Marriage: 6 Commitments-Lesson 14 "Ready, Willing, and Waiting"

Housekeeping

-Family in Need

-Wayne’s Retirement Reception: Tonight at 5:30 in Miller Hall

-SetUp help today immediately after Family Worship

-EHBC KIDS will be moving to a new location, Room 217. However, we will need help coordinating and moving the items in there to the storage roll off. It will be either 12/20 or 21 in the morning, 10am. I will send out more info out as I have that date solidified. If you can help…great.

-Christmas Eve Candlelight Service 6pm

-12/26 No Sunday School Class

Prayer

We are wrapping up the 4th Commitment

“We will commit to building a relationship of love.”

Let’s read. Open up to 1 John chapter 4. We’ll begin in verse 7 through 21.

1 John 4:7–21 CSB

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent his Son as the world’s Savior. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God. 16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. 17 In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.

This was the question I posed to each of you in Thursday’s email:

“What are the characteristics of cruciform love as described in these verses?”

Share my highlights

pages 210-211

Cruciform= Cross Shaped

Cruciform Love = Cross Shaped Love

Gospel Centered/Cross Shaped definition of Love:

Love is Willing, Self-Sacrifice for the good of another. That does not demand reciprocation or that the person being loved is deserving.

Willing

Self-Sacrifice

For the Good of Another

That Does Not Require Reciprocation

That the Person Being Loved is Deserving

Where do we get that kind of Love

1 John 4:19 CSB

19 We love because he first loved us.

page 213

Tripp writes, “Perhaps one of the most unrecognized sins in marriage is the sin of forgetfulness.” What does he mean by this, and how have you seen it to be true?

Turn to page 214

Marital Love in Action

As you read through the 22, as Tripp puts it, Concrete descriptions of how real Christlike love thinks and acts, which of the descriptions of what love is are difficult for you?

Which one of these would you and your spouse agree that you reflect well?

1 John 4:19–21 CSB

19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.

Again, remember, this is the core. It’s not that you don’t love your spouse enough. No, it’s that you don’t love God enough, and because you don’t love God enough, you will not love your spouse as you should.

In Closing

Next week we will not have Bible Study. We will pick back up on Sunday the 2nd of January. Please read both Chapter 13 “Amazing Grace” and Chapter 14 “Before Dark.” We will then cover both chapters as we reveal the 5th Commitment “We will deal with our differences with appreciation and grace.”

For those leaving on vacation, safe travels and a Very Merry Christmas.

For those not, then we may possibly see you Christmas Eve.

Thank you all for a great study and fellowship these past 6 months.

Pray