Pastor Ben Smith preaches from 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12 on how growing in brotherly love transforms your relationship with the saints, the direction of your life, and your testimony before the world. The transformation of the gospel has both a restrictive and empowering effect on your life. In the previous verse (1-8), the Bible declares that the transforming work of God in the lives of true Christians is to cause you to abstain from sexual immorality. Most read this only as something restrictive. However, in verse 4, the Bible teaches that Christians are able to abstain from sexual immorality because, through the empowerment of God, Christians have mastery over their bodies and are no longer controlled by the passion of lust like the world (5).

Building on this, verses 9-12 declare that the transforming work of God in the lives of true Christians enables you to love one another and that this love transforms everything about your life. This passage identifies three ways brotherly love transforms your life.

God’s will for your sanctification requires that you abstain from sexual immorality, possess your body in honor, and live holy before God.

We are living in a hyper-sexualized culture. It seems sexual perversion and sexual immorality are everywhere.

However, though the world may be full of sexual immorality, the command of God and the evidence of salvation is that Christians must abstain from sexual immorality. How, then, can you live sexually pure in a sexually perverse world? This passage teaches three requirements that you must do to live a life holy before God.

1. You must be saved. (1-3a)

2. You must be self-controlled. (3b-6)

3. You must be submissive before God. (7-8)