Compass Point Church

Unmasking Lust
1 Thess. 4:1-8

Intro: We don’t need to look very far to find evidence of the fact that lust is alive and pervasive today. It is a secret sin. People don’t speak about it much. But it is everywhere.
A recent billboard campaign in London by one online agency offered a dating service for married men and women who wanted to have an affair. The agency is by no means alone in this market. What was new was that they executed an extensive advertising campaign specifically on massive billboards next to motorways with the slogan, ‘The grass is always greener.’
Essentially, they were making money feeding on people’s weaknesses and helping them to engage in lust and be unfaithful. As has often been said, ‘The grass is not greener on the other side of the fence – it is greener where we water it.’ In fact, ‘If the grass looks greener, it’s probably AstroTurf

Marketing people know how to take advantage of sex appeal and lust and so we live in a culture obsessed with sexual enticement.

Here’s part of the problem: God created us to have the complex emotions of anger, pride, and envy, but sin ruined these emotions and desires and twisted them and deformed them into all sorts of abuses.

This sin of lust which is desire gone awry effects everyone. Sadly, there is no magic pill or protection against it. We see that even King David, a man God called, “A man after God’s own Heart”, fell to the sin of lust after Bathsheba and that led to the murder of her husband.

And just in case you are thinking that you have never engaged in adultery. Remember what Jesus said to those in His day that were thinking those thoughts.
ON SCREEN: Matthew 5:28 (NIV)
28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

And before we bemoan the fact that we live in a sex obsessed culture and that we have it so hard, we find in our Scripture today that Paul is writing to the church in Thessalonica and it helps a bit to know the culture there.

if anything, the utterly pagan Greco-Roman culture he ministered in was more sexually perverse than contemporary Western culture, which for centuries has had the beneficial influence of Christianity on its institutions. Thessalonica was Greco-Roman city that was rife with such sinful practices as fornication, adultery, homosexuality (including pedophilia), transvestism, and a wide variety of pornographic and erotic perversions, all done with a seared conscience and society's acceptance, hence with little or no accompanying shame or guilt. Unlike people in Western nations today, the Thessalonians grew up with no Christian tradition to support laws and standards that forbid the grosser manifestations of immorality. Pagan Greek society apparently did not have civil laws to prohibit immoral behavior.

For the Thessalonians, then, sexual sin was more customary and more tolerated than it is even by today's standards. Paul, as their pastor, was concerned enough to begin the exhortation portion of this epistle with commands regarding immoral conduct.

Turn To: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 (ESV)

I. What Does God Say About Lust?
Lust is broader than just sexuality. We just see it most readily in sexuality. People do lust for power, like coveting. Desire is good. We can desire many good things including God. But desire gone bad is typically called lust and according to our primary passage today we can define lust as ON SCREEN: “a sexual desire that dishonors its object and disregards God.”

I Thess. 4: 4-5 - that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, 5 not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God;

A. Lust is the opposite of holiness and honor.
Notice that these verses say to do something one way but not another way. Control your body/vessel) “in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust.” Do you see the contrast: “in holiness and honor not in the passion of lust.” So the passion of lust is the opposite of holiness and honor. That’s where we get the definition of lust from this passage.

Sexual desire in itself is good. God made it in the beginning. It has its proper place. God created us with sexual drive. He commanded Adam and Eve, the first man and woman to go and be fruitful and multiply. He put in them a hunger and passion for each other to enjoy sexuality and reproduce abundantly.

But it was made to be governed or regulated or guided by two concerns: honor toward the other person and holiness toward God. Lust is what that sexual desire becomes when that honor and that holiness are missing from it.

B. Lust dishonors its object.
Take honor, for instance. God established a relationship called marriage. In it a man and a woman make a life-long covenant to honor each other with faithfulness and love. Sexual desire becomes the servant and the spice of that covenant bond of mutual honor.
Therefore, to say to another person, I want you to satisfy my sexual desire, but I do not want you as a covenant partner in marriage basically means: I want to use your body for my pleasure, but as a whole person I don’t want you. And that is dishonoring and therefore lustful. Lust is sexual desire minus a commitment to honor the other person.

C. Lust disregards God.
But that’s not all. The text says, control your body “in holiness . . . not in the passion of lust.” Holiness has to do with God — being set apart for God. So verse 5 goes on like this: “Not in the passion of lust like heathen who do not know God.”
Knowing God and acting like it keeps sexual desire from becoming lust. Look at verse 8: “Therefore whoever disregards this call for holiness, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.” The root issue in lust is regard for God. Holiness is living in supreme regard for a holy God.
Lust is the opposite. Lust is sexual desire which is not regulated or governed or guided by a supreme regard for God.
God created sexuality. He created it good and beautiful. He created it for the good of his creatures. He alone has the wisdom and the right to show us how to use it for his glory and our good. Lust is what that sexual desire becomes when we give it free rein in disregard for God.

In summary then, lust is a sexual desire that dishonors its object and disregards God. It’s the corruption of a good thing by the absence of honorable commitment and by the absence of a supreme regard for God. If your sexual desire is not guided by respect for the honor of others and regard for the holiness of God, it is lust.

TRANS: That’s the definition. Now the next issue is so what? Why is this a big deal? Isn’t sexual sin, especially when it’s just a desire and not an act, sin with a little “s”? Shouldn’t we get on with the big issues like nuclear arms and social justice and opposing corporate greed.
Sleeping around is simply not that big of a deal compared with other concerns. Flipping through Playboy or checking out certain websites is utterly insignificant if you are on your way to peace talks in Geneva and the bigger sins of our world.

That is the way the religious human mind reasons when a supreme regard for God has been forsaken. But that is not what God has said. What is God’s estimate of how important your sexual life is? Is it a big deal?

II.There Is Great Danger In The Sin Of Lust.
Verse 6 says, “that no man transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we solemnly forewarned you.”
This means that the consequences of lust are going to be worse than the consequences of nuclear war. All that nuclear war can do is kill the body. And Jesus said, ON SCREEN: “Do not fear those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear. Fear him who after he has killed has power to cast into hell” (Luke 12:4–5).
In other words, God’s vengeance is much more fearful than earthly annihilation. And according to 1 Thessalonians 4:6 God’s vengeance is coming upon those who disregard the warning against lust.

Lust has Eternal implications for our us.
The ultimate consequences of lust are worse than the consequences of nuclear warfare.

ON SCREEN: Matthew 5:28–29 Jesus says, “Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.”

Jesus here is saying that heaven and hell are at stake in what you do with your eyes and with the thoughts of your imagination.
What does this mean for eternal security? Can a Christian who is addicted to porn, or involved in adultery, or practicing some other sexual sin lose his salvation?

I believe there is only one unforgivable sin, denying Jesus Christ. That is the only sin God can’t forgive. But what do we do with these Biblical threats against living in sin?
ILL. A Pastor I read about this week got an interesting response a few years ago when he confronted a man about the adultery he was presently living in. He tried to understand his situation and pled with him to return to his wife. Then he said, “You know Jesus says that if you don’t fight this sin with the kind of seriousness that is willing to gouge out your own eye, you will go to hell and suffer there forever.”
He looked at the pastor in utter disbelief, as though he had never heard anything like this in his life, and said, “You mean you think a person can lose his salvation?”

The truth is that there are many professing Christians who have a view of salvation that disconnects it from real life, and that nullifies the warnings of the Bible and puts the sinning person who claims to be a Christian beyond the reach of biblical threats. And this doctrine is comforting thousands on the way to hell. We simply cannot ignore these Biblical threats against such sin.
Jesus said, if you don’t fight lust, you won’t go to heaven.
The stakes are much higher than whether the world is blown up by a thousand bombs. If you don’t fight lust, you won’t go to heaven. That is a battle we are called to fight.

ALL THREE ON SCREEN:
1 Peter 2:11 (NIV)
11 Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.

Galatians 5:19-21 (NIV)
19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (NIV)
9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

TRANS: So we see that living in lust, unwilling to fight against it. Believing that we can be saved and continue in sexual immorality with no consequences from God is a fatal mistake of eternal significance. Such living begs the question of whether someone is truly saved. Can a believer who has tasted the goodness of the Gospel live in such sin without a fight? The good news is we can win the battle!

III.We Can Learn To Win Over Lust.
A. Realize that we are both saved and sanctified by faith.
The great error today is found in Christians believing that faith in God is one thing and the fight for holiness is another thing. Faith gets you to heaven and holiness gets you rewards. You get your justification by faith, and you get your sanctification by works. You start the Christian life in the power of the Spirit, “not by works so no one can boast,” and then you press on in the efforts of the flesh. This is the great evangelical error of our day. The battle for obedience is optional, they say, because only faith is necessary for salvation.

The truth is we are saved by faith — by believing in Jesus Christ. We are told repeatedly that those who persevere in faith shall be saved.

ON SCREEN: Matthew 24:12-13 (NIV)
Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold,13 but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.

ON SCREEN: Matthew 10:22 (NIV)
22 All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.

ON SCREEN: 1 Corinthians 15:2 (NIV)
2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

We are saved by faith in God and that same faith results in godliness as we stand firm. As we fight the good fight of faith!

ON SCREEN: 1 Timothy 6:11-12 (ESV)
11 But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

B. We must choose to obey God by faith. (1Tim. 4:7-8)
The fight for sexual purity is the fight of faith. It is a choice we can make. It is a conscious decision we can work at and train ourselves to live out our faith in purity and holiness and godliness.

ILL. Like playing sports, or a musical instrument.

TURN TO: 1 Timothy 4:7-8 (NIV)
7 Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives' tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. 8 For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.

Training ourselves means work and choosing to fight the good fight by faith and perseverance and standing firm against temptations.

ILL. In his book The Obedience Option, David Hegg illustrates what he calls "overwhelming faith." Hegg was talking to a young man who claimed that he couldn't stop his pattern of sleeping with different women. The young man knew it was wrong, but he also claimed that his sexual lust was inevitable. Therefore, it wasn't his fault, especially since God had created him with such strong desires and urges.
Finally, Hegg interrupted the young man and said, "Suppose that I came into your room and caught you and your girlfriend as you were just starting this 'inevitable' process." Suppose I took out ten one-hundred-dollar bills, and told you that they were yours if you [stopped]. What would you do?"
When the young man quickly said that he'd rather have the cash, Hegg asked, "So what happened to the irresistible force of lust?"
Then Hegg concluded:
We both realized a very simple truth: one passion may seem irresistible until a greater passion comes along …. If we take this principle into the arena of righteous living, it comes out like this: the only way to overcome a passion for sin is with an overwhelming passion for righteousness. This overwhelming passion for righteousness is actually a mindset and a choice that the Bible calls faith. Here is a helpful definition of this kind of overwhelming faith: Faith is a life-dominating conviction that all God has for me through obedience is better by far than anything Satan can offer me through selfishness and sin.

C. We overcome lust as we develop our knowledge of God. (1Thess. 4:5)

In verse 5 Paul says, “ . . . not in the passion of lust like heathen [i.e., the Gentiles] who do not know God.” Do you see what that implies about the root of lust? Not knowing God is the root cause of lust. Take control your body not in the passion of lust because that is what people do who don’t know God.
Paul doesn’t mean that mere head knowledge about God overcomes lust. In Mark 1:24 Jesus is about to cast a demon out of a man when the unclean spirit cries out, “I know who you are, the Holy One of God!”
In other words, Satan and his hosts have some very accurate knowledge of God and Jesus, but that is not the kind of knowledge Paul has in mind here.

The knowledge he has in mind here is knowledge of God described in ON SCREEN: 2 Corinthians 4:6 — “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ”
It is the knowledge of God’s greatness and worth and glory and grace and power. It’s knowledge that stuns you, and humbles you. It’s knowledge that wins you and holds you.
It’s the kind of knowledge that you don’t have when you say ho-hum during the Hallelujah Chorus or grumble on the rim of the Grand Canyon. Hearing they do not hear and seeing they do not see. It’s not that kind of knowledge

It’s the knowledge we call faith — the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen.
It’s a knowledge that is so real, so precious, so satisfying to your soul, that any thought, any attitude, any emotion, any addiction which threatens to hinder this knowledge will be attacked with all the spiritual zeal of a threatened life. This is the fight of faith that rages in the godly soul when lust lures the mind away from God.
And it is in fighting that battle to the death that we see God!
D. The pure shall see God.
I close with an illustration from an article in Leadership (Fall 1982). It was unsigned, but written by a preacher who for ten years was in bondage to lust. He tells the story of what finally released him. It is such a resounding confirmation of what I am trying to say that I want to quote the key paragraph.
He ran across a book by Francois Mauriac, What I Believe. In it Mauriac admitted how the plague of guilt had not freed him from lust. He concludes that there is one powerful reason to seek purity, the one Christ gave in the Beatitudes: ON SCREEN Matt. 5:8 - “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
The thought hit me like a bell rung in a dark, silent hall. So far, none of the scary, negative arguments against lust had succeeded in keeping me from it . . . But here was a description of what I was missing by continuing to harbor lust: I was limiting my own intimacy with God. The love he offers is so transcendent and possessing that it requires our faculties to be purified and cleansed before we can possibly contain it. Could he, in fact, substitute another thirst and another hunger for the one I had never filled? Would Living Water somehow quench lust? That was the gamble of faith. (p. 43–44)
It was not a gamble. You can’t lose when you turn to God. He discovered this in his own life, and the lesson he learned is absolutely right:
The way to fight lust is to feed faith with the knowledge of an irresistibly glorious God.
Do you know God this morning? Are you growing week by week in the knowledge of God’s greatness? Do you meditate on his Word day and night? Do you ponder the pictures of his Son in the gospels? Do you read solid books about his character and his ways? Do you look at everything in your day as his creation? Do you pray for a sensitive heart that can be ravished by the revelation of his glory?
I call you to make those commitments now for the sake of your own soul and for the glory of God.