Hope Presbyterian Church In Winston-salem Sermons

Series: Renew: Returning to the Heartbeat of HopeScripture: Ephesians 3:14-21 “The persons within God exalt each other, commune with each other, and defer to one another…. Each divine person harbors the others at the center of his being. In constant movement of overture and acceptance, each person envelops and encircles the others…. God’s interior life overflows with regard for others.”  Cornelius Plantinga “How do we relate to him now? How, where, and when is this loving relationship practically played out? The answer is in corporate worship. This is exactly what corporate worship is: the interaction between a groom and his bride. Corporate worship is the dialogue that takes place between two who love each other and take delight in each other’s presence.”  Steve Klingbeil We will dance on the streets that are golden The glorious bride and the great Son of Man Let every tongue and tribe and nation Rejoice in the song of the Lamb “We Will Dance,” David RuisThe post Stepping In first appeared on Hope Church PCA

Series: Renew: Returning to the Heartbeat of HopeScripture: Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:1-4 “Over the margins of life comes a whisper, a faint call, a premonition of richer living, which we know we are passing by. Strained by the very mad pace of our daily outer burdens, we are further strained by an inward uneasiness, because we have hints that there is a way of life vastly richer and deeper than all this hurried existence, a life of unhurried serenity and peace and power.”  Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion “God speaks to us: not only to move us to do what he wants, but to enable us to know him so that we may love him.  Therefore God sends his word to us in the character of both information and invitation.  It comes to woo us as well as to instruct us; it not merely puts us in the picture of what God has done and is doing but also calls us into personal communion with the loving Lord himself.”  JI Packer, Knowing God, 110. “Of this gospel, I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace . . . to preach

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 24:13-35 “Neither revolution nor reformation can ultimately change a society, rather you must tell a new powerful tale, one so persuasive that it sweeps away the old myths and becomes the preferred story. … If you want to change a society, then you have to tell an alternative story.” Ivan Illich “If you win this golf tournament today, if you lose this golf tournament by 10 shots, if you never win another golf tournament again, I’m still going to love you. You’re still going to be the same person. Jesus loves you. And nothing changes.” Meredith Scheffler “Food may not be the answer to world peace, but it’s a start.” Anthony BourdainThe post Seven Miles with Jesus first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 24:1-12 “The most fantastic of all Christian claims is thot Jesus Christ rose from the dead. It strains our credulity to the limit. Human beings have tried with all possible ingenuity both to defy and to deny death. But only Christ has claimed to conquer it, that is, to defeat it in his own experience, and, to deprive it of its power over others.”  John Stott “I find that Holy Week is draining; no matter how many times I have lived through his crucifixion, my anxiety about his resurrection is undiminished – I am terrified that, this year, it won’t happen; that, that year, it didn’t. Anyone can be sentimental about the Nativity; any fool can feel like a Christian at Christmas. But Easter is the main event; if you don’t believe in the resurrection, you’re not a believer.”  John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany “Make no mistake: if He rose at all it was as His body; if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle, th

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 23:44-49 44 It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45 while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last. 47 Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent!” 48 And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts. 49 And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things. Luke 23:44-49The post The Father’s Hands first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 19:28-44 “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations; his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.”  Zechariah 9:9-10 “Jesus bursts into tears . . . in them is distilled an eternity of grief. And although we know something of the brimming surface of those tears, we know nothing of the depths  from which they are drawn. Nothing of the pain that lies at the watery depths of his heart. Nothing of the sorrow. Or of the sadness . . . He is going to his death. A horrible, shameful, humiliating death. He knows the pain will be unbearable . . . He knows the blessings outside the gate will turn to curses within.

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 19:1-10 “Human beings can bear an incredible amount of meaningful deprivation but only a very little meaningless affluence.”  Erazim Kohak “We are all born into this world looking for someone looking for us.”  Dr. Curt Thompson “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 BuechnerThe post Lost and Found: the Possible Impossibility first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 15:1-32 “When the younger son returns, Christ reports for us the words of the son to his father, but does not give anything about a speech of the father to his son. For in reality, the father substitutes kisses for words and replaces assertion with expression and eyes speak for the tongue.” Rev. Dr. Ibrahim Sa’id, Quoted in Poet & Peasant by Kenneth Bailey “For my entire life I had been quite responsible, traditional, and homebound. But, I suddenly saw my jealousy, my anger, my touchiness, doggedness and sullenness, and, most of all, my subtle self-righteousness. I saw how much of a complainer I was and how much of my thinking and feeling was ridden with resentment. I was the elder son for sure, but just as lost as his younger brother, even though I had stayed ‘home’ all my life.” Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son “These parables are truly a reassurance to those lost sheep who have strayed. But they are also a warning – and this aspect of thei

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 13:22-35 “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.”   C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce “I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside.”  C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain “No evangelical, I think, need hesitate to admit that in his heart of hearts he would like universalism to be true. Who can take pleasure in the thought of people being eternally lost? If you want to see folk damned, there is something wrong with you! Universalism is thus a comfortable doctrine in a way that alternatives are not. But wishful thinking, based on a craving for comfort and a reluctance

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 11:1-13 “Prayer is an expression of who we are . . . We are a living incompleteness. We are a gap, an emptiness that calls for fulfillment.”  Thomas Merton “If you are not praying, then you are quietly confident that time, money, and talent are all you need in life . . . Learned desperation is at the heart of a praying life.”  Paul Miller “Believers do not pray with the view of informing God about things unknown to him, or of exciting him to do his duty, or of urging him as though he were reluctant.  On the contrary, they pray in order that they may arouse themselves to seek him, that they may exercise their faith in meditating on his promises, that they may relieve themselves from their anxieties by pouring them into his bosom; in a word, that they may declare that from him alone they can hope and expect, both for themselves and for others, all good things.”  John Calvin “God, of your goodness give me yourself, for you are enough for me. And only in you

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 10:38-42 “I would not have the restless will That hurries to and fro, Seeking for some great thing to do, Or secret thing to know; I would be treated as a child, And guided where I go. So I ask Thee for the daily strength, To none that ask denied, And a mind to blend with outward life While keeping at Thy side; Content to fill a little space, If Thou be glorified.”  Anna Waring, from her hymn, “Father, I Know” “For a [person’s] communion with God to be sacrificed for the work is to choke the fountain for the sake of the stream.”   Henry Moule “You wanna be held? You gotta hold still.”  Taylor LeonhardtThe post The Many Things and The One Thing first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 9:51-62 “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call.”  Dietrich Bonhoeffer “The cross comes before the crown, and tomorrow is a Monday morning.”  C.S. Lewis “A religion that costs you nothing is worth nothing. A cheap Christianity without a cross will prove in the end a useless Christianity without a crown.”  JC Ryle “Christ leads me through no darker rooms Than He went through before; He that unto God’s kingdom comes Must enter by this door.” Richard BaxterThe post Through the Cross to the Crown first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 7:1-10 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”  Hebrews 11:1-3 “How do we apply the Word of God to daily life? Ask two questions: What is your current struggle? What about God in Christ connects to this? Bring one bit of Bible to one bit of life. You can’t say it all at once. Ministry, like life, goes one step at a time.”  David Powlison “What strengthens faith? Secret prayer; close dealing with your conscience over the blood of the atonement. How is faith strengthened? By being much exercised with the object of faith!” Rev. J.H. EvansThe post Marvelous Faith, Marvelous Savior first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 5:17-26 “A personal gospel without a social gospel is like a soul without a body. A social gospel without a personal gospel is like a body without a soul. One is a ghost. The other is a corpse.” Bryan Chapell “The way to God is wide open. There is nothing standing between the sinner and his God. He has immediate and unimpeded access to the Savior. There is nothing to hinder.  No sin can hold him back because God offers justification to the ungodly. Nothing can keep him from Christ but his delusion that he has good works of his own that can satisfy God. All he needs is need. All he needs is nothing. But, alas, sinners cannot part with their ‘virtues’.”   Dr. John Gerstner “For the last 50 years in my wheelchair, I’ve been daily dying to self and rising with Jesus, dying to self and rising with Jesus, dying to self and rising with Jesus. My goal is to mortify my fleshly desires, so I might find myself in Christ. God has been answering my prayer, exposing d

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 5:1-11; 27-32; 6:12-16 “Ministry is not first about telling people what to do, but about telling them who they are, so that obedience will flow out of celebration.”  Paul David Tripp “There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me.”  JI Packer “The Christian life, far from transforming us into super-spiritual, quasi-angelic beings, is actually a quest to recover our true humanity.”  Michael WittmerThe post Jesus’ Invitation to More first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 4:14-30 “If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, He would have sent an economist. If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian or an artist. If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician. If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor. But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion, our death, and he sent us a Savior.” D.A. Carson “He had no form or majesty that we should look upon him and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.”  Isaiah 53:2-4 “Are you the one

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 4:1-13 “Many voices ask for our attention. There is a voice that says, ‘Prove that you are a good person.’ Another voice says, ‘You’d better be ashamed of yourself.’ There also is a voice that says, ‘Nobody really cares about you,’ and one that says, ‘Be sure to become successful, popular, and powerful.’ But underneath all these often very noisy voices is a still, small voice that says, ‘You are my Beloved, my favor rests on you.’ That’s the voice we need most of all to hear . . . Listen to the Voice who calls you beloved, otherwise you will run around begging for affirmation and praise from everyone else.”  Henri Nouwen “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share in Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed . . . Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 3 “The reason of my waking mind tells me that great evil has befallen and we stand at the end of days. But my heart says nay; and all my limbs are light, and a hope and joy are come to me that no reason can deny.”  JRR Tolkien, The Return of the King “The mystery of the incarnation reveals to us the spiritual dimension of human solidarity. We cannot live in intimate communion with Jesus without being sent to our brothers and sisters who belong to that same humanity that Jesus has accepted as his own. Thus intimacy manifests itself as solidarity and solidarity as intimacy.”  Henri Nouwen, Lifesigns “The picture at Jesus’ baptism is of God stepping out of heaven to address people, of God entering into their everyday world. Clearly God takes the initiative to show humanity the way to him.”  Darrell BockThe post The Messiah Enters Tension and Expectation first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 2:41-52 “Stir me, O Lord, to care; for a world that is lost and dying, for values that are rejected and scorned, for enemies that hate and malign me. Amen.”  Richard Foster “Like rocks dropped into a pond, Christians are dropped into society. What kind of waves do they make? Jesus calls us to make waves that are positive and transforming while we simultaneously keep our distinctively Christian identity. This kind of living – being salt and light in our communities – will draw people to the Father . . . Why do Christians fail to be salt and light? They fail because the world is a dangerous place, especially for those who are “out of line” with their society. Jesus says that we will be a dissonant group and will be ostracized if not persecuted. Saltless salt and hidden light describe two apparently safer ways to live. Each allows us to avoid rubbing shoulders with potential cynics or persecutors.”  Dick Keyes “I’m so thankful for the active obedience of Ch

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 2:22-40 “Waiting on God isn’t about the suspension of meaning and purpose. It’s part of the meaning and purpose that God has brought into my life.  Waiting on God isn’t to be viewed as an obstruction in the way of the plan.  Waiting is an essential part of the plan.  For the child of God, waiting isn’t simply about what the child will receive at the end of his wait.  No, waiting is much more purposeful, efficient, and practical.  Waiting is fundamentally about what we will become as we wait.”  Paul David Tripp “Waiting is active. Most of us think of waiting as something very passive, a hopeless state determined by events totally out of our hands. But there is none of this passivity in scripture. Those who are waiting are waiting very actively. They know that what they are waiting for is growing from the ground on which they are standing. That’s the secret. The secret of waiting is the faith that the seed has been planted, that something has begun. Active