Message of the Week

The Little White Community Church

Scripture: I Thess. 4:1-12 Feb. 22, 2026

Message: “Pleasing God!”        

by Pastor George Gnade

Play to Listen

7:37

Introduction:

1. Today’s message is very appropriate for this Lenten Season, which is set aside to deepen our walk with the Lord. In I Thess. 4:1, Paul felt led to instruct them on “how to live …to please God.”

a. In I Thess. 2:4, Paul stressed how his goal in life was not to please men. His goal was primarily to please God.

b. Now in this chapter, he asks the same behavior from them.

2. But he makes clear this was not something you do once in a while. This desire to please Him is not just a Sunday morning activity, freeing us to please everyone else including ourselves for the rest of the week. Once we accept Christ, God wants us to learn to please Him “more and more.”

3. In fact, with the help of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, God wants us to learn to live holy lives. As Christians, the Holy Spirit is the secret to our success. So we must learn to become very sensitive to what the Bible says and what the Spirit of Jesus in our hearts wants us to do.

A.  As a starter, Paul immediately stresses how we must overcome the clash with the culture of our day.

1. Their culture was not a godly culture any more than our culture is. Sexual immorality in its many forms stood at the top of the list.

a. I Thess. 4:3-4 says: “It is God’s will that you should be holy; that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable.”

b. If you were reading the Greek text, some manuscripts tried to clarify this even further by specifically applying this to their relationship to their spouse. 

2. In that day, men often had sex with as many women as they pleased. Paul gives an emphatic “No” to that kind of behavior. He describes this as “passionate lust like the heathen.”  

a. I mentioned how a Christian was to listen to the Holy Spirit. In Gal. 5:22-23, he shared with them and us the fruits of the Holy Spirit. One of the fruits that the Holy Spirit develops inside of us is “self-control.”

b. Jesus wants us to examine our hearts and prayerfully change and control our sexual behavior so that God can see the difference.

3. In vs.6, Paul goes on to say: “The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live holy lives.”

a. As I have said many times, the mistakes you have made in the past are in the past. If you have asked the Lord to forgive you and are presently living the way you should, that is what counts. 

b. King David was a godly man who was tempted and failed miserably. When he confessed his sins, God forgave him. God will do the same for us.

c. But the consequences of his behavior really messed up his family and even his relationships. David would be the first to tell us it isn’t worth it.

4. Learning to please the Lord may sound difficult, but the rewards are well worth the effort. In contrast, in vs 8, Paul writes: “He who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God who gives you the Holy Spirit.”

a. David put it this way. In Ps. 51, the Bible shares with us David’s prayer, seeking forgiveness. In vs.4, he wrote: “Against you and you only, have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight.”

b. That does not mean he didn’t hurt other people too.

It means he hurt the Lord the most. 

5. When Peter sinned and denied he even knew the Lord, the rooster crowed. Immediately he remembered what the Lord Jesus had told him and he immediately spun around and looked at Jesus. 

a. When he saw the hurt look on Jesus’ face, he broke down and cried.

b. When a true Christian sins and looks at Jesus, he will break down and cry too. If we are honest, most of us have had a good cry at least once in a while.

6. Obviously, Paul zeroed in on sexual immorality because it was the most popular cultural issue. But let us be honest, there are many other sins that are equally wrong and should also be avoided. In Rom. 1: 18-32, you will find a fuller list. What God asks us to do is to keep aiming higher, to aim at pleasing God “more and more.” Since the Holy Spirit never sins, learning to listen to Him is the perfect way to live the Christian life.

a. When you accept Christ and ask Him to become the Lord of your life, Jesus justifies us in the eyes of God. That is called justification.

b. Learning how to live the Christian life is a life-long process. The Bible calls that sanctification. Just as Jesus’ death on the cross guarantees the one, the Holy Spirit working in our hearts guarantees the other.

B. That is the growth every Christian should exemplify.

1.  The longer you are a Christian, the more obvious these changes in your life should become. It is the process of learning to love the way God loves with a desire to do it better and better.

a. It is asking God to help you live out the fruits of the Holy Spirit including “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, good-ness, faithfulness, gentle ness and self- control” Gal. 5:22-23).

b. It is practicing God’s definition of love found in I Cor. 13: 4-7. “Love is patient and kind, it is not envious, it does not boast, it is not proud; it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. Love never fails.”

2. In II Peter 1:5-11, God says: “Make every effort to add to your faith goodness, and to goodness, knowledge; and to 

knowledge,  self-control; and to self-control, perseverance, and to perseverance godliness, and to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love. 

a. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

b. But if anyone does not have them, he is near-sighted and blind, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. 

c. Therefore, beloved, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things,  you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

3. In I Thess. 4: 9-10, Paul compliments them saying: “We do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. In fact, you do love all the brethren throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you to do so more and more.”

In conclusion: 1. All of these passages spell out the high calling of the Lord Jesus Christ. Obviously, no one has arrived. But the challenge to do better “more and more” should be the prayer of our hearts.

2. I don’t know about you, but I am constantly praying for grace to do it through the help of the Holy Spirit. Not so much to prove to others, but to show the Lord Jesus that I truly want to please Him. May you do likewise. Amen!