We are called to fight for our humanity and to fight for our sexuality by fighting against lust.

1. Sexual Holiness
image: mafleen
~ 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 ~

4. How should
we navigate living
in a highly
sexualized world ?

5. Sexual Holiness
image: mafleen
~ 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 ~

6. 1 Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge
1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
you in the Lord Jesus, that as you receiv-
ed from us how you ought to live and to
please God, just as you are doing, that
you do so more and more.

7. ~ The Apostle Paul in
2 Corinthians 5:9
“We make it our AIM
to PLEASE him.”

8. 2 For you know what instructions we gave
1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
you through the Lord Jesus. 3 For this is
the will of God, your sanctification: that
you abstain from sexual immorality….;

9. “Sexual Immorality”
Any sexual activity or expression
outside the God-ordained
boundaries of marital sexual love.
(Greek = πορνεία / porneia)

10. “But sexual immorality and
all impurity or covetousness
must not even be named
among you, as is proper
among saints.”
~ The Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:3

11. “But among you there must
not be even a hint of sexual
immorality, or of any kind of
impurity, or of greed,
because these are improper
for God’s holy people.”
~ The Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:3 (NIV)

12. 4 …that each one of you know how to
1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
control his own body in holiness and
honour, 5 not in the passion of lust like
the Gentiles who do not know God…;

13. ~ The Apostle Paul in
1 Corinthians 6
“Flee from sexual
immorality. Every
other sin a person
commits is outside his
body, but the sexually
immoral person sins
against this own body.”

14. ~ The Apostle Paul in
1 Corinthians 6
“The body is not
meant for sexual
immorality, but for
the Lord, and the
Lord for the body….”

15. ~ The Apostle Paul in
1 Corinthians 6
“Do you not know that
your body is a temple
of the Holy Spirit
within you, whom you
have from God. You
are not your own, for
you were bought with a
price. So glorify God
in your body.”

16. 4 …that each one of you know how to
1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
control his own body in holiness and
honour, 5 not in the passion of lust like
the Gentiles who do not know God…;

17. “Lust”
“Craving sexually what
God has forbidden.”
~ Joshua Harris, Not Even a Hint

18. “…you must no longer live
as Gentiles do, in the futility
of their thinking…. Having
lost all sensitivity, they have
given themselves over to
sensuality so as to indulge in
every kind of impurity, with a
continual lust for more.”
~ The Apostle Paul in
Ephesians 4:17 & 19

19. “The truth is that Jesus didn’t
come to rescue us from our
humanity; He entered our
humanity to rescue us from
our sinfulness. He didn’t
come to save us from being
sexual creatures; He became
one of us to save us from the
reign of sin and lust, which
ruins our sexuality.”

20. 6 …that no one transgresses and wrongs
1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
his brother in this matter, because the
Lord is an avenger in these things, as
we told you beforehand and solemnly
warned you.

21. “Love does no wrong
to his neighbour.”
~ The Apostle Paul
in Romans 13:10

22. ~ The Apostle Paul in
Ephesians 5:5
“For you may be sure of
this, that everyone who
is sexually immoral, or
impure, or is covetous
(that is, an idolater),
has no inheritance in
the kingdom of Christ
and God.”

23. 7 For God has not called us for impurity,
1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
but in holiness. 8 Therefore whoever
disregards this, disregards not man, but
God who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

24. We are called to fight
for our humanity
by fighting against lust.

25. Embrace the healing1
of the Gospel of Jesus

26. “Jesus stubbornly
befriended, welcomed,
and embraced sexual
sinners and misfits and
outsiders and outcasts.
People like you and me….~ Jared Ayers, Liberti Church

27. “There is no scar or
stain that is in too deep
for the cleansing
embrace and grace of
Jesus. You are Jesus’
kind of people.~ Jared Ayers, Liberti Church

29. Prepare daily to battle lust daily.2

30. “Let us walk properly…not in orgies and
drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and
sensuality…. But put on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and make no provision for the flesh,
to gratify its desires.”
~ The Apostle Paul in Romans 13:13-14

31. Fight desire with desire.
3

32. “We must fight fire with fire. The fire of lust’s
pleasures must be fought with the fire of God’s
pleasures. If we try to fight the fire of lust with
prohibitions and threats alone—even the
terrible warnings of Jesus—
we will fail. We must fight it
with the massive promise
of superior happiness.”
~ Pastor John Piper
in Future Grace

33. Augustine’s Confessions

34. “How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those
fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose…! You
drove them from me, you who are the true, the
sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their
place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure.”
Augustine’s Confessions

36. image credit:“HappyValentines” by mafleen https://www.flickr.com/photos/mafleen/8472558582/CC by 2.0
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