What A Church 1 Thessalonians 1:3 Pt.2

2. Your labor that is prompted by love. He is excited about their labor, which is prompted by love. Underline that in your Bible.

There are two different words he uses here for work and for labor. They sound very similar, but they have two very, very different meanings. The words are ergou and kopou. I liked it…I'm going to keep kopou. I was reading that in the Greek, and I thought, Ergou and kopou. I'd heard of ergou, but I couldn't remember what kopou was. So I went and I looked up kopou, and I noticed there was a big difference between ergou and kopou. Ergou is a work that is focused on a task. It's a work that's focused on accomplishing a certain deed or a certain thing. It's a work that says, "I'm going to go and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to work hard at this."

Kopou, on the other hand, is more about the energy that is expended in doing the task. Think of it as giving labor or giving birth to a child. It's not as much about the task as it is about doing the work to get to the end of the task.

Paul is excited, not only because their working, not only because they're focused on the task and focused on doing the deeds their faith compels them to do, but he is excited because they are expending all kinds of effort to accomplish the task as well. He is excited because they are straining under great persecution, and they are carrying a heavy load and a heavy burden. They are straining and giving everything they have to love people because loving people is hard.

If loving people isn't hard, you're not trying, I promise you. If loving people isn't hard, you're not loving people the way the Bible calls you to love people. This church in Thessalonica, these Thessalonians were loving people the way the Bible called them to love people. Paul is excited. He says, "Kopou that you are straining, that you are working, that you are putting forth all of your effort and all of your energy, not in the deed itself, but just in trying to accomplish the deed because loving people is hard." Yet they are sticking with it.

Here's what the Bible says about love, Matthew 5:44-45, "But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Tell me love is not hard. "That you may be sons of your Father in heaven."

First Peter 1:22, "Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart."

John 13:34, "A new command I give you: Love one another." Catch this next part, "As I have loved you," tell me love is not hard, "so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

Galatians 5:22, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law."

Paul goes further than just saying, "Kopou," he says, this is "agape love." That was the kind of love this church was exhibiting. Agape is the highest form of love. It's the purest form of love. It's the love we relate to only from the way God loves us. It's a love with no strings attached to it. It's a love with no conditions, no circumstances, no ifs, ands or buts about it. It's a love that just says, "I love you because you're you. I don't love you because you love me. I just love you."

Paul is excited because this church is doing everything they can to love people around them. See real Christianity, authentic Christianity, true Christianity, has always been defined by love, not just the way we love each other, not just the way we love our Lord and Savior, but the way we love those around us, the way we love those who persecute us, the way we love those who hate us. This church was doing it, and Paul is doing somersaults, man. He is doing back flips. He had to leave in a hurry when he was run out of town. He didn't have time to get everything in place and make sure they had a great preacher and good elders and all this other stuff.