Message Notes for September 4, 2022
Series: Intimacy
Title: Safe Space

Series Bottom Line: We think that falling in love leads to a beautiful intimacy, but it is the work of intimacy that leads to a beautiful love.
We are all sinners. We are called to be loving and real. Marriage is hard and the world is broken. It is natural to struggle. Creating a safe space opens the door for a place of intimacy to begin.
Personal Notes: Barriers to a safe space for intimacy:

Ways to create a safe space for intimacy in your marriage/relationships:
1. Lead with love.
1 Corinthians 13:1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

2. Know our own need for grace.
1 Timothy 1: 15-16 This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all. 16 But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in him and receive eternal life.

3. Be exclusive.
Genesis 2:23-24 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

4. Listen well.
Proverbs 18:2 A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.

5. Sacrifice to lift up.
Ephesians 5:24-27 . Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

Family/Group Study Notes for week of September 4, 2022
Series: Intimacy
Title: Safe Space

What are your personal goals for growing the intimacy in your marriage and relationships? Take some time to discuss and write down. What are some plans you can make to grow toward these goals?

Read 1 Corinthians 13:1-7. What in this passage describes a safe space for intimacy in marriage and relationships? Describe how each of those aspects would allow someone to feel safe to open and feel love and intimacy?

Read Ephesians 5: 22-33. What do you see in this passage that builds trust in a relationship? What is the motivation for both husband and wife to care for the other? How does Paul describe marriage like Jesus and the Church? What would your marriage look like if this aspect of sacrificial love existed? How could you move in that direction?

From the five ways discussed in the message on how to create a safe space – Listening, Sacrifice, Exclusivity, Need for Grace, Lead with Love – which of these need the most work in your relationship? Explain! Discuss ways to grow in this area. Share with each other ideas you gained from this study.

What new goals emerged from this study? Pray for each other as you grow in intimacy.