Hope Presbyterian Church In Winston-salem Sermons

Series: Life of MosesScripture: Exodus 3:1-15 “Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and our ourselves . . . it is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.”  John Calvin “The most difficult lie I have ever contended with is this: life is a story about me.” Donald Miller “God does not call the qualified. He qualifies the called.”  handwritten sign over Lafayette Beck’s deskThe post The Two Questions Everyone Is Asking first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Life of MosesScripture: Exodus 2:11-25 “All things on Earth only exist in different stages of becoming garbage.”  Jerry Seinfeld “God does not make junk, and we dishonor the Creator if we take a negative view of the work of his hands when he himself takes such a positive view. In fact, so positive a view did he take of what he had created that he refused to scrap it when mankind spoiled it, but determined instead, at the cost of his Son’s life, to make it new and good again. God does not make junk, and he does not junk what he has made”  Al Wolters, Creation Regained “The assumption of spirituality is that always God is doing something before I know it. So the task is not to get God to do something I think needs to be done, but to become aware of what God is doing so that I can respond to it and participate and take delight in it . . . The pastor’s question is, ‘Who are these people, and how can I be with them in such a way that they can become what God is making them?’”  Eugene PetersonThe post The N

Scripture: Mark 4:1-20 “This world has nothing for me And this world has everything All that I could want And nothing that I need” Caedmon’s Call, “This World” “Our sticky fingers are motivated by desire for control just as much as for power—our tendency is to protect against the unknown future, especially against a future of need or dependence. This is illusory because of, well, the way life works in its unpredictability, but also because our thirst for security and control is just as ruthlessly insatiable as our hunger for love. Today, material comforts, in all of their abundance, are the yardstick of well-being. We can now meet all of our material needs in a way that shoves God into a corner along with our emptied shopping bags and useless impulse purchases.” Emily Hornsby, “New Research on Wealth Confirms What Jesus Said 2,000 Years Ago” “Jesus—upon whom the Father looks and says, ‘This is my beloved Son’—is the only rich man in the world; we, who spend our whole lives in the pursuit of wealth, come in th

Series: Life of MosesScripture: Exodus 1:20, 1:22-2:10 Q. What do you understand by the providence of God? A. God’s providence is his almighty and ever present power, whereby, as with his hand, he still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures, and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things, come to us not by chance but by his fatherly hand. Heidelberg Catechism #27 “He hath given me rest by his sorrow, And life by his death.” “Christian” in The Pilgrim’s Progress “Remember I’ll always be here for you, even if you can’t see me. Because I love you.”  “Chilli Heeler” in BlueyThe post Not by Chance first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Life of MosesScripture: Exodus 1:1-21 “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 our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others.”  C.S. Lewis “What matters supremely therefore is not in the last analysis the fact that I know God, but the larger fact that underlies it—the fact that he knows

Series: Life of MosesScripture: Exodus 33:11a; Hebrews 11:23-29 “The life of Moses presents a series of striking antitheses. He was the child of a slave, and the son of a queen. He was born in a hut, and lived in a palace. He inherited poverty, and enjoyed unlimited wealth. He was the leader of armies, and the keeper of flocks. He was the mightiest of warriors, and the meekest of men. He was educated in the court, and dwelt in the desert. He had the wisdom of Egypt, and the faith of a child. He was fitted for the city, and wandered in the wilderness. He was tempted with the pleasures of sin, and endured the hardships of virtue. He was backward in speech, and talked with God. He had the rod of a shepherd, and the power of the Infinite. He was a fugitive from Pharaoh, and an ambassador from Heaven. He was the giver of the Law, and the forerunner of Grace. He died alone on Mount Moab, and appeared with Christ in Judea. No man assisted at his funeral, yet God buried him. The fire has gone out of Mount Sinai, but

Scripture: Luke 14:12-24 “Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit you would stay out and your dog would go in.”  Mark Twain “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”   JesusThe post Middle-class in Spirit first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Advent 2022Scripture: Matthew 2:1-12 “Thou who art God beyond all praising, All for love’s sake becamest man; Stooping so low but sinners raising, Heavenward by thine eternal plan. Thou who art God beyond all praising, All for love’s sake becamest man.” Frank Houghton “No matter how much we give lip service to the notion of free grace and dying love, we do not like it.  It is just too . . . indiscriminate.  It lets rotten sons and crooked tax farmers and common tarts into the kingdom, and it thumbs its nose at the really good people. And it does that, gallingly, for no more reason than the Gospel’s shabby exaltation of dumb trust over worthy works.  The work of redemption is done entirely by the Redeemer and not at all by the redeemed!”  Robert Farrar Capon “We need a Savior – even (or especially) we who think that we are good Christians.” Frederick Dale Bruner “One of the most unbelievable parts of the Christmas story is that a bunch of men showed up to a child’s birthday party and remembered present

Series: Advent 2022Scripture: Matthew 1:21-23 21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: 23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).                                                                                                                                        Matthew 1:21-23The post The Best of All—God is with Us! first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Advent 2022Scripture: Matthew 1:1; Genesis 12: 1-3, 22:18 “Come, thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free; from our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in thee. Israel’s strength and consolation, hope of all the earth thou art; dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart.”  Charles Wesley “Oh! I love God’s ‘shalls’ and ‘wills.’ There is nothing comparable to them. Let a man say ‘shall,’ what is it good for? ‘I will,’ says man, and he never performs; ‘I shall,’ says he, and he breaks his promise. But it is never so with God’s ‘shalls.’ If He says ‘shall,’ it shall be; when He says ‘will,’ it will be.”  Charles Spurgeon “Here is a simple Gospel mantra always to keep in mind: “One, I am a complete idiot. Two, my future is incredibly bright. Three, anyone can get in on this.”  Ray Ortlund Jr.The post The Deep and Wide Promise Fulfilled first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Advent 2022Scripture: Matthew 1:1; Hosea 3:4-5 “The early Christians did not say ‘look what the world is coming to!’ but ‘look what has come into the world!’” Carl Henry “So I’ve been waiting for the King To come galloping out of the clouds while the angel armies sing He’s gonna gather His people in the shadow of His wings And I’m gonna raise my voice with the song of the redeemed ‘Cause all this darkness is a small and passing thing” Andrew Peterson, “The Dark Before the Dawn” “In short, we need to be forgiven. That’s the only way for our discontent to be healed. It will take more than a miracle worker or a divine genie—it will take a Savior. Jesus knows that to be our Savior he is going to have to die. And we will discover that in the process of dealing with what we thought were our deepest wishes, Jesus has revealed an even deeper, truer one beneath—and it is for Jesus himself. He will not just have granted that true deepest wish, he will have fulfilled it. Jesus is not going to play the rotten pra

Series: Advent 2022Scripture: Matthew 1:1; 11:2-6; 16:13-16, 21-25 “Who is this, so weak and helpless, Child of lowly Hebrew maid, Rudely in a stable sheltered, Coldly in a manger laid? ‘Tis the Lord of all creation, Who this wondrous path has trod; He is Lord from everlasting, And to everlasting God”  William Washam How “John [the Baptist] saw the mission of the Coming One as primarily one of separation: those who repented he would save and the unrepentant he would judge. John, in fact,expected this twofold messianic work to take place in a single eschatological event. He had predicted that the coming Messiah would both ‘gather his wheat into the granary’ and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire (Matt. 3:12). When John was in prison, he began to reflect on the fact that, while he did see Jesus gathering wheat, he did not see him burning chaff.”  Anthony Hoekema, The Bible and the Future “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you cr

Series: Advent 2022Scripture: Matthew 1:1-21 “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”  CS Lewis, Mere Christianity “Did Jesus live? And did he really say The burning words that banish mortal fear? And are they true? Jus

Series: Revelation: Unveiled HopeScripture: Revelation 5:1-14  “Crown Him the Lord of heav’n, One with the Father known, One with the Spirit through Him giv’n From yonder glorious throne, To Thee be endless praise For Thou for us hast died; Be Thou, O Lord, through endless days Adored and magnified.”  Matthew Bridges “We wonder, What does worship have to do with my work? . . . The work we do together each week in gathered worship transforms and sends us into the work we do in our homes and offices . . . we are people who are blessed and sent; this identity transforms how we embody work and worship in the world, in our week, even in our small day.”  Tish Harrison Warren “When I have learned to love God better than all my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now.  In so far as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all.  When first things are put first, second th

Series: Revelation: Unveiled HopeScripture: Revelation 4:1-11 “Worship is the strategy by which we interrupt our preoccupation with ourselves and attend to the presence of God.” Eugene Peterson “Worship is the arena in which God recalibrates our hearts, reforms our desires, and rehabituates our loves. Worship isn’t just something we do; it is where God does something to us. Worship is the heart of discipleship because it is the gymnasium in which God retrains our hearts.” James K.A. Smith “Beethoven … turned out pieces of breath-taking rightness. Rightness — that’s the word! When you get the feeling that whatever note succeeds the last is the only possible note that can rightly happen at that instant, in that context, then chances are you’re listening to Beethoven… Our boy has the real goods, the stuff from Heaven, the power to make you feel at the finish: Something is right in the world. There is something that checks throughout, that follows its own law consistently: something we can trust, that will never

Series: Revelation: Unveiled HopeScripture: Revelation 3:14-22 “It is clear that at the very beginning of Christianity, there must have occurred a vast release of energy, unequaled in the history of the race. Without it, the future course of the faith is inexplicable… Something happened to the men who associated with Jesus. That burst of energy was ascribed by the early disciples to the founder of their faith. Why this occurred may lie outside the realms in which historians are supposed to move.”  Kenneth LaTourette “A zealous man in religion is pre-eminently a man of one thing. It is not enough to say that he is earnest, hearty, uncompromising, thorough-going, whole-hearted, fervent in spirit. He only sees one thing, he cares for one thing, he lives for one thing, he is swallowed up in one thing; and that one thing is to please God.”  JC Ryle “There are two ways to be fooled: one is to believe what isn’t true, the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”  Soren Kierkegaard The post From Apathy to Zeal fi

Series: Revelation: Unveiled HopeScripture: Revelation 3:7-13 “There are no little people in God’s sight, so there are no little places. To be wholly committed to God in the place where God wants him—this is the creature glorified … This is the way of the Christian: he should choose the lesser place until God extrudes him into a position of more responsibility and authority.” Francis Schaeffer “The world shouldn’t dictate what we anticipate from God. As the West becomes more committed to a secular belief system, it doesn’t mean we should expect less from God during our lifetime. He is sovereign, which is why we should believe anything is possible. His Spirit can move when and where He wishes.” Andy Jones “So if I stand let me stand on the promise that you will pull me through And if I can’t, let me fall on the grace that first brought me to You And if I sing let me sing for the joy that has born in me these songs And if I weep let it be as a man who is longing for his home” Rich Mullins, “If I Stand”The post

Series: Revelation: Unveiled HopeScripture: Revelation 3:1-6 “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out.” Eugene Peterson, The Message paraphrase of Romans 12:1-2a “Come broken and weary, come battered and bruised. My Jesus makes all things new, all things new. Come lost and abandoned, come blown by the wind. He’ll bring you back home again, home again. Rise up, oh you sleeper, awake, The light of the dawn is upon you. Rise up, oh you sleeper, awake, He makes all things new, all things new.” Andrew Peterson, “All Things New”The post The Grace of Smelling Salts first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Revelation: Unveiled HopeScripture: Revelation 2:18-29 “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 “Nothing could be more cruel than the tenderness that consigns another to his sin. Nothing could be more compassionate than the severe rebuke that calls a brother back from his sin.”  Dietrich Bonhoeffer “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  John 1:14The post The Grace of Truth and the Truth of Grace first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Revelation: Unveiled HopeScripture: Revelation 2:12-17 “There is no attribute more comforting to His children than that of God’s Sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe trials, they believe that Sovereignty has ordained their afflictions, that Sovereignty overrules them, and that Sovereignty will sanctify them all.”  Charles Spurgeon “A great mystery: to redeem our brokenness and lovelessness the God who suffers with us did not strike some mighty blow of power but sent his beloved son to suffer like us and through his suffering to redeem us from suffering and evil. Instead of explaining our suffering God shares it.”  Nicholas Wolterstorff “Jesus has many who love his kingdom in heaven, but few who bear his cross. He has many who desire comfort, but few who desire suffering. He finds many to share his feast, but few his fasting. All desire to rejoice with him, but few are willing to suffer for his sake. Many follow Jesus to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of