Hope Presbyterian Church In Winston-salem Sermons

Series: Revelation: Unveiled HopeScripture: Revelation 2:8-11 “We have incredible powers of self-deception and denial. Jesus sees and knows the truth about us that we most need to know. And because he loves us and is bent on blessing us, he is willing to tell us the truth, even though it might be uncomfortable for us to hear.” Nancy Guthrie, Blessed “The creative action of the Christian’s life is to prepare his death in Christ.”  Flannery O’Connor, Memoir of Mary Ann “What’s lost is nothing to what’s found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.” Frederick Buechner, Godric “One of the main ways we move from abstract knowledge about God to a personal encounter with him as a living reality is through the furnace of affliction. … While other worldviews lead us to sit in the midst of life’s joys, foreseeing the coming sorrows, Christianity empowers its people to sit in the midst of this world’s sorrows, tasting the coming joy.” Tim Keller, Walking with God through Pain and S

Series: Revelation Revelation: Unveiled HopeScripture: Revelation 2:1-7 “A church can become crowded with legitimate causes, concerns, and needs. And it can be hard to find Jesus.”  Ray Ortlund “There have been men before now who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God Himself … as if the good Lord had nothing to do but exist! There have been some who were so occupied in spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ. Man! Ye see it in smaller matters. Did ye never know a lover of books that with all his first editions and signed copies had lost the power to read them? Or an organizer of charities that had lost all love for the poor? It is the subtlest of all the snares.”  C.S. Lewis “We love because he first loved us.”  1 John 4:19The post Love to the Loveless Shown first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Revelation: Unveiled HopeScripture: Revelation 1:9-20 “Aslan had stopped and turned and stood facing them, looking so majestic that they felt as glad as anyone can who feels afraid, and as afraid as anyone can who feels glad . . . A mad chase began. Round and round the hill-top he led them, now hopelessly out of their reach, now letting them almost catch his tail, now diving between them, now tossing them in the air with his huge and beautifully velveted paws and catching them again, and now stopping unexpectedly so that all three of them rolled over together in a happy laughing heap of fur and arms and legs. It was such a romp as no one has ever had except in Narnia; and whether it was more like playing with a thunderstorm or playing with a kitten Lucy could never make up her mind . . .Terrible paws, if he did not know how to velvet them.”  CS Lewis, describing Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia “The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are not worthy of him.”  AW Tozer

Series: Revelation: Unveiled HopeScripture: Revelation 1:1-8 “We do not need a detailed forecast of future events which has to be laboriously deciphered, but (rather) a vision of Jesus Christ to cheer the faint and encourage the weary. John’s desire is not to satisfy our curiosity about the future but to stimulate our faithfulness in the present.”  John Stott “If churches came to understand that the greatest threat to faith today is not hedonism but distraction, perhaps they might begin to appeal anew to a frazzled digital generation. Christian leaders seem to think that they need more distraction to counter the distraction. Their services have degenerated into emotional spasms, their spaces drowned with light and noise and locked shut throughout the day, when their darkness and silence might actually draw those whose minds and souls have grown web-weary.”  Andrew Sullivan “‘Surely I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”  Revelation 22:20The post The Unveiling of Jesus Christ first appeared on Hope Church

Series: PhilippiansScripture: Philippians 4:10-23 “We tend to think that sorrow and despair are more authentic and real than celebration and joy. The last thing we want to be—or be seen as—is happy-clappy. … Joy is not ‘toxic positivity.’ It does not insist that we pretend things are better than they are. It does not refuse to face grief or sorrow. But it does say that they are not all there is and that they are not all that needs to be faced.” Tish Harrison Warren, “How to Cultivate Joy Even When It Feels in Short Supply” “It is more blessed to give than to receive—that’s true. But for needy adults, who in this respect are like sick infants, something of value must be received before anything of value can be given. Receiving always precedes giving. And that never changes. We never outgrow our need to receive. It’s a beautiful thing to witness the humility that receives.” Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams: God’s Unexpected Path to Joy “Joy is always all-encompassing; there is nothing of us left over to hate with

Series: PhilippiansScripture: Philippians 4:2-3 “Ideally . . . the church is not made up of natural ‘friends.’ It is made up of natural enemies. What binds us together as the church is not common education, common race, common income levels, common politics, common nationality, common accents, common jobs, or anything else of that sort. Christian come together . . . because . . . they have all been loved by Jesus himself. They are a band of natural enemies who love one another for Jesus’ sake.”  Donald Carson “When the grace of Jesus sinks in, we will be among the least offended and most loving people in the world.”  Scott Sauls “Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; deceitful are the kisses of an enemy . . . Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.”  Proverbs 27: 5-6, 17The post Life-giving Agreement in a World of Toxic Disagreement first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: PhilippiansScripture: Philippians 3:17-4:1 “If you read history you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next…It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth “thrown in”: aim at earth and you will get neither.”  CS Lewis, Mere Christianity, on “Hope” “Honestly, I want to be like Christ. But honestly, I want to be like the Christ who turned the water into wine, not the Christ who thirsted on the cross. I want to be the clothed Christ, not the one whose garment was stripped and gambled away. I want to be the Christ who fed the five thousand, not the one who hungered for forty days in the wilderness. I want to be the free Christ, walking through the wheatfields with his disciples, not the imprisoned Christ who was deserted by them.”   Ken Gire, The Reflective Life “Just because we will not ultimately succeed in restoring shalom i

Series: PhilippiansScripture: Philippians 3:10-16 “God isn’t a sadist who delights in using agony to teach us a lesson. But in the alchemy of redemption, God can take what is only sorrow and transform it into the very path by which we learn to love God and let ourselves be loved. This is the strange (and usually unwanted) way of abundant life—the dying necessary to bring resurrection.” Tish Harrison Warren, Prayer in the Night “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 human soul under the disciplined regimen of God works like muscles do under the disciplined regimen of a trainer. The more the soul is worked and stretched to its limits, the more able it becomes to endure suffering and enjoy God all at once. When this happens in us, we become t

Series: PhilippiansScripture: Philippians 3:1-9 “Our pride drives us to establish our own righteousness. We strive all our life to see ourselves as keepers of rules we cannot keep, as loyal subjects of laws under which we can only be judged outlaws. Yet so deep is our need to derive our identity from our own self-respect … that we will spend a lifetime trying to do the impossible rather than, for even one carefree minute, consent to having it done for us by someone else.” Robert Capon “It is like this: the earth does not produce rain, nor is it able by its own power or work to get it. The earth simply receives it as a gift of God from above. It is the same with ‘passive’ righteousness. It is given to us by God without our deserving it or working for it. So let’s look at what the earth is able to do to get the rain each season so that it can be fruitful, and we will see how much we are able in our own strength and works to do to get heavenly and eternal righteousness. We see we will never be able to attain it

Series: PhilippiansScripture: Philippians 2:12-18 “If I grapple with sin in my own strength, the devil knows that he may go to sleep.”  Thomas Adams  “The sin I once feared to lose became a delight to dismiss. You turned them out and took their place, pleasanter than any pleasure.”  Augustine “How little people know who think that holiness is dull. When one meets the real thing, it is irresistible.”  C.S. Lewis “The deepest word that can be spoken about sanctification is that it is a progress towards true humanity. Salvation is, essentially considered, the restoration of humanity to people . . . The greatest saints of God have been characterized, not by haloes and an atmosphere of distant unapproachability, but by their humanity. They have been intensely human and lovable people with a twinkle in their eyes.”  James PhillipsThe post The Joy of Working Out first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: PhilippiansScripture: Philippians 2:5-11 “We all long for Eden and are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature is soaked with the sense of exile.” J.R.R. Tolkien “The enthusiasms of my conversion have worn off. For whole stretches since the dream, since the baptism, my belief has faltered, my sense of God’s closeness has grown strained, my efforts at living in accord with what I take to be the call of the gospel have come undone…. Once upon a time, I thought I had arrived. Now I have arrived at a middle.” Lauren Winner, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis “Yea, amen, let all adore Thee, High on thine eternal throne Savior take the power and glory Claim the Kingdom for thine own O come quickly, O come quickly, Alleluia, come, Lord, come.” Charles Wesley, “Lo! He Comes With Clouds Descending”The post The Normal Christian Life: Dying and Rising with Jesus first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: PhilippiansScripture: Philippians 2:1-4 “Is anything more destructive than self-rule? Is anything more incessantly boring than self-absorption? Is anyone so boundlessly interesting as Jesus?”  Knox Chamblin “Either you will be getting your identity vertically, from who you are in Christ, or you will be shopping for it horizontally in the situations, experiences, and relationships of your daily life.”  Paul Tripp “If we remember God’s grace, then we lose the pride that would make us a Pharisee and the despair that would make us a cynic.”  Merold Westphal “Great is the rest and gladness of sitting down at our Redeemer’s feet, the door shut and the key turned upon our self-applause.”  Henry MouleThe post The Christian Life is a Life Together first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: PhilippiansScripture: Philippians 1:27-30 “The Christian life after all is a life, it is a power, it is an activity. This is the thing we so constantly tend to forget. It is not just a philosophy, it is not just a point of view, it is not just a teaching that we take up and try to put into practice. It is all that, but it is something infinitely more. The very essence of the Christian life, according to the New Testament teaching everywhere, is that it is a mighty power that enters into us; it is a life, if you like, that is pulsating in us. It is an activity, and an activity on the part of God.”  Martyn Lloyd-Jones “I have come to feel that the primary reality of which we have to take account in seeking for a Christian impact on public life is the Christian congregation. How is it possible that the gospel should be credible, that people should come to believe that the power which has the last word in human affairs is represented by a man hanging on a cross? I am suggesting that the only answer, the o

Series: PhilippiansScripture: Philippians 1:18b-26 “Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” CS Lewis, Mere Christianity   “But as I ran my hell-bound race Indifferent to the cost You looked upon my helpless state And led me to the cross And I beheld God’s love displayed You suffered in my place You bore the wrath res

Series: PhilippiansScripture: Philippians 1:12-18a “At least five times the Christian faith has to all appearances gone to the dogs. In each of these five cases it was the dog that died.”  G.K. Cheserton “The lizard you can take in your hands, yet it is in kings’ palaces.”  Proverbs 30:28 “The church shall never perish! Her dear Lord to defend, To guide, sustain, and cherish, Is with her to the end; Though there be those that hate her, And false sons in her pale, Against a foe or traitor, She ever shall prevail.”  Samuel Stone, “The Church’s One Foundation”The post The Appearance and Reality of the Gospel’s Advance first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: PhilippiansScripture: Philippians 1:3-11 “I wish you’d see yourself as beautiful as I see you. Why can’t you see yourself as beautiful as I see you?”  The Avett Brothers, “Will You Return?” “This life, therefore, is not righteousness but growth in righteousness, not health but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not what we shall be, but we are growing toward it. The process is not yet finished, but it is going on; This is not the end, but it is the road. All does not gleam in glory, but all is being purified.”  Martin Luther “Oh! I am my beloved’s And my beloved is mine! He brings a poor vile sinner Into His house of wine I stand upon His merit I know no other stand Not e’en where glory dwelleth In Emmanuel’s land.”  Anne Cousin, “The Sands of Time are Sinking”The post How to Pray for an Imperfect Church first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: PhilippiansScripture: Philippians 1:1-3 “If we know that we are loved – that someone is looking at us – then we can give love; then we can look at others . . . This is not new behavior for God. He has looked at people with compassion for centuries. When the Israelites were enslaved, God said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt . . . and I am concerned about their suffering” (Exodus 3:7). Jesus’ eyes give God a face.”  Paul Miller “Behold the One beholding you, and smiling.”  Anthony De Mello “Grace is God loving, God stooping, God coming to the rescue, God giving himself generously in and through Jesus Christ.”  John StottThe post Living Grace and Peace first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Renew: Returning to the Heartbeat of HopeScripture: 1 John 4:7-14 “Ordinary love, anonymous and unnoticed as it is, is the substance of peace on earth, the currency of God’s grace in our daily life.” Tish Harrison Warren “All other gods are actually powerless, because there is no true power without love. And there is no true love without compassion, no true compassion without suffering. Which means Christ, the one who innocently and truly suffered, the one who truly feels with us, the only one who has shown God’s true love for us—only Christ has the power of God for salvation, which means only Christ can be worshiped as God and King.” NT Wright “Love moves toward people, even if that means confrontation. It doesn’t leave them alone in their suffering or in their selfishness. Sometimes people are so paralyzed that unless we intrude, unless we break through both of our natural reserves, we can’t love them. When I need to talk to one of our teenagers about something and know I’ll get an earful, I remind

Series: Renew: Returning to the Heartbeat of HopeScripture: Matthew 7:24-29 “The greatest single secret of spiritual development lies in personal, humble, believing, obedient response to the Word of God. It is as God speaks to us through his Word that his warnings can bring us to conviction of sin, his promises to assurance of forgiveness, and his commands to amendment of life. We live and grow by his Word.”  John Stott “Our bodies, our pleasures, our fears, our fatigue, our friendships, our fights – these are in fact the stuff of our formation and transformation into the frail but infinitely dignified creatures we were meant to be and shall become. Our moments of exaltation and our stifled yawns – somehow they go together, part of the whole life that we were meant to offer to God day by day, as well as Sunday by Sunday, the life that God has taken into his own life. It is the life that Christ himself assumed, and thus rescued and redeemed.”  Andy Crouch, in Liturgy of the Ordinary, by Tish Harrison Warren  “

Series: Renew: Returning to the Heartbeat of HopeScripture: 1 Thessalonians 2:9-16 “Christians feed on Scripture.  Holy Scripture nurtures the holy community as food nurtures the human body.  Christians don’t simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing and evangelism and justice in Jesus’ name, hands raised in adoration of the Father, feet washed in company with the Son.”  Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book, 18. “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