(The entirety of this message can be heard right HERE.)
Finally then, brothers, we ask and encourage you in the Lord Jesus, that as you have received from us how you must walk and please God—as you are doing—do so even more. 2 For you know what commands we gave you through the Lord Jesus. 3 For this is God’s will, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality, 4 so that each of you knows how to control his own body in sanctification and honor, 5 not with lustful desires, like the Gentiles who don’t know God. 6 This means one must not transgress against and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger of all these offenses, as we also previously told and warned you. 7 For God has not called us to impurity but to sanctification. 8 Therefore, the person who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who also gives you His Holy Spirit. (1 Thessalonians 4:1-8)
It could be said that there is no form of sin so certain to bring pain and penalty as sexual sin.
As we consider Paul’s straightforward, unambiguous commands here in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, we should understand how urgent and appropriate they were: These fairly young believers had been saved, delivered, and redeemed out of a Greco-Roman culture that play fast and loose with human sexuality. Aside from the fact that a man could easily and without repercussions have a wife, a mistress, and visit prostitutes, all other manner of sexual sins such as homosexuality and pederasty weren’t even blinked at. So this instruction was extremely important for them. And it is for us, as well. For the full message with Paul's reasons and motivations to pursue purity, click the audio link above.