Bible Text: 1 John 4:7-21 | Speaker: Jason Carter | Series: How Great is Our God |

Welcome to Trinity Wellsprings Church.
Video will be available Sunday morning at 9:00 am (and anytime afterwards).
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Living Room Liturgy
HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD

The Love of God:
The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God
1 John 4:7-21
Before the Worship Service:
Lectio (Read the Text with a Listening Ear)

New Testament Reading: 1 John 4:7-21

Connecting in Worship
Adoratio (Worship)

We’d love to connect with you…please click the Connect Card image below. How can we pray with you? After you fill out the Connect Card, you’ll be directed to a place to share prayer requests.
After the Worship Service

Meditatio (Meditate on the Message)

If you need to read 1 John 4:7-21 again, do so. What stands out to you in the passage?
Read Eph. 2:4-5. What kind of love is Paul describing?  Is this a kind of love that bolsters our self-esteem (i.e. “I am loveable and worthy of the love of God”)  What does the passage tell you about the love of God?
After C. S. Lewis lost his wife Joy to cancer, he wrote these words about the inextricable link between love, suffering, and vulnerability: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” (Four Loves).  How does God love the world in ways that are “vulnerable”?  What does that say about the way we should love?
What do you think Karl Barth is getting at here: “Loving us, God does not give us something, but Himself; and giving us Himself, giving us His only son, He gives us everything.” If this is true, how would it change your life?
Pastor Jason states the love of God with this axiom: God loves based on his nature, but God loves us based on grace, not our nature. Does this help us see how God loves in ways remarkable different than the way humans typically love?  What are ways you can love based on grace (rather than based on nature – on the love-ability of another)?
Of the four ways/implications of walking in God’s love…what is the hardest for you? And which one is most appealing and inviting to you?

Walking in God’s love…is dancing with the Trinity.
Walking in God’s love…is loving based on grace, not nature.
Walking in God’s love…is giving yourself completely as a gift. Walking in God’s love…is seeking an active, cross-shaped love that delights in sacrifice.

Operatio (Put it into Practice)

What is one thing that I can meditate on or put into practice this week?

Oratio (Respond in Prayer to God)

What are your prayer request and praises that you can lift up before the Father right now?

Donatio (Give to the Work of the Lord)

Generosity springs from God’s generous love and mercy to us. As Christians, we recognize that no organization on the planet has changed the world in deep, eternal, transformative ways like God has used the local church.

For Families with Children:
Click on the Image below and talk with your kids about the Bible Lesson this week!  To view past JAMLand Kids online, click HERE.

Thanks for participating in this “Living Room Liturgy” with your Church family! God Bless!