.
1 John 3:16 (NIV) This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
We must be careful not to make a mistake when we interpret this. It is easy to think that if we are willing to lay down our lives, that is love. But being willing to lay down our lives is not what this is saying. This verse does not say Jesus was willing to lay down His life. This verse says He LAID DOWN His life.
The next thing it says is: “We ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” This verse is talking about LAYING DOWN our lives. It is not talking about thinking about it or being willing to do it.
How then are we to lay down our lives?
Consider Jesus' example, as explained in Philippians 2.
Philippians 2:5-8 (NKJV) 5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, [and] coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to [the point of] death, even the death of the cross.
These verses give a lot of information. We first see that love is part of a mindset that does not prioritize self over others. And next, we see that Jesus obeyed God, and His obedience was absolute. Philippians 2:8 says He was obedient to the point of death.
When Jesus spoke with His disciples about love, He said:
John 14:15 (NKJV) “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”
John 14:21 (NKJV) “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me...”
John 14:23 (NKJV) Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word…”
John 15:13-14 (NKJV) 13 “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14 “You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.
We see that love and obedience are tied together. Now consider that the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God. It should be obvious that if we love God above all else, we will obey Him.
We lay down our lives in our obedience. Whether we die or not is not the issue. Our will is the issue. Will we, like Jesus, say “Not my will, but Thine be done?”
So, our love for God is more than just an emotion. Our love for God is the shape and substance of our lives. Our love for God is devotion, determination, and strength.
If we go back to where we started, you will recall that we are urged to increase in brotherly love. If I lay down my life for God by obeying Him, do I lay down my life for my friend by obeying them?
Obviously not! My obedience is to God.
Once again, this question is best answered by Philippians 2, where Paul says:
Philippians 2:3-5 (NKJV) 3 [Let] nothing [be done] through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. 4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. 5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,
By looking out for the interests of others, we love them. This is a deliberate act of our will, not based on how we feel.
But there is also great danger in looking out for the interest of others because of our flesh. Our flesh wants to take over the lives of others. Our feelings tell us they are making a mess of themselves, and we must help.We try to fix or correct. Running other people’s lives is bad, bad, bad. But running other people’s lives is precisely what our flesh does.
For this reason, 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 says:
1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 (NKJV) 11 that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, 12 that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and [that] you may lack nothing.
“Mind your own business, and to work with your own hands.”
It rarely works out well when we make decisions for others.
Making others’ decisions for them works about as well as the government making decisions for us.
Let me show you how well it works.
How does it work out when the government tells farmers how and what to plant? Oh, I don’t know. Let’s look at history.
All these people died because the government thought it knew better what and how the farmers should plant.
I used ChatGPT to look up these numbers because I couldn’t remember them on my own. Similar results have been observed in non-communist countries, but the ones listed are among the most dramatic.
I will give you another example.
For several years, I worked for an international company and learned how frustrating it can be when someone on the East Coast makes decisions for people living in Kansas. And it doesn't work out any better when Washington makes our decisions for us.
It is the same when we try to make decisions for others. We can encourage. We can exhort. We can teach. But we cannot run other people’s lives, not even our spouses’. The closer we are to another, the more encouragement or advice we can give them, but we cannot decide for them.
Trying to run someone’s life because of our great concern for them is not love. It is the flesh, and it never works.
This fleshly reality is why the exhortation to grow in love is accompanied with the exhortation to take responsibility for ourselves and to mind our own business.
If we love God and obey Him completely, this will never be a problem.
Today, as Paul has urged us, let’s determine to live in love, giving our hearts and minds to God in obedience.
Are you ready to put God’s will before your own?
Let’s make it our goal to live out Philippians 2.
Philippians 2:3-8 (NKJV) 3 [Let] nothing [be done] through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. 4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. 5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, [and] coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to [the point of] death, even the death of the cross.
