Wrestle with Your Vessel
1 Thess. 4:1-8
When I was a young boy growing up one of the television
programs I enjoyed watching was wrestling on Saturday mornings. After the
wrestlers would make their grand entrance into the ring, they would lock arms
with each other as they matched brute force. Some of them seemed to be superior
to others, and they had their own signature moves. It appeared as though some
of the popular wrestlers could find a way to come out victorious, but it was
still a struggle as they were wrestling with another strong man.
Have you ever stopped to think about something that we
wrestle with on a daily basis? Paul writes in his first letter to the
Thessalonians about a wrestling match that occurs with our bodies. Here is what
he tells them:
Finally then, brethren, we request
and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that, as you received from us instruction as
to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that
you may excel still more. For you know what commandments we gave you by the
authority of the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification;
that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know to
possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion,
like the Gentiles who do not know God; and that no man transgress and defraud
his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things,
just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. For God as not called
us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. Consequently, he who
rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you
(1 Thess. 4:1-8).
Let us examine this passage where Paul talks about the
importance of sexual sanctification. Every day you’ve got to wrestle with your
vessel, which is your body. Don’t give in to the temptations that Satan puts in
front of you so that you are using your body for your own purposes and not for
God’s.
The Commandments of Sanctification
The Thessalonians were given these commandments to be
sanctified by the authority of the Lord Jesus (2). These were not opinions from
Paul; they were not suggestions from Silas and Timothy; they were commandments
from the Lord. Paul defines this aspect of sanctification as abstaining from
sexual immorality (3). We know that the Bible is full of teaching about
sanctification, especially pertaining to self-control and sexual purity.
God designed sex in the confines of the marriage
relationship (Gen. 1:24). When we see the first union of the man and woman in
the Garden of Eden, the relationship was to include leaving (father and
mother), cleaving (to the woman) and becoming one flesh (sexual). Let’s just go
ahead and say it; that is a great part of marriage. However, man eventually
took this sexual act outside of the marriage bond which was a corruption. We
see sexual immorality as a result of something that occurs when anyone other
than a husband and wife participate together.
Paul says to abstain from sexual immorality. The word that
is translated as fornication in the
KJV or here in the NASB as sexual
immorality is the word that is an umbrella term for all illicit sexual
activity[1].
In order to be sexually sanctified, we’ve got to show some self-control. Paul
preached about self-control when he was speaking to Felix in Acts 24:25. He
showed that abstaining from sexual immorality is a must, as we see documented
in the passage we are studying. He goes on to write that self-control is a
fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:23). Going back before anything Paul would
document, Jesus said that to be a disciple of His we must deny ourselves, take
up our cross daily and follow Him (Lk. 9:23). Denying ourselves and taking up
our cross daily have to do with a daily death to self, where we are going to
put the Lord as our first priority. Someone who doesn’t practice sexual
sanctification is doing what is pleasing to his/her own body. Paul makes it clear
that it is the will of God that we be sanctified.
The Complications of Sanctification
You’ve heard the phrase “it’s easier said than done!”
Knowing that we are to remain sexually sanctified and remaining sexually
sanctified are two different things. It’s a complicated scenario because we
know what we’re supposed to do, but we don’t always do it. The Thessalonians
were supposed to know how to possess their own vessel. Their vessels are their
bodies. We are the ones who make the decisions of what we are going to do with
our bodies. Allen Tilley, a former elder at West 7th, told me on
several occasions that he referred to someone doing something wrong as operator
error. The last time I checked we are responsible for our own actions. We are
put in situations where we have to make our own choices. The flesh is a strong
desire and we have to decide if we are going to give in or resist the
temptations which are in front of us.
Why are sexual temptations such a complicated matter? John
writes about the things that are not from the Father but from the world: “the
lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life” (1
Jn. 2:16). Willard Collins used to refer to these as the three bullets of
Satan. At least two of these can be applied to sexual temptations, and maybe
even all three. Satan tempted Eve (Gen. 3:1ff) and Jesus (Mt. 4 &LK. 4)
with all three of these areas, so think about how powerful it can be on us when
sexual temptations come at us from possibly all of these angles. It truly gets
complicated to try to wrestle with our vessel while we attempt to remain
sanctified in this area of our lives.
The good news is we know there is a way out of any
temptation. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:13: “No temptation has overtaken you but
such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be
tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way
of escape also, that you may be able to endure it.” Wrestlers are sometimes put
in a particular hold to force them to give up, but there are ways out. You can
either find a way to break the hold your opponent has on you, or you grab the
rope that surrounds the ring. Therein lays the complication of sanctification:
do we give in to these temptations or do we practice self-control by abstaining
from sexual immorality and thereby submitting to God and resisting the Devil
(Jas. 4:7)?
The Consequences of Sanctification
I was watching The
Lion King with Caroline the other day, and you might remember the scene
where Mufasa has to teach Simba a lesson for deliberately disobeying his direct
orders not to go beyond the boundaries of the kingdom. Though he was in trouble
for his disobedience, Mufasa tells Simba that it could have been much worse by
resulting in death from the hyenas that attacked them. There are always
consequences to our actions.
In this case with what Paul tells the Thessalonians, there
are consequences for those who reject the teachings on sexual sanctification.
If they rejected what Paul taught, it was ultimately God who gives His Holy Spirit
to them (8). Think about what can possibly happen when we don’t practice sexual
sanctification: babies can be born out of wedlock, sexually transmitted
diseases can be spread, homes can be broken apart, etc. These things don’t
always happen, but God is still being rejected, especially when children of God
who have the indwelling Holy Spirit deliberately disobey the Lord’s
instructions.
Sometimes we will hear people say “it’s my body, I’ll do
what I want with it.” Those of us who are Christians need to understand the
falsity of that statement. We are told by Paul:
Flee immorality. Every other sin
that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his
own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who
is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have
been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body (1 Cor. 6:18-20).
Knowing what Christ did on our behalf by going to the cross
should be a reminder for us that Christ purchased the church with His own blood
(Acts 20:28).
I used to teach a Bible Class at a local assisted living
home. I would ask one of the ladies, “How do, Sue?” To which she would reply “I
do as I please!” We need to understand that we have to wrestle with our vessel
to make sure we can stay sexually sanctified. Sanctification is commanded; this
comes by the authority of the Lord Jesus. Sanctification is complicated; it is
a daily struggle to fight against the temptations of Satan. Sanctification has
consequences; don’t be found guilty of rejecting God who gives us His Holy
Spirit. Paul said “...I buffet my body and make it my slave, lest possibly,
after I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified” (1 Cor.
9:27). He also said “...so now present your members as slaves to righteousness,
resulting in sanctification” (Rom. 6:19). Let’s make sure those of us who are
members of the church belonging to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ are
practicing sexual sanctification; wrestle with your vessel so that you’ll
maintain self-control and run in a way to win the prize.
[1]
Earl D. Edwards, 1 & 2 Thessalonians,
Truth for Today Commentary (Searcy, AR: Resource, 2008), 123.
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