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September 24, 2026 | In this sermon from the 'First Things' series, Ben Mandrell discusses the discipline of purity, focusing on 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8. He emphasizes God's will for sanctification through holiness and self-control over sexual desires, the impact of sexual choices on others, and the role of the Holy Spirit in empowering believers to live pure lives.
Men's morning bible study led by Pastor Ben Mandrell
All right, get that last cup of coffee and be seated. We're about to get started. Finish up that great smell story you've got going there. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we pray this morning that open our minds and open our hearts. Lord, we wanna give you first priority today, first thing. We want you to be the king over our hearts, God. I pray in this next few minutes as we open up your word that it would expose areas in our life where we are not seeking purity. God, we know that it is your desire that we not only be filled with the Holy Spirit, but experience continual fillings of the Holy Spirit. And to do that, Lord, we have to be pure men. We have to be clean vessels, clean instruments in your hands. And Lord, none of us is perfect and we've all failed. Lord, I pray for that brother in this room right now that nobody knows it, but purity has been a lifelong struggle for him. Lord, I pray that there would be no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, that Lord, we would forgive ourselves for where we have failed and we would press on toward the goal, heaven willing, in Christ Jesus, not looking back. So Lord, let no man's past define him or previous failures, but instead, Lord, give us motivation to keep pressing on toward the goal with greater and greater purity in what we say and what we think and in what we see. And Lord, I just pray that somebody would be set free this morning, that the power of the Holy Spirit would come upon someone to break the chain of impurity. Lord, I pray that this Bible study, as we open up the Word and look at 1 Thessalonians, that Lord, it would not only show us where we're wrong, but Lord, your Spirit would give us the power to change it because we know we can't get where we need to be by willpower alone. Lord, we need the infusion of your Holy Spirit. And so today, as we open up the Word, God, let it do its work in us, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. All right, well, good morning, men. If this is your first week at First Things, just a reminder, we are using the Disciplines of a Godly Man book as a resource. I encourage you to read that on your own, at your own pace. I am choosing eight of those topics and preaching a passage that's adjacent to that chapter, but not exactly the same passage as that chapter. So I'm not teaching the book, but I am referencing the book quite a bit. You can still get the book out those doors before or after the study. But today, if you brought a Bible, I wanna ask you to turn to 1 Thessalonians 4. We're gonna be looking at verses three through eight. And we're gonna be talking about the discipline of purity. I have been choosing topics in this book that apply to all men. He does talk about the discipline of marriage. Not everyone in this room is married. He does talk about the discipline of fatherhood. Not everyone in here is a parent. So for these studies, I've been trying to focus on things that apply to all men. And I don't know a single man in here, I don't know, I don't care if you're eight years old or 80 years old, that doesn't need to continue to keep an eye on purity. It applies to all of us at all ages. Because men have an astonishing ability to ruin their testimony in seconds by allowing impurity to take over their lives. A marriage, a family, a reputation, a life of integrity can all be jeopardized when desire drives our decision making. When desire drives our decision making, we're in a tough place. That's why purity requires discipline. Because a wise man learns that just because something catches his eye doesn't mean it should capture his heart. I've shared this with y'all before, but when I was a little boy, my grandfather drove one of those giant blue Cadillacs that looked like a pontoon boat on wheels. You know, you remember those old blue Cadillacs? And he would always play Randy Travis. And so for my whole life, I've been a big Randy Travis fan. And recently I was driving down the road and I was actually thinking about this lesson. And Randy Travis has this song called Spirit of a Boy, Wisdom of a Man. And the song follows a man through different seasons of his life and puts him repeatedly at a crossroads moment where he has to make a decision. In one direction is impulse and appetite and what he wants right now. And the other direction is wisdom and restraint and recognition that the decision he makes in this moment will follow him for years. And I wanna read the lyrics to this country song because it really does read like a poem. And I think men, we identify with this. And it's called Spirit of a Boy, Wisdom of a Man. I'm gonna put the lyrics up. It goes like this. He was 16, tender and tough. She was two and he'd do anything to prove his love. With so much riding on the choice at hand, the spirit of a boy or the wisdom of a man. Hearts caught fire and love ran wild. She cried the day she called to say she was having his child. With so much riding on the choice at hand, the spirit of a boy or the wisdom of a man. There's a constant contradiction, what feels good and what feels right. But you live with decisions that you make in your life. And what steers your direction is hard to understand. It's the spirit of the boy or the wisdom of a man. Now he drives a diesel out of Dallas, hauling cars out to the coast. It ain't the dream that he remembered just a few short years ago. But tonight at a truck stop, while drinking a cup, the waitress grins and winks at him and says, my shift's almost up. With so much riding on the choice at hand, the spirit of a boy or the wisdom of a man. And that refrain in the song keeps coming up again and again. When there's so much riding on the choice in front of you, which voice are you gonna follow? Will you be the slave to the immature, uncontrolled thoughts in your mind or will you follow the right path which we all know is outlined in scripture? So that's really the question that I'm gonna put before you even this morning is what drives your decision making? Is it impulse and appetite and what you want right now? Or are you controlled by the power of the Holy Spirit that gives you the wisdom of God? And that's really what Paul is talking about in 1 Thessalonians chapter four. What does a mature man do with sexual desire? Does he simply follow them wherever they lead or does he learn to govern his desires? So the wisdom of a truly wise man is here. So let me just read to you 1 Thessalonians chapter four, what Paul says in setting the hook on the subject. He says this, for this is God's will, your sanctification, that you keep away from sexual immorality, that each of you knows how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not with lustful passions like the Gentiles who don't know God. This means one must not transgress against and take advantage of a brother or sister in this manner because the Lord is an avenger of all these offenses as we also previously told and warned you. For God has not called us to impurity but to live in holiness. Consequently, anyone who rejects this does not reject man but God who gives you his Holy Spirit. All right? So in this passage, there's four principles clearly laid out for us which keep us on the right path for when moments of temptation come, these are principles we can follow. So on the discipline of godliness, number one, we see this, God calls me to holiness. He calls me to holiness. Verse three says, for it is God's will that you be holy. It is God's will that you be sanctified. It is God's will that you stay away from sexual immorality. In our 20s, young men often agonize over discovering God's will. That's the decade where young men are often asked the question, what major should I choose in college? What career should I pursue? Where should I choose to live and settle down? What kind of woman will I marry? In that decade called our 20s, we're often making very important crossroads decisions. These are important decisions. But according to Paul, none of those decisions are as crucial as this question, how will I approach my own purity? How will I respond when sexual temptation comes to me? What restraint will I have over my own body? And Paul says very clearly, it is God's will. Let me tell you what God's will is for your life. God's will is this, that you stay pure. That you stay pure. James 1.14 says this, but each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desires. Notice that passage says this, that a person is tempted when he's drawn away and enticed by something inside of him. That word enticed, it's comparable to a fishing idea. Picture a shiny lure being pulled through the water. A bass catches a flash of it out of the corner of his eye. Something about it doesn't look quite right, but it flashes again. He circles the bait, he studies it, he moves closer, and eventually what caught his eye captures him. This is an accurate picture of what happens in sexual temptation. A man meets a woman who is beautiful, or articulate, interesting, engaging. Something inside him feels like it came alive. There can be this almost irrational pull toward her, and scripture says, be careful, you are being enticed. You are being drawn in. And God's boundaries are not complicated here. It's very clear. If you are unmarried and she is unmarried, and she is a growing disciple of Jesus, you are free to pursue that relationship honorably. But if you are married, it's a no. If she is married, it's a no. If she is beautiful and fascinating and doesn't love Jesus, it's a no. Because the Bible says that we should not be unequally yoked.
Sometimes we make finding God's will out to be something so mysterious when God has already made much of his will perfectly clear. You want to know God's will for your life, God wants you to be sanctified. The word sanctified means set apart. To be different than the rest of the world. To do things differently than the rest of your peers do them. And one of the most clear areas for us as Christians is how we approach sexual purity. And the enemy wants the opposite. He wants you compromised, he wants you hiding in shame, he wants you carrying regret, and he wants you weakened in your usefulness to God. And sexual temptation has wrecked the lives of countless men who never imagined where that first small compromise would eventually take them. And I want you to know that when Paul describes sexual immorality, he's not just describing what happens in a hotel room, but also what happens when I engage in any kind of unhealthy form of sexuality. So that Greek word that Paul uses there for sexual immorality is the word porneia, porneia. A broad term encompassing all kinds of sexual behavior that's outside the bounds of marriage. And notice Paul's strategy. He doesn't say, see how close you can get to it without crossing the line. He says, no, flee from it. Don't get near it. Don't go where it's gonna be. Stay away from it. Because many men have fallen who are stronger than you. Stay away from it. So go back to that young man in the truck stop in Randy Travis's song. The waitress smiles, she winks, her shift is almost over. There's the lure. And suddenly, this man is standing at a crossroads moment in his life. He can move toward something God has forbidden, or he can walk away from it. If he's wise, he'll pay his bill and get out of that restaurant as soon as possible. Flee from sexual immorality. This is the wisdom of a godly man. So God's desire, his will, is for you to be holy. That's number one. Second point is this. Your desires don't have to control you. And that's what he says in verses four and five. Your desires don't have to control you. Each of you knows how to control his own body and holiness and honor. Verse four. Not with lustful passions. Look at that phrase, underline it. Each of you knows how. Paul treats self-control as something that a man can learn. You can learn this. And sexual desire itself is not presented as evil. All of us who are human beings have sexual desires. God created us as sexual beings. The issue is not whether desire governs the man, or the, the issue is whether desire governs the man, or the man governs the desire. And maturity does not mean I no longer experience desire. Maturity means that my desires no longer get to make my decisions for me. That's what maturity is. For years, I've used this old statement, I think it's attributed to Martin Luther, but I always found it to be true. You cannot keep birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair. And it's a great thought when it comes to sexual thoughts. You can't keep a sexual thought from going into your head, but you can stop yourself from entertaining it. From making it a guest of honor. You have the power, the Bible says, to take captive every thought unto Christ Jesus. And so none of us, none of us is immune from having impure thoughts enter our heads. It's what we choose to do in that moment that makes or breaks us. It's a helpful picture of lust. I cannot always control what goes into my mind. I may notice an attractive woman. An image may suddenly appear on a screen in front of me. A memory may surface from my past of a woman. An impure thought may flash right through my imagination. A woman I've never met, I imagine her. I may have a dream about a woman. The first look may happen to me. I can see it in my mind. What happens next is where discipline begins. Will I discipline myself? Will I train myself to not let that thought carry me down some kind of building a bridge to Fantasy Island? Do I click on it? Do I take a second glance? Do I replay it when no one's noticing? Do I begin building this idea or do I tear it down immediately? Paul says you can learn how to do this. You can control your own body. And another place scripture says this, I just mentioned it, 2 Corinthians 10 to five, write this verse down. We take every thought captive to obey Christ. And I want you to see how Paul talks about making a thought, make it a prisoner. As soon as that thought comes, put chains around its ankles and put it behind a cell. Take it captive. Don't let it run around in your head. Lock it away. Put it in chains. Get it away from the population. Take it captive. And this is one of the great differences between a boy and a man, a godly man. A boy says I feel it so I have to follow it. A mature man says I feel it but it doesn't own me. It doesn't guide me, it doesn't direct me. It doesn't govern me. So your desires are real, they can be powerful but through the power of the Holy Spirit they don't have to control you, you can say no. I remember one of those moments when I was newly married. I was in my 20s, I was a brand new husband. I was traveling for work. I was flying to a conference and I was all by myself. When I got to the gate of the airport I noticed a woman who was dressed very provocatively. She's a striking woman and she wanted people to notice her by the way she was dressed. If the goal was to get as many guys to see her as possible she was succeeding in her goal. I boarded the plane, I found my seat, I pulled out a book, I started reading, a few minutes later I felt a tap on my shoulder and it was an older man. And I said, yes sir. And he said, yeah, the woman behind me was wondering if you'd like to take the seat next to her. And I looked back and it was that woman. And I gotta tell you, my first response was of all the guys on the plane. Really? I mean the first, when a good looking woman hits on you the first thought whether you like it or not is, didn't see that coming. There was something very flattering about it. It struck my pride in my ego. And then I also immediately remember feeling an enormous amount of fear. I remember the Holy Spirit just speaking to me, danger, danger, danger. And I often think about that moment because I told that man no thanks, I turned around read my book. When it was over I walked out of the gate and never looked back. But I often think about that moment. What if I had not been mature? What if I had said, you know what, it's just a cup of coffee. Why don't we grab lunch? I'm meeting a new friend. Nobody ever has to know. What would have happened in my life had I allowed my feelings and my lust to guide me and direct me? The Apostle Paul is speaking to something that's very, very serious in men's lives. The swell of the ego when a woman comes on to you is a significant temptation. Particularly if it comes at a moment when you and your wife are not doing well. Be on guard. Take that thought captive. A man must learn to control his own body if he's gonna fulfill his destiny. You can learn how to do this. He says you know how to do it. You know what to do. So the second thing he says there is that your desire doesn't have to control you. Number three, my sexual choices affect more people than just me. That's another thing we learn here. This means, verse six, one must not transgress against and take advantage of a brother or sister in this manner. Notice he says that sexual sin isn't merely I did something naughty. Paul widens the lens of the camera to show the other people involved and their families. Sexual decisions affect other people for better or for worse. A man says but pornography doesn't. That's just me, I'm all alone. Well first of all, I would say that every time you view porn, you're supporting the business. You're casting a vote for its existence. A business that tells young women that they can earn a good living by filling their life with shame and evil. So just be aware that even viewing pornography is helping the world become a darker place. But lust asks this, what can I get from this person? Love asks, how can I honor this person? That's the difference between lust and love. Lust says, what can I get from this person? Love asks, how can I honor this person? And when we think in these terms, we go deeper than just the basic message of don't look at porn or don't be involved in sexual immorality because theologically speaking, here's just theological framework. When we think God's thoughts after him, we see people as image bearers of God. Every single human being is an image bearer of God. And Paul adds the gravity here. If you choose to use people as commodities for your own sexual gratification, he says, the Lord is the avenger of all these offenses. You see that?
at the end of verse six, the Lord comes against you for this offense. It's strong language. God takes seriously what we do with other people's bodies just like he takes seriously what we do with our own body. And he also takes seriously what we do to other people's marriages. This reminds me of a little book I read years ago by Erwin Lutzer. He's a pastor in Chicago, and the name of the book was called Is God on America's Side? He wrote the book in the aftermath of 9-11 because America suddenly experienced a spiritual awakening of sorts. And church attendance spiked right after 9-11. God Bless America started to be sung in all the baseball games. In a moment of national fear, people who hadn't thought much about God suddenly were wanting God near. And in this little book, Lutzer, his warning is essentially this. We should never presume that God is automatically on our side simply because his name appears on our money. Or because Christianity has played an important role in our nation's history. The more important question is whether we are on God's side. Instead of merely saying God bless America, we should be asking whether America is seeking to bless God and honor God. And I think there's a personal version of this way of thinking that's a warning in this passage. Men, be very careful about presuming upon the grace of God. Just because you have a date written in your Bible from the day you were baptized, or just because you have your name on the roll at Bellevue Baptist Church, just because you've been coming to church for 40 years, do not think for a second that God then shrugs his shoulders at all of your sexual sin. That you're now on God's side and God's on your side and it doesn't matter how you behave with your body. No, Jesus said, if you love me, you will obey my commands. So the way that we show our allegiance to God is not simply walking in aisle and praying a prayer. The way we show our allegiance to God is in an ongoing way, wanting to honor God with all that we are, including our bodies. Romans 12, verse one says this, we now offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. And so I have come across no small amount of people in my time as a pastor who are 100% sure of their salvation because they walked in aisle or have a date in their Bible, but their personal life reflects sexual impurity. And if you're walking in sexual impurity and you have no conviction about it, there should be no assurance of salvation. Because the Holy Spirit will not allow you, if you have the Holy Spirit, if you're continuing to be involved in sexual immorality and you're not feeling a deep amount of shame, regret, and conviction, there is very strong evidence that you do not have the Holy Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit's job is to convict you of righteousness, Jesus said. And so it could be that the reason you don't have power over sexual sin is because you've never fully repented and given your life to Jesus Christ. You've played around church, you've played around religion, but you've never received the Holy Spirit that is the power to overcome sexual temptation. So this is what Paul says on these things. In 1 Corinthians 6, 18 through 20, he says this. Flee sexual immorality, run away from it, like Joseph did. Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and you are not your own, for you were bought at a price, so glorify God with your body. So the logic is powerful here. Because you belong to God, what you do with your body matters. Hebrews 13, four. Marriage is to be honored by all and the marriage bed can be a place of worship. You can't have a marriage bed kept undefiled because God will judge the sexually immoral and the adulterers. God himself takes seriously the violations we have sexually. And so this should put a very healthy and holy fear in all of us. The Lord, David even said this. Lord, you perceive my thoughts from afar. So you might be walking down the road and you're thinking about that woman. There's somebody that's paying very careful attention. And one of the ways we make our lives blessable by God, one of the ways we make our lives holy unto God is by refusing to entertain sexual immorality. Number four, purity is ultimately about God. For God has not called us to impurity, but to live in holiness. Consequently, anyone who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit. Now I want you to notice this. This is the most important part of the passage, I think. This is perhaps the part that doesn't get taught enough. Notice how Paul begins and ends this passage. He starts by saying it's God's will, it's God's desire that you pursue sexual purity. And in the end, he ends by saying that any man who rejects this teaching is not merely rejecting Paul, he's rejecting God himself. In other words, purity is between you and God. Purity isn't fundamentally about avoiding embarrassment publicly, though any of us would be humiliated if our internet history were suddenly projected on the screens for everyone to see. And it reveals, maybe there's someone here that's been over their lifetime reviewing pornography. If all of the sites you've been hitting were posted on that screen, you would be terribly embarrassed. But embarrassment is not the main reason to pursue purity. And purity isn't fundamentally about protecting your reputation, though a man can spend decades building a good name and destroy it through sexual sin. Losing your reputation would be devastating because of sexual impurity, but protecting your reputation is not the main reason to pursue purity. And purity, number three, is not fundamentally about keeping your marriage intact. Though your children would benefit enormously by watching you and your wife remain faithful to one another all the way to the grave, protecting your marriage and your family matters deeply, but even that is not the highest reason for you to pursue purity. What is the highest reason? Paul says it this way. Therefore, whether we are away, we are home or away, we make it our aim to be pleasing to him. I want you to notice that verse, 2 Corinthians 5.9. The ultimate reason that you would wanna be pure sexually is because it pleases God. It pleases God. That's the highest motivation for purity. So when nobody else knows what you're looking at, God knows what you're looking at. When nobody else knows what you're imagining, God knows what you're imagining. When you have an opportunity to cross a line and nobody on earth would ever find out, there is still someone who's watching to see whether you will cross that line because your purity is between you and God. So the question is no longer simply, will I get caught? That's the wrong question. The question is, will this please the Lord and draw his Holy Spirit to my life? And Paul ends this passage with tremendous hope. Notice the words, God who gives you his Holy Spirit. He does not stand at a distance. He does not command you to be holy without giving you the resources to fulfill that. The God who calls you to holiness gives you his Holy Spirit to empower you to pursue purity. So when temptation comes, call upon the Holy Spirit. There are moments when as a pastor, I'll be preparing a sermon. I'll be doing something good and righteous and holy and all of a sudden, an impure thought will come to my mind. The first thing I have to do in that moment is say, Holy Spirit, would you just drive that thought right out of my mind so that I can focus on your word right now? Every time I feel like I'm making progress with purity, every time I feel like, man, I've really whooped this thing, I'll go through a season where I begin to feel an enormous amount of temptation. It's something that we have to constantly keep an eye on. We are always fragile and we don't graduate from it no matter what age we are. And so you might, young men, you might look around the room and see gray-haired men. I can promise you, they struggle with dirty thoughts just like you do. Hello. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. Thank you. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. If you're 25 years old and you think, man, I can't wait till I'm 50, Ben's age, so then I won't have any sexual desires anymore. I can promise you that doesn't happen. It is a struggle throughout our lives. It does not go away. It is something we must constantly keep an eye on. It is God's will for me as a 50-year-old man to give my sexual desire only to Lindley Mandrell and to no other woman. It is God's desire, His will for me as a pastor of Bellevue that every thought I have would be something that I wouldn't be ashamed of my church knowing. It is my responsibility as the leader of our staff to command them to be pure and to not be a hypocrite in saying that as if they have to follow rules that I don't personally follow myself. And so the minute you think you have no further need to be on guard against sexual immorality, you are in the most dangerous place. It is the place that Satan uses the most with men. We are highly visual creatures in a very visual world. And so men, if there's one discipline from.
this study that would make the biggest difference to the life of our families in this church, it would be that we would all pursue the discipline of purity with greater passion and reject a world that is always inviting sexual thoughts into the conversation. So here's the conversation I want you to have at your tables with somebody. You choose who you wanna have it, but here's the question for discussion for a few minutes. Paul tells us that we can learn to control our own bodies. What are some practical habits you've picked up along the way that when you're at your best, you're putting them into practice to pursue purity? When you're at your best, and you're doing a good job with purity, what kind of safeguards and boundaries have you put in your life in those seasons, all right? Talk about that with somebody at your table, go.