This coming January, I will be teaching a course on Christian Ethics. Some of you have taken the course. I invite others who have not to consider taking it.
Ethics deals with what is morally right and wrong to do. Christian Ethics deals with the way Christians ought to act. For Christians, of course, the moral compass of what is right and wrong comes from the ethos, the character, of Jesus Christ. It all seems so simple. But many Christians struggle with making morally correct decisions because Christ is only part of their life, not the center of their life. Much of their life before they accepted Christ remains intact, including the morals associated with the old life. Often, their lives as Christians are not guided by Christ as much as they are guided by the way their parents or close friends live their lives.
The Apostle Paul saw that ethics was going to be an important matter for the early church. This was a particular concern for Gentiles who had accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Why more so for the Gentiles than the Jews? It is for this reason. The Jewish people who became Christians had a historical understanding of proper ethics through the knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures, what we would call the Old Testament. God set the foundation of Jewish ethics. Throughout the Old Testament, God spoke to set Israel apart from all other nations and to act differently. The transition to Christian Ethics for the Jewish people would not be overly dramatic. However, for the Gentiles, those who grew up under Greek and Roman influences, ethics were not established as an extension of religious beliefs as was for the Jewish people. Gentile ethics came from philosophies of man. Philosophies are changeable and influenced by popular beliefs or cultural trends; for example, at the time of Paul, Gentile ethics built upon philosophies that gave fathers absolute life-and-death authority over their wives, their children at any age, and enslaved people. Fathers could take their own babies who were sickly or whom the family could not afford, especially girls, leave them outside exposed to the elements to die, or to be taken by slave traders. Philosophies of men, not the teachings of God, determined the ethics of the non-Jewish people or Gentiles.
Now, we might think that was then, and this is now. Humanity has evolved and progressed beyond such crude ethics. But here is the truth. Largely, ethics today is still set either by the Word of God or by the philosophies of humanity. The Word of God has not changed, but the philosophies of humanity are always changing and are influenced by the culture. But the crudeness of philosophies remains. Consider just a couple of modern ethical philosophies that are in play.
Utilitarianism. This view argues that "personhood" (the capacity to feel pain, think, and plan for the future) is what matters, not biological human life. Consequently, an unborn fetus, a newborn baby, or a patient in a permanent vegetative state is considered to have less moral value than a mature, healthy non-human animal. You might say, but does such a thought have any real place in the ethics of any modern society? Consider our neighbors to the north, Canada. In Canada, 5% of all deaths are by euthanasia, now administered to terminally ill people but will soon be expanded. Recently, an 85-year-old Canadian priest was brought to the hospital. He was healthy other than that he had fallen and broken his hip. He needed a hip replacement. Twice, hospital staff met with the man, trying to encourage him to let them euthanize him instead. Why? Because the staff believed he had outlived his usefulness. Today, he could say, “No.” In the future, the ability of others with similar conditions to say “No” is unlikely.
Antinatalism. Today, this is a fringe philosophy that believes it is immoral and unethical to have a child because the child cannot consent to being born, that all human existence involves suffering, and that humans add to the carbon footprint leading to the extinction of the planet. Surveys show that as many as 30% of all young Americans express some hesitation about having children for such reasons.
I share the contemporary philosophies not as a means of providing a lecture, but rather to show that cultural ethics present in the first century and those of today were and are built upon changeable philosophies that are in stark contrast to Biblical ethics. Christian ethics then and now are built upon the unchanging Word of God. Paul, in his letter to the Thessalonians, as well as other letters, sought to illuminate Christian ethics and behaviors necessary to live a life worthy of the calling placed on the Christian’s life. And here in this letter, Paul hints that while he was in Thessalonica, there were some things about walking in faith he did not have the opportunity to share with the Thessalonians, or were not being strictly followed. Paul wrote, “9 For what thanksgiving can we return to God for you, for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God, 10 as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith?’ (1 Thessalonians 3:9-10).
It would seem with that sense of lacking in mind, Paul wrote, “1 Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk [ethics] and to please God. (1 Thessalonians 4:1a)...”3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 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; 6 that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. 7 For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness” (1 Thessalonians 4:3-7). Here, as we read Scripture, there comes a very important point. If we did a person-on-the-street interview and stopped 100 people and asked them what this piece of Scripture is all about, I would believe that about 99 of those 100 people would say it is Paul talking about the need to abstain from sexual immorality and avoid lust. They would do so because they would focus on the imperatives, the commands, the “don’t do this” that Paul laid out. But reading the text in this manner would be very incomplete and would be most like reading Scripture as a piece of philosophy. Reading the text this way would leave out the most important part of the message, namely, what has been revealed about God.
Paul began this passage with an indicative. An indicative statement reveals God and gives the reason for God’s commands, the imperative. Paul began this passage with a revelation: “3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification (hagiasmos)” (1 Thessalonians 4:3a).
Paul was revealing the mind of God. He said this is God’s will. God’s will is the very heart of God, His unchangeable desire. Paul said it was the heart of God that each person would be sanctified. Paul used the word hagiasmos to describe sanctification. Sanctification or holiness is a state of being fully conformed to the image of His Son. The passage contains the imperatives, the commands, but it begins with and ends with the indicative, the revelation of the will of God. For in verse 7, Paul finishes with, “7 For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness (hagiasmos)” (1 Thessalonians 4:7). So this passage is not so much about do’s and don’ts as it is about God’s desire that each person be moved to holiness. The commands are a means of correcting a specific shortcoming Paul likely observed rather than the central focus of the message. This is an important point because too many people might be inclined to say Paul’s words have no application to their lives because they do not see themselves as being sexually immoral. That was the specific example Paul cited because for the Gentiles in the church who had followed ethics based on philosophy, appropriate sexual behavior was much more expansive than Christian ethics seeking to show forth the holiness of God. For example, men were expected to marry and have children by their wives, but were also free to have sexual relations at will with prostitutes and enslaved women. To continue this culturally accepted behavior as a Christian would be a problem in fulfilling the indicative statement that it is the will of God, your sanctification.
What then do we take from Paul’s words to the Thessalonians? I think there are two things. Not surprisingly, those two things are the indicative and the imperative.
The indicative, as Paul said, is that it is the will of God that we would be sanctified or made holy. What then practically does this mean for us? I think there are three things.
First, we must choose the way we will live our lives. Upon what will our ethics, our everyday behaviors, be based? Will they be based upon the unchangeable Word of God or upon the philosophies of humanity? It sounds simple to say, “Pastor, I choose to follow the Word of God, not some philosophies?” But the hard part is: to choose God’s Word, we must also be willing to push back against the forces of culture that tell our children and us to do otherwise. So, yes, if we are to be Christians in the fullest sense of that word, then we must choose to live in accordance with God’s Word. That is the first step.
Second. Having chosen to follow God’s Word, we have to live a biblically informed life, meaning we have to read the Word of God to know what leads to holiness. That has less to do with searching the Bible for things you are not supposed to do. It has more to do with understanding from the Bible what you are to do. And fortunately, God understands that we learn more by example than any other way. Our example of living and leaning to holiness was best exemplified by the way Jesus lived. To move toward holiness is to imitate Christ. We must be informed about how Jesus lived. He lived. His “Yes” meant “Yes” and His “No” meant “No.” He came to serve, not to be served. He prayed privately, and occasionally publicly, but never for personal gain, but always for conforming his life to the will of the Father. Jesus did not shy away from controversy. He stood fast for rightness and holiness even when the people, even his own family, would have rather he joined them or remained silent. Jesus walked in holiness, and if we want to fulfill the will of God, then we too must walk in the way of Christ.
Third. We need to understand the indicative, the truth of God’s desire for us to be holy. God’s will is not born out of some sense of watching us struggle to achieve a standard only Jesus ever met. God’s will is born out of love for us, and his desire that we would be in fellowship with Him. God’s will is born out of love for those who do not know him, and his desire that we could let God shine through us to those people. Why? Because God loves all the people and wishes none would be lost. So our motivation for seeking to do God’s will should not be born out of obligation but out of a reciprocal love for God.
So our first point deals with understanding the indicative—God’s revelation for our life. God wants us to follow His Word, not human philosophies. He wants us to imitate His Son in our pursuit of holiness. And He wants us to know that He loves us and to seek His will as the clearest expression of our love for Him.
What then is the second point? It is the imperative, the commands. There are commands that God has given us as guardrails to keep us from injury, whether that injury is physical, moral, or spiritual. Paul spoke in today’s passage about improper sexual behaviors needing to be corrected. Sexual behaviors considered improper by God’s Word still abound in society even though fewer behaviors are labeled as improper by human philosophy. If those improper behaviors are part of your life, Paul said, stop them now so that your life would conform to God’s will. But Paul used only one example. We, living a biblically informed life, need to examine our lives against God's other moral standards. So, for example, are we guilty of murder? Murder? Are we, as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, guilty of murder because of our anger toward another? Do we have other gods in our lives, such as our wealth or hobbies? Do we have jealousies that cause us to want what is not ours or speak ill of someone else who has what we want and obviously does not deserve it? What is it about our life that follows the ethics of culture? Whatever these things are, we must rid them from our lives. Think of it this way. If Paul were alive today, we would be getting a letter. What would Paul so easily cite in that letter that we know we must remove from our lives?
It is God’s will that we would be made holy because He is holy. He has done all the work for us to move toward holiness. He has given us His Word and His Son, the living word. He has given us apostles and evangelists to speak to us. He has given us the Holy Spirit to convict us and move us toward holiness. Now the choice remains ours. Move to please God or stand still for the faint and fickle applause of humanity. Let’s choose wisely. Amen and Amen.