Hope Presbyterian Church In Winston-salem Sermons

Series: Advent 2018Scripture: Matthew 1:6; 2 Samuel 11 “If I am told over and over to repent, to change, to orient my life to God, nothing will ever happen. I will cling to the Gucci luggage—not that I could afford it—and the earthly status symbols more desperately than ever. I don’t need to hear exhortations to repent. I need power from outside myself to make me different . . . A power from outside is coming, a power that is able to make a new creation out of people like us,  stones like us, people who have no capacity of ourselves to save ourselves.” Fleming Rutledge “Why is power a gift? Because power is for flourishing. When power is used well, people and the whole cosmos come more alive to what they were meant to be. And flourishing is the test of power . . . Power at its best is resurrection to full life, to full humanity.” Andy Crouch “There are theological reasons for observing a serious Advent without being swallowed up prematurely by the Christmas rush. Advent offers an unparalleled opportunity to t

Series: Advent 2018Scripture: Joshua 2:1-24; Joshua 6:21-25 “Even the size of our faith and the height of our holiness aren’t the basis of our hope. The value of our faith is based on the object of our faith.” Bethany Jenkins, “Saints—They’re Just Like Us” “Because you have loved me, O Lord, you have made me lovable.” Augustine of Hippo “We’re women and men who are so sinful and flawed that we deserve hell, but we’ve been so loved and welcomed that every spiritual blessing, adoption, tender fellowship with our Father and each other, forgiveness, reconciliation, and eternal life is ours. Christ’s accomplishments and perfections are ours now. Everything about us is different.” Elyse Fitzpatrick, Because He Loves MeThe post The Mothers of Jesus: Rahab the Prostitute first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Advent 2018Scripture: Genesis 1:26-28, 31; Genesis 3:1-15, 20-21; Matthew 1:1, 20-21 “Christmas, then, is not a dream, a moment of escapism.  Christmas is the reality, which shows up the rest of ‘reality.’ And for Christmas, here, read Christianity. Either Jesus is the Lord of the world, and all reality makes sense in his light, or he is dangerously irrelevant to the problems and possibilities of today’s world. There is no middle ground. Either Jesus was, and is, the Word of God, or he, and the stories Christians tell about him, are lies.” N.T. Wright “‘Advent’ means ‘coming’ of course, and the promise of Advent is that what is coming is an unimaginable invasion. The mythology of our age has to do with flying saucers and invasions from outer space, and that is unimaginable enough. But what is upon us now is even more so—a close encounter not of the third kind but of a different kind altogether. An invasion of holiness. That is what Advent is about. What is coming upon the world is the Light of the Wor

Series: Restored from RuinScripture: Nehemiah Nehemiah 13:4-31 “Institutions are the way the teeming abundance of human creativity and culture are handed on to future generations. So posterity, not just prosperity, is the promise of God to Abraham: countless descendants and blessings poured out on entire nations not yet born. Posterity, not just prosperity is God’s promise to David, a succession of sons in his line on the throne. And posterity was what the average Israelite prayed for as well – “may you see your children’s children!” – a wish that before death one would see the evidence that shalom and abundance would continue in one’s own line after death. There is nothing quick about shalom. True shalom endures.” Andy Crouch, Playing God “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.” G.K. Chesterton “If our religion be of our own getting or making, it will perish; and the sooner it goes, the better; but if our religion is a matter of God’s giving, we know that He shall never take back what He gives,

Series: Restored from RuinScripture: Nehemiah 9:38; 10:28-39 “Remember the story in the Imitation, how the Christ on the crucifix suddenly spoke to the monk who was so anxious about his salvation and said, ‘If you knew that all was well, what would you, today, do, or stop doing?’ When you have found the answer, do it or stop doing it. You see, one must always get back to the practical and definite. What the devil loves is that vague cloud of unspecified guilt feeling or unspecified virtue by which he lures us into despair or presumption. ‘Details, please?’ is the answer.” C.S. Lewis “Repentance unto life is a saving grace whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God with full purpose of and endeavor after new obedience.” Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 87. “To become that which you are not, you must go a way in which you are not.” St. John of the Cross “Bear fruits in keeping with repentan

Series: Restored from RuinScripture: Nehemiah 9:1-17, 32-37 “The awareness of sin used to be our shadow. Christians hated sin, feared it, fled from it, grieved over it. Some of our grandparents agonized over their sins. A man who lost his temper might wonder whether he could go to Holy Communion. A woman who for years envied her more attractive and intelligent sister might worry that this sin threatened her very salvation. But the shadow has dimmed. Nowadays, the accusation you have sinned is often said with a grin, and with a tone that signals an inside joke.  At one time, this accusation still had the power to jolt people. Catholics lined up to confess their sins; Protestant preachers rose up to confess our sins. And they did it regularly . . . The word sin now finds its home mostly on dessert menus. “Peanut Butter Binge” and “Chocolate Challenge” are sinful; lying is not. The new measure for sin is caloric.” Cornelius Plantinga “We often forget that the heinousness of sin lies not so much in the nature of

Series: Restored from RuinScripture: Nehemiah 8:1-12 “When a minister reads out of the Bible, I am sure that at least nine times out of ten the people who happen to be listening at all hear not what is really being read but only what they expect to be read. And I think that what most people expect to hear read from the Bible is an edifying story, an uplifting thought, a moral lesson—something elevating, obvious, and boring. So that is exactly what very often they do hear. Only that is too bad because if you really listen—and maybe you have to forget that it is the Bible being read and a minister who is reading it—there is no telling what you might hear.” Frederick  Buechner “The most precious part of each day for me is the 30-40 minutes I spend each morning before breakfast with the Bible.  All the rest of the day I am bombarded with the stories the world is telling about itself. As I take time to immerse myself in the story the Bible tells, my vision is cleared, and I see things in another way.  I see the da

Series: Restored from RuinScripture: Nehemiah 6:1-16 “‘Fear God!’ is a call that puts us in our place and puts all other fears, hopes, and aspirations in their place.” Derek Kidner “Strengthen weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, ‘Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.’” Isaiah 35: 3-4 “As we might guess, far from gradually becoming extinct in adulthood, our fears increase throughout our lives. What was once a small family of worries quietly conducts an aggressive breeding program to become a teeming community of palpable fears and private anxieties. The code by which fear and anxiety live is primal: multiply. As we possess more things, care about more people, accumulate more bad experiences, and watch the evening news, it is as if we absorb fear. If they are not obvious in your own life, perhaps it’s because you have been living in a war zone your entire life. At first you noticed

Series: Restored from RuinScripture: Nehemiah 5:1-19 “The gospel miracle is that human beings like us from time to time evade the temptations of power and the brittleness of success and actually manage to vulnerably love another person who has all the potential of turning on us and rejecting us. Every time such love is ventured, another piece of the gospel is proclaimed, and the Kingdom of God is made credible.” Eugene H. Peterson, Leap Over A Wall “Considering the full sweep of the Christian tradition, one would have to conclude that the most profane word we can utter is that word, mine.” William  Willimon “‘Fear God!’ is a call that puts us in our place and puts all other fears, hopes, and aspirations in their place.” Derek Kidner “The fear of God is that affectionate reverence, by which the child of God bends himself humbly and carefully to his Father’s law.” Charles BridgesThe post Treasured Possession first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Restored from RuinScripture: Nehemiah 4:1-23 “To a truly envious human being, the success or blessing of another – particularly a rival, and most particularly a close rival – is an affront, a kind of assault . . . Envy, like the pride that spawns it, is inevitably comparative. The envier wants to tear down a competitor because “he hath a daily beauty in his life that makes me ugly.” The core of envy is the desire to cut somebody down to size, to change the basis of comparison with oneself, to hamstring rivals so that they have to drop out of the race in whatever competition the envier cares about.” Cornelius Plantinga “Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.” 1 John 3: 13 “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself

Series: Restored from RuinScripture: Nehemiah 3:1-3, 6, 8, 12-15, 17-19, 30-32 “It shouldn’t be an easy walk from the pew to the weight bench, but it is made easy by a Christianity that looks more like a spiritual fitness program than a Gospel balm . . . The church is not like CrossFit; it is more like the hospital, or even the morgue. It is not a place where bad people go to be made good, but a place where bad people are loved in their badness.” Conor Gwin, “My Church is Not CrossFit” “The church is not in the world to teach sinners how to straighten up and fly right. That’s the world’s business; and on the whole it does a fairly competent—even gleefully aggressive—job of it. The church is supposed to be in the forgiveness business. Its job in filling pulpits is to find derelict nobodies who are willing to admit that they’re sinners and mean it. It’s supposed to take sheep who can be nothing but lost … and stand them up to proclaim that lostness, deadness, uselessness, and nothingness are God’s cup of tea. T

Series: Restored from RuinScripture: Nehemiah 2:1-20 “Suffering makes people bitter or it makes people beautiful. How was Joseph able to forgive his brothers? He realized that there was an invisible hand that was always controlling his life. He entrusted himself to those two hands. Entrust yourself to those hands. They are good hands.” Dustin Salter “In friendship…we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years’ difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another…the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting–any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” can truly say to every group of Christian friends, “Ye have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another.” The friendship is not a reward for o

Series: Restored from RuinScripture: Nehemiah 1:1-11 Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage: anger at the way things are and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.” Augustine “Faith without works is dead (James 2: 17), and the same goes for hope. Without costly action, hope can soften into sentimentality. With costly action, hope may harden into reality . . . Hope is the reach of our hearts for the cure. It’s the reach of our hearts toward what we think will fulfill us, secure us, save us – and not just us, but also the whole world . . . Classical Christian hope centers on Jesus Christ alone, rejecting his rivals as pseudo-saviors.” Cornelius Plantinga “O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and forevermore.” Psalm 131: 3The post Hope for Restoration first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Restored from RuinScripture: Nehemiah 1: 1-4 “Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage: anger at the way things are and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.” Augustine  “In the Christian story God descends to reascend. He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity… But he goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him.” C.S. Lewis, Miracles  “The soul that on Jesus relies, He’ll never, no never deceive; He freely and faithfully gives More blessings than we can conceive. Yea, down to old age he will keep, Nor will he forsake us at last; He knows and is known by his sheep; They’re his, and he will hold them fast.” William GadsbyThe post True Hope for Real Life first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: God’s New HumanityScripture: Ephesians 6:10-20 “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.” C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters “Though sin wars, it shall not reign; and though it breaks our peace, it cannot separate from his love. Nor is it inconsistent with his holiness and perfection, to manifest his favor to such poor defiled creatures, or to admit them to communion with himself; for they are not considered as in themselves, but as one with Jesus, to whom they have fled for refuge, and by whom they live by faith.” John Newton “My friend, if you think of your Christian life … with this sense of grudge, or as a wearisome task or duty, I tell you to go back to the beginning of your life, retrace your steps to the wicket gate thro

Series: God’s New HumanityScripture: Ephesians 6:5-9 “Let the Church remember this: that every maker and worker is called to serve God in his profession or trade – not outside of it.  The Apostles complained rightly when they said it was not right they should leave the word of God and serve tables; their vocation was to preach the word.  But the person whose vocation it is to prepare the meals beautifully might with equal justice protest: It is not right for us to leave the service of our tables to preach the word.” Dorothy Sayers “Power is for flourishing – teeming, fruitful, multiplying abundance.  Power creates and shapes an environment where creatures can flourish . . . Image bearing is for power . . . image bearing is for flourishing.  The image bearers do not exist for their own flourishing alone, but to bring the whole creation to its fulfillment. Why is power a gift? Because power is for flourishing.  When power is used well, people and the whole cosmos come more alive to what they were meant to be. A

Scripture: Genesis 28:10-22

Series: God’s New HumanityScripture: Ephesians 6:1-4 “Discipline is like a vaccine. It inflicts lesser pain now to avoid greater pain later.” Dan Doriani, The Life of a God-Made Man “There’s one more voice you may need to adjust. It’s the voice in your head whispering, There’s not enough. Not enough resources, spots in the best schools, teacher’s attention, opportunities, friends who will provide the right type of influence. Not enough hours in the day, funds in the account, time to protect the planet, chances to do things over. Fear of scarcity is alive and blooming inside the minds of most parents. That’s what sends their voices into the pinched and panicky zone. Fear is behind the rushing, hovering, chiding, and pleading that sours our conversations with our children . . .   For as long as I have practiced therapy with families, parents have been worried about scarcity . . . Relinquish the fear and you open a door to enchantment.” Wendy Mogel, Voice Lessons, 4. “Salvation is  . . . membership in the family

Series: God’s New HumanityScripture: Ephesians 5:21-33 “The Bible doesn’t say that men and women are unequal. Neither does the church. There are not second-class citizens in the New Jerusalem. It is husbands and wives that are unequal . . . And the difference there is not one of worth, ability or intelligence, but of role. It is functional, not organic.  It is based on the exigencies of the Dance, not on a judgment as to talent. In the ballet, in any intricate dance, one dancer leads, the other follows. Not because one is better (he may or may not be), but because that is his part. Our mistake, here as elsewhere, is to think that equality and diversity are irreconcilable. The common notion of equality is based on the image of the march. In a parade, really unequal beings are dressed alike, given guns of identical length, trained to hold them at the same angle, and ordered to keep step with a fixed beat. But it is not the parade that is true to life; it is the dance. There you have real equals assigned unequal

Series: God’s New HumanityScripture: Ephesians 5:15-20 “Christianity is a life to be lived and not a mere philosophy or point of view.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Life in the Spirit “Dramatic, life-altering moments come only a few times during our lifetime—that’s why they’re dramatic. The rest of our lives are lived in the common, ordinary mundane. …  Dirty dishes in the sink is not just a worrisome ordeal in your otherwise uneventful day. It’s an opportunity to see glimpses of grace.” Gloria Furman, “God Rules the Mundane” “you bear the weight of all our grief uncertainty and unbelief oh, you restore our sanity so we raise our voice we raise an offering would you come near and quench our thirst oh, lift our hearts as the spirit bears the curse” Derek Webb, “The Spirit Bears the Curse” “To be joyful is to expect that life will reveal itself as God’s gift of grace …. To be joyful means to look out for opportunities for gratitude. … Indeed, it is really when the Holy Spirit comes and is present that one experiences tr