(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Look at verse number 1 of 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 where we started reading before I came up here and started preaching. Verse number 1. Furthermore, then, we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more. And right off the bat, we see, what do we see happening? Teachers, apostles, disciples teaching churches how to walk, what to do. They say, look, we've taught you the right things from the Bible, and you need to be doing that. And there's a growing number of people, when we go out and talk to people out soul-winding and talking about the door, where people say, oh, I don't need some man to tell me what to do. I don't need to go to church. I don't need, you know, this is a preacher yelling at me and telling me what to do. Look, this is the biblical model, and this is what people need. And if you are full of yourself and too haughty and can't handle it, then there's nobody that's going to be able to help you. You need to get yourself right and humbled before God, before anyone can help you in your walk with God. But this is exactly what the apostles were doing, and this is what they're instructing them. This is what's recorded in holy scriptures. You have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more. Verse number two, for ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. Well, I thought that we didn't have to follow commandments because we're free under grace, right? Well, maybe you're just not understanding something when you read the book of Galatians, that just because we're free from the curse of the law doesn't mean that there's just no commandments for us to follow them. But again, I'm going to get into that more in depth this evening, so come back for that this afternoon. Especially for those of you that are visiting, you know, we have three different service times, but it's not like it's three of the exact same service every single time. We've got different preaching tonight than we have this morning, so come on back. We'd love to have you back out with us this afternoon. So they're given commandments, right? And he's reminding them of the commandments that they gave them by the Lord Jesus. Under the authority and direction of the Lord Jesus Christ, they received those commandments. Verse three, for this is the will of God, even your sanctification. Being sanctified, because I thought we already were sanctified. Yes, we're sanctified through the blood of Jesus Christ, but there's two different types of sanctification. There's the sanctification of your soul spirit, right? That you're saved 100% and forgiven from your sins in the eternal sense that you'll never end up going to hell and you have a home in heaven. That's one sense, but then there's the second sense of why you're living in this life. While you still have the sinful flesh with you and you have to walk in the spirit every day and your spirit and your flesh are warring against each other. This is why we're admonished over and over and over again in scripture that, look, we need to be sanctified. You need to walk in the spirit so you don't obey the lust of the flesh because it's not going to just happen automatically. You need to choose every single day that you're going to do what's right. This is the will of God, even your sanctification. And then he clarifies that and makes it a little bit more specific. What are we talking about here in this context? That you should abstain from fornication. Well, now we're getting a little bit more direct. And I'll tell you what, yes, we live in a stinking, wicked, dark culture where fornication is the norm. And kids just, they see it in movies, they hear it in the music, and they're brought up just thinking that it's normal for everybody to just go out and sow the wild oats and just have these relationships outside of marriage and everybody does it and that's just what people do and just be safe when you do it. Look, that's garbage. It's the philosophy of man. The Bible calls it wickedness. The Bible calls it sin. It's fornication. God wants you sanctified that you should abstain from fornication. In the Bible, we're gonna get into this, how much the Bible warns against fornication. Now look, if you've committed this sin in the past, there is nothing that you can do to take it back. So the point of preaching this way is not to rub your nose in something that you've done a long time ago. Look, if you've repented and you're not doing anymore, then great, right? I mean, that's all you can do. You can't undo what's done, which is why it's so important to get this preaching before it happens, because you can't undo the past.