ECC-Evangelical Covenant Church
Good morning! In Psalm 27.4, King David states that there is one thing he asks of the Lord, and then he uses three phrases to name that one thing: "to DWELL in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to GAZE upon the beauty of the Lord, and to SEEK him in his temple."
We invite you to join us each week at 10:30am in person (3600 S. 9th Street), on YouTube (@ECCofLafayette), or on our website (ecclife.net/worship) as we look at the ways scripture teaches us to dwell with God, to gaze upon God's beauty, and to seek him in his temple.
One Thing: To Listen, To Question, and To Wrestle
January 22, 2023
Second Sunday after the Epiphany
Pastor Stacey Littlefield
Luke 2:41-50 NIV
Luke 2:51-52 NIV
Question to ponder.
How will you respond to today's passage (and the above questions) this week? What might you do differently? How might this passage shape or inform how you walk through the week ahead? Do you need to change anything in response to the passage?
A Question to Ponder.
What does today's passage, Luke 2.41-52, say about God? What does it reveal about God's character or how God is at work in the world? Where do we see God's Spirit moving in the passage?
A Question to Ponder.
What does Luke 2.41-52 say about us? What in the passage do you find convicting or challenging? What might it call you to become or do?
A Question to Ponder.
Read James 1.5-8 and Jude 22. What are we to do with these two verses that seem to suggest two different approaches to doubt?
Quotable.
Read the quote below about the incarnation. What strikes you most about the ideas? What comforts you? What challenges you and why?
Jesus didn’t come merely to die for our sins. Nor did he come to show off his miraculous superpowers and celestial wisdom. In the history of Christianity, the incarnation of God teaches us that Jesus was born into the fullness of humanity. He was born, in other words, into the complete mortal experience, warts and all.
And yes, Jesus may have had warts. He breastfed as an infant. He learned to walk. And the Messiah—in those awkward teenage years—went through puberty. Why did Jesus have to experience all of that? He did this to free us from the grip of sin and death by entering humanity. As the second-century theologian Irenaeus famously put it, “He became what we are so that we could become what he is.”
(Taken from "Jesus was the God-Man, Not the God-Superman", by AJ Swoboda and Ninja K. Gupta, Christianity Today, April 1, 2021)
Quotable.
Read the quote below from Dallas Willard. What in this description challenges you? What gives you hope? Why?
“Non-discipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees everything in the light of God’s overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil. In short, it costs exactly that abundance of life Jesus said he came to bring.…The correct perspective is to see following Christ not only as the necessity it is, but as the fulfillment of the highest human possibilities and as life on the highest plane.”
(Dallas Willard, Spirit of the Disciplines)
Second Sunday after the Epiphany
Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world: Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory, that he may be known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and forever. Amen.