The Full GospelSample

How the Gospel Changes Us // The Gospel According to Thessalonians

Near the end of 1 Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul provides some examples of how the gospel changes us and our whole lives. To begin, he tells us:

As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 4:1-2 NIV

The gospel changes what we want. One of the first things that changes when we encounter the good news of Jesus is a newfound desire to please God. For some people, they want to honor God and do things that God says are good. For others, they take seriously the calling to align their lives with what they had previously only claimed to believe.

No matter what, when we come face to face with the immeasurable grace of God, something deep within us changes. A longing comes to life to live for something greater than ourselves. Doing what everyone else does loses its appeal. Settling for less than what God offers stops satisfying us. Like we talked about a few days ago, God changes what we want and He enables us to do what we couldn’t do before.

For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. Philippians 2:13 NLT

The gospel changes who we are. God’s will is for us to become more like Jesus, through a process called “sanctification.” This is the lifelong journey of becoming holy and becoming the kind of person who loves God and loves others the same way Jesus does.

It is God’s will that you should be sanctified … 1 Thessalonians 4:3 NIV

So, how do we do that? How do we partner with God in His good plans to change us from the inside out to be less of who we used to be and more of who we’re meant to be? Paul says:

It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. 1 Thessalonians 4:3-7 NIV

The gospel changes how we live. One of the things that set early followers of Jesus apart from the surrounding culture was the high value they placed on marriage and sexual purity. At the time of Paul’s writing, Roman society was littered with sexual immorality.

A question that many non-christians asked back then, and many still ask today, is, “Why does God care so much about what we do with our bodies?”
The answer: God cares about what we do with our bodies because God cares about us.

He knows what’s best for us, and He wants what’s best for us. This includes engaging in romantic love and navigating sexual relationships in a way that honors God instead of the sinful, selfish, and shallow practices of ancient and modern culture.

When we pledge our loyalty to King Jesus, we choose to trust that He knows what’s right and we choose to do what He commands. As followers of Jesus, this means we reserve sexual activity for the lifelong covenant between one man and one woman before God.

To close out today’s reading, we’ll look at one more example of how the gospel changes us.

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 NIV

The gospel changes how we grieve. Death is always tragic. It is always painful. The gospel doesn’t take away our grief, but it does change it because we have hope. We know that death does not get the final say. Jesus does. And in the same way that Jesus suffered and died for us, there will come a day when all who have “fallen asleep” in Him will rise again, just like He did.

This is how the gospel changes us. We are given new desires, a new identity, a new purpose, and a hope for the future that nothing in this world, not even death, can take from us.