We live in a pleasure/pain culture: what’s pleasurable is good, what’s painful is bad. Paul’s call to holiness in 1 Thessalonians 4 — to seek to please God more and more by living his way, even when it’s hard — doesn’t make much sense in a culture like ours. But what if pleasing God also brings pleasure? Paul believes it does, and shows us how pleasing God helps us to understand and express our sexual desires.