A Life Pleasing to God

¹Finally, brothers, we urge and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as you have learned from us how you ought to walk and to please God, you should excel more and more.[#Eph 4:1; 2Th 1:3]

²For you know what commands we gave you through the Lord Jesus.

³For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality,[#Ac 15:29; 1Co 6:18]

⁴that each one of you should know how to possess his own body in sanctification and honor,[#1Pe 3:7]

⁵not in lustful passion, even as the Gentiles who do not know God,[#1Co 1:21; Gal 4:8]

⁶and that no man take advantage of and defraud his brother in any matter, because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, as we also have forewarned you and testified.[#Ro 12:19; Heb 13:4]

⁷For God has not called us to impurity, but to holiness.[#Lev 11:44; 1Th 2:3]

⁸Therefore he that despises does not despise man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.[#Lk 10:16; #1Jn 3:24]

⁹As concerning brotherly love, you do not need me to write to you. For you yourselves are taught by God to love one another;[#Ro 12:10; #1Th 5:1]

¹⁰and indeed, you do love all the brothers who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more,[#1Th 1:7; #1Th 3:12]

¹¹to aspire to live a quiet life, to attend to your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you,[#Eph 4:28; 1Pe 4:15]

¹²so that you may walk honestly toward those who are outsiders and that you may lack nothing.[#Mk 4:11; Ro 13:13]

The Lord’s Coming

¹³But I would not have you ignorant, brothers, concerning those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others who have no hope.[#Lev 19:28; Eph 2:12]

¹⁴For if we believe that Jesus died and arose again, so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.[#Rev 1:18]

¹⁵For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who are asleep.

¹⁶For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.[#1Co 15:23; Jude 9]

¹⁷Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we shall be forever with the Lord.[#Ac 1:9–11]

¹⁸Therefore comfort one another with these words.