Hope Presbyterian Church In Winston-salem Sermons

Series: Words of LifeScripture: Romans 8:1-13 “Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.”—Westminster Shorter Catechism “If the goal of sanctification is actually growing in humility and greater dependence on Christ, then the Holy Spirit is doing an excellent job. Through his ongoing struggles with indwelling sin, the maturing believer will spend many years learning that he is more sinful than he ever imagined, in order to discover that he is indeed far more loved than he ever dared to hope.”—Barbara Duguid, Extravagant Grace “If we are ever to enter fully into the glorious liberty of the children of God, we are going to have to spend more time thinking about freedom than we do. The church, by and large, has had a poor record of encouraging freedom. It has spent so much time inculcating in us the fear of making mistakes that it has made us like ill-taught piano stud

Series: Words of LifeScripture: Exodus 20:17, Romans 7:7-25  “Comparison is the thief of joy.” — Theodore Roosevelt “Whatever worldly thing we may covet – zealously striving to obtain and then retain – never seems to bring an end to our   desires. Covetousness, envy, jealousy, and greed always escalate into a vicious spiral, as we seek greater and greater gratification but find less and less contentment. . . . Striving to acquire the things of the world not only does not bring lasting happiness and peace, but it drives us to seek more. When “all we’ve ever wanted” is grounded in the temporal trappings of this world, it is never enough!” ― Brent Top  “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” ― C.S. Lewis And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” — Jesus, Luke 12:15The post Coveting vs Longing first ap

Series: Words of LifeScripture: Exodus 20:16, Colossians 3:1-17 “We embrace lies—reams of them—about our bodies, our money, our sexuality, our food, our vocations, and our relationships. The temptation to construe reality along the contours of our lies—to literally build a false creation—is everywhere, and never more so than now. In fact, one could argue that the chief destructive force of contemporary Western culture is the unparalleled power and fertility of its lies. We are locked away in a hall of mirrors. Redemption, however, is about learning to hate the lies, about learning to see again. And part of the calling of God’s people is to name the parody as it presents itself to us and make war upon it. We look for the particular lies that lead us (and our communities) into the poison fog of non-reality and then go after them (in word and deed) with a battle axe. We find the anti-Eden and burn it down. Hating is part of our task in the world.”—Greg Thompson “An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips.” —Pro

Series: Words of LifeScripture: Exodus 20:15, 2 Corinthians 8:1-9, 9:6-15 “You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”― John Bunyan … not just what is necessary for bare subsistence, but also what is necessary for living a life “becoming” or appropriate to human beings. The point is not to live on crusts of bread with bare walls and threadbare clothes. The point is that a fully human life is lived in a way free from being enslaved to our stuff.― Rebecca DeYoung “It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.”― Mother Teresa “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”― Winston S. Churchill “Until we can receive with an open heart, we’re never really giving with an open heart. When we attach judgment to receiving help, we knowingly or unknowingly attach judgment to giving help.”― Brené BrownThe post The Big Gulp first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Words of LifeScripture: Exodus 20:15, Malachi 3:6-12, Matthew 6:19-21 If we look at mankind in all its conditions, it is nothing but a vast wide stable full of great thieves.—Martin Luther Every time I give, I declare money does not control me. Perpetual generosity is a perpetual de-deification of money.—Kent Hughes Any temporal possession can be turned into everlasting wealth. Whatever is given to Christ is immediately touched with immortality.—A. W. Tozer Give away your life; you’ll find life given back, but not merely given back—given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity.”—Jesus, Luke 6:38, The MessageThe post Be Generous first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Words of LifeScripture: Exodus 20: 14; Matthew 5: 27-30; 1 Corinthians 6: 9-11; Titus 2: 11-14 “I am a riddle to myself; a heap of inconsistencies.” —John Newton “Though sin wars, it shall not reign; and though it breaks our peace, it cannot separate us 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 “The path of the righteous is like the light of the dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. The way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know over what they stumble.” —Proverbs 4: 18-19 “The fire of lust’s pleasures must be fought with the fire of God’s  pleasures.  If we try to  fight the fire of lust with prohibitions and threats alone – even the terrible warnings of Jesus – we will fail.  We must fight it w

Series: Words of LifeScripture: Genesis 2:24-25, Exodus 20:14, Matthew 5: 27-30, 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 “Love is the seed in you of every virtue and of all acts deserving  punishment.”—Dante “The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which were intended to go along with it and make up the total union. The Christian attitude does not mean there is anything wrong about sexual pleasure, any more than about the pleasure of eating. It means you must not isolate that pleasure and try to get it by itself, any more than you ought to try to get the pleasures of tasting without swallowing and digesting, by chewing things and spitting them out again.”—CS Lewis, Mere Christianity. “We use an unfortunate idiom when we say of a man prowling the streets, that “he wants a woman.” Strictly speaking, a woman is what he does not want. He wants a pleasure for which a woman happens to be a necessary

Series: Words of LifeScripture: Exodus 20:13, Deuteronomy 30:11-20 “A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.”  —Isaiah 42: 3 “God himself did not despise humanity, but became man for men’s sake.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer “You can survive on your own.  You can grow strong on your own. You can even prevail on your own.  But you cannot become human on your own.  Surely that is why, in Jesus’ sad joke, the rich man has as hard a time getting into Paradise as that camel through the needle’s eye.  Because with his credit card in his pocket, the rich man is so effective at getting for himself everything that he needs that he does not see that what he needs more than anything else in the world can be had only as a gift.  He does not see that the one thing a clenched fist cannot do is accept, even from God himself, a helping hand.”—Frederick Buechner “But all the while, there was one thing we most needed even from the start, and certainly will

Series: Words of LifeScripture: Psalm 19 The distinction between law and gospel is the highest art in Christendom. —Martin Luther “Gospel freedom does not mean you get to do whatever you want,” he said. “It means you want good things.”—D.A. Carson When I contemplated the relationship of justification by faith with functional idolatry, it helped me explore the ways I seek to find self-justification through violation of the law of God. As Keller noted, there is a reason why we lie. It is because we find greater comfort in believing falsehood rather than being  exposed by the truth. When we are justified by faith in Christ alone, we are freed to be a people who love truth and are willing to live exposed to the truth of God’s Word (Hebrews 4:12-13). —Tim BristerThe post Light to the Eyes first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Words of LifeScripture: Exodus 20:13, Matthew 5:21-26 Anger is only one letter short of danger. —Eleanor Roosevelt I would rather be mad than sad. —Anonymous God invites us to see the dark parts of our heart and face that our unrighteous anger, whether directed at others or ourselves, is always a condemnation of Him. And what is His response? We still might expect Him to scold and condemn or worse, attack or abandon us. But in fact, the marvel of the gospel is that He turns His wrath not against us, but against His own son, Jesus Christ. Our unrighteous anger is not condoned nor overlooked; it is a rebellion that our elder Brother paid for rather than allowing us to face the just wrath of God. —Dan Allender Righteous anger warns, invites for the greater work of redemption. —Dan AllenderThe post Where Does Your Anger Take You? first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Words of LifeScripture: Exodus 20:12, Psalm 27:10-11, John 14:15-18 “Optimism hopes for the best without any guarantee of its arriving and is often no more than whistling in the dark. Christian hope, by contrast, is faith looking ahead to the fulfillment of the promises of God, as when the Anglican burial service inters the corpse ‘in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Optimism is a wish without warrant; Christian hope is a certainty, guaranteed by God himself. Optimism reflects ignorance as to whether good things will ever actually come. Christian hope expresses knowledge that every day of his life, and every moment beyond it, the believer can say with truth, on the basis of God’s own commitment, that the best is yet to come.”― J.I. Packer “You sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of t

Series: Words of LifeScripture: Exodus 20:12, Ephesians 6:1-4 “… [In] writing some thoughts about a father … I feel as though I’m    writing a book about a troll under a bridge or a dragon. For me, a father was nothing more than a character in a fairy tale. … The sad thing is, as a kid, I wondered why I couldn’t have a dragon, but I never wondered why I didn’t have a father.” —Donald Miller, Father Fiction “Today I wonder why it is God refers to Himself as ‘Father’ at all. This, to me, in light of the earthly representation of the role, seems a marketing mistake. Why would God want to call Himself Father when so many fathers abandon their children?” —Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz “Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.” —Brennan Manning, Abba’s Child The post Parented by God first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Words of LifeScripture: Exodus 20:8-11, Psalm 8, Colossians 3:23-24 “Work is not, primarily, a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do.  It is, or should be, the full expression of the worker’s faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental, and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers  himself to God.” —Dorothy Sayers “Let the Church remember this: that every maker and worker is called to serve God in his profession or trade – not outside it.  The Apostles     complained rightly when they said it was not meet 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 meet for us to leave the service of our  tables to preach the word.”  —Dorothy Sayers “Workaholics do not work because they have a desire to be gainfully employed; they work to prove something to themselves.  Though they keep trying by working harder, worki

Series: Words of LifeScripture: Exodus 20:8-11, Deuteronomy 5:15, Mark 2:27-28 “The Sabbath is not a fast, but a feast, a day for rejoicing in the works of a gracious God, and joy must be its temper throughout.  Joy suits no person so much as a saint, and it becomes no season as well as a Sabbath.”     —J.I. Packer “O day of rest and gladness, O day of joy and light, O balm of care and sadness, most beautiful, most bright, On you the high and lowly, through ages joined in tune, Sing “Holy, holy, holy” to the great God triune.” —Christopher Wordsworth “Sunday feels odd without church in the morning. It’s the time in the week when we take our bearings, and, if we miss it, we’re just following our noses.”  —Garrison Keillor “Be still, and know that I am God.” —Psalm 46:10The post O Day of Rest and Gladness first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Words of LifeScripture: Exodus 20:8-11, Deuteronomy 5:15 “Sabbath is about God interfering with all the things you think you need to get done so that you can focus on what He has done for you.” —Eugene Peterson “When we rest we acknowledge that all our striving will, of itself, do nothing.  Rest means letting the world pass us by for a time.  Genuine rest requires acknowledging that God and our brothers and sisters can survive without us.  It requires recognizing our own insufficiency and handing over responsibility.  It is truly surrendering to the ways of God.  It is a   moment of celebration, when we acknowledge that blessing comes only from the hand of God.  That is why rest requires faith.  It is also why salvation can be pictured as rest.  When we rest we accept God’s grace: we do not seek to earn; we receive.  We do not justify; we are justified.” —Paul Marshall “At least at night, Let your heart have a rest . . . At least at night, Stop your career, Calm those desires that nearly madden you,

Series: Words of LifeScripture: Exodus 20:1-11, Matthew 11:28-30, The Message “Our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you.” ― Augustine of Hippo (354–430), in Confessions. “I learned to keep the Sabbath in the crucible of breaking it.” ― Mark Buchanan, The Rest of God “Most of the things we need to be most fully alive never come in busyness. They grow in rest.” ― Mark Buchanan, The Holy Wild: Trusting in the Character of God “Mindset of the man too busy: I am too busy BEING God to become LIKE God.” ― Mark Buchanan, The Holy Wild: Trusting in the Character of God “Unless and until we rest in God, we will never risk for God.” ― Mark Buchanan, The Holy Wild: Trusting in the Character of GodThe post Give Me A Sabbath Heart first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Words of LifeScripture: Exodus 20:1-7, John 14:12-14 Ascribe to the LORD, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength. 2 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness. —Psalm 29:1-2 Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and Amen! —Psalm 72:19 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. —Philippians 2:9-11The post The Power in His Name first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Words of LifeScripture: Exodus 20:1-6 “My people have committed two sins: they have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” —Jeremiah 2: 13 “Idols are non-gods and as such are much more congenial to us than God, for we not only have the pleasure of making them, using our wonderful imaginations and skills in creative ways, but also of controlling them.  They are gods with all the God taken out so that we can continue to be our own gods.” —Eugene Peterson “Those who make idols become like them; so do all who trust in them. O Israel, trust in the LORD.” —Psalm 115: 8 “Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love . . . Salvation belongs to the LORD.” —Jonah 2: 8-9The post I like to think of Jesus like a Ninja … first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Words of LifeScripture: Exodus 20:1-3 “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” —Westminster Shorter Catechism  “No room remains empty for long.  If God is driven out, the gods come trooping in.” —Lesslie Newbigin The King of love my Shepherd is, Whose goodness faileth never; I nothing lack if I am His, And He is mine forever. —Henry Baker “The fire of lust’s pleasures must be fought with the fire of God’s      pleasures.  If we try to fight the fire of lust with prohibitions and threats alone – even the terrible warnings of Jesus – we will fail. We must fight it with a massive promise of superior happiness. We must swallow up the little flicker of lust’s pleasure in the conflagration of holy satisfaction.” —John PipThe post I am His and He is mine forever first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Words of LifeScripture: Exodus 20:1-3, Jeremiah 32:38-41 “An idol is anything in our lives that occupies the place that should be occupied by God alone. Anything that…is central in my life , anything that seems to me…essential…An idol is anything by which I live and on which I depend, anything that…holds such a controlling position in my life that…it moves and rouses and attracts so much of my time and attention, my energy and money.” —D.M. Lloyd-Jones, “Idolatry” in Life in God: Studies in 1 John “The virtues on which the mind preens itself as giving control over the body and its urges, and which aim at any other purpose or possession than God, are in point of fact vices rather than virtues.” —Augustine, City of God, Chapter 19:25 “The idol begins as a means of power, enabling us to control, but then overpowers, controlling us.” —Richard Keyes, “The Idol Factory” in No God but GodThe post Heart and Soul first appeared on Hope Church PCA.