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Commentary on "Living Holy Lives (1 Thess. 4:1–12)"

COLLEEN TINKER

 

Day 2: Sunday, August 12, 2012 - Abounding More and More (1 Thess. 4:1, 2)

 

Overview

Today’s lesson, entitled “Abounding More and More”, focusses on the desired goal of increasing sanctification.The lesson ends with questions about whether or not our behaviors ever please God.

 

Observations

First, the lesson breaks up the week’s passage so the context of it is almost lost. This passage is not about moving towards perfection. It is about learning to excel in submitting one’s behavior’s to God increasingly as one grows.

Our behavior never pleases God. At least, it never contributes to His pleasure in us or to our worthiness before Him. Our behaviors do not measure our rightness with God.

Sanctification is something God does in us that results in our submitting our desires and temptations to Him. It’s giving up our rights and instead allowing Him to be all we need at any given time.

Sanctification is not learning to perfect our behavior according to the commands of the Law. Romans 3:20-21 says that now “the righteousness of God apart from works of the law has been revealed, to which the Law and the Prophets testified.” Our sanctification is never tied to obeying the law, nor are we asked to work toward perfection.

Instead, we are asked to trust Jesus and allow Him to make us new, born of the Spirit. When we are born again we receive the actual righteousness of God because we are hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3). We are credited with a completely alien righteousness; we are never asked nor expected to obey the law more and more perfectly.

We are covered with the life and righteousness of the Lord Jesus, and His Spirit changes our hearts and gives us new desires and new loyalty.

We do not abound more and more in works of the law and in law-keeping sexual purity. We become the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Cor. 5:21).

God is not scrutinizing our behaviors. He is looking for circumcised hearts, and He is looking for us to have increasing levels of trust and faith in Him so that we can let go of our natural self-protection and control. He asks us to trust Him.

Purity only comes when our hearts release to Him the deep desires and fears that shape our natural selves. It is not our deeds and behaviors that God demands. It is not more and more perfect law-keeping that He expects.

God wants our trust and belief; He wants to give us His own righteousness and new hearts of flesh instead of stone. It’s not about behaviors. It’s all about belief.

Those who believe in the Lord Jesus are saved; those who do not believe are condemned already because they have not believed (Jn. 3:18).

 

Summary

  1. Our behavior is not what God demands.
     
  2. God wants from us more than behavior; He wants our belief and trust.
     
  3. Our deeds in the flesh never please God.
     
  4. Unless we are born again, our best deeds are tainted with sin and count for nothing.
     
  5. Sexual purity apart from being born again is not gaining us any credit with God.
     
  6. Being born again is what counts and qualifies us to see the kingdom of heaven (Jn. 3:3-6).
     
  7. God asks us to trust Him, not to hone our will power so we whip our behaviors into obedience.
     
  8. No flesh is justified by works of the law (Rom. 3:20).
     
  9. Not the righteousness of God apart from the law has been revealed (Rom. 3:21).

 

GO TO DAY 3

 

Copyright 2012 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised August 11, 2012. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Camp Verde, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.

The Sabbath School Bible Study Guide and the corresponding E.G. White Notes are published by Pacific Press Publishing Association, which is owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist church. The current quarter's editions are pictured above.

 

Official Adventist Resources

Standard Edition Study Guide Week 7

Teacher's Edition Study Guide Week 7

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