Hope Presbyterian Church In Winston-salem Sermons

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 2:14 Q: What is the chief end of man? A: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever. The Westminster Shorter Catechism “No single drawing, painting, photograph, or verbal description could ever capture glory. Glory isn’t so much a thing as it is a description of a thing. Glory isn’t a part of God; it’s all that God is. Every aspect of who God is and every part of what God does is glorious. But even that’s not enough of a description. Not only is he glorious in every way, but his very glory is glorious!” Paul Tripp, “The Doctrine of Glory” “Dear Abba, It’s not hard for me to accept You as Father and Savior and Lord and Master. But when it comes to Friend, it’s just not as easy. It oughta be, but it’s not. The thought that You would want to spend time with me and dine with me and walk with me and be my Friend? That You, the Lord of Glory, would want to be the guest of me, a sinner? That leaves me undone. Simply undone. So I finish this day

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 1:57-80 “[Jesus] is a Light for us when all other lights go out.” Tim Keller, Hidden Christmas “In a land by death o’ershadowed, Life at last begins to shine. O’er our wars and losing battles, Peace spreads out its healing vine. Bring your weak and bring your wounded; Lay them at the savior’s feet. Hearts by sorrows worn and plundered Find in him their strength complete.” The Porter’s Gate, “In a Land by Death O’ershadowed” “In the end, darkness is not explained; it is defeated. Night is not justified or solved; it is endured until light overcomes it and it is no more. In the meantime, we do not stop asking our questions of God. He allows us to ask them when we need to because he loves us. And we bring our perplexity into the prayers and practices of the church so that they can shape and direct our own questions. Through its prayers, practices, and gathered worship, the church tells us over and over again, ‘This is what God is like. This is his name. Thi

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 1:26-56 “He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words—‘Wait and Hope.’” Alexander Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo “In COVID-waiting, we’re anxious and pacing, or slumped over in despair. Our brows are furrowed, and we scroll for the latest information that reinforces what we already feel. Even the good news is tainted with grief for what we’ve lost and with concern for how long it will last. But in true Advent-waiting, our hearts are lifted, and our faces seek out the light even in the night. Advent waiting holds the promise of warmth and light and wholeness that pulls us forward through the heaviness of the world we wade through. That’s the hope we carry within us as believers, because of the reality of Christ’s incarnation and the pro

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 1:5-25 “The announcement of John’s birth begins a series of great events that ring through the corridors of time and eternity as God’s salvation comes to fruition.” Darrell L. Bock “Aged priest tending the fires of incense, You mistrust the angel’s sudden visit, Counting pledges of answered prayer nonsense For an old man, an old woman, neither fit. You temporize, reluctant to submit. I, too, inquire, “What’s the evidence?” Even as I stoke altar fires with sweet incense.” Christine H. Boldt, “Dumbstruck” “I don’t think you should write something as long as a novel around anything that is not of the gravest concern to you and everybody else, and for me this is always the conflict between an attraction for the Holy and the disbelief in it that we breathe in with the air of our times. It’s hard to believe always but more so in the world we live in now.” Flannery O’ConnorThe post A Divine Announcement in Routine Longing first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Luke (Advent 2021 - Easter 2022)Scripture: Luke 1:1-4 “Many years ago a Hindu friend of mine, a very learned man, said to me something I have never forgotten: ‘I can’t understand why you missionaries present the Bible to us in India as a book of religion. It is not a book of religion – and anyway we have plenty of books of religion in India. We don’t need any more! I find in your Bible a unique interpretation of universal history, the history of the whole of creation and the history of the human race. And therefore, a unique interpretation of the human person as a responsible actor in history. That is unique. There is nothing else in the whole religious literature of the world to put alongside it.”  Lesslie Newbigin, A Walk Through the Bible, 4. “The Bible isn’t a book of rules, or a book of heroes. The Bible is most of all a Story. It’s an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his th

Series: JoshuaScripture: Joshua 24:1-25 “No room remains empty for long.  If God is driven out, the gods come trooping in.” Lesslie Newbigin “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 pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love . . . Salvation belongs to the LORD!” Jonah 2:8-9The post The King Who is Worthy and the People Whom He Serves first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: JoshuaScripture: Joshua 21:43-45; 23:14 “By April 1970 I had grown sick to death of the church viewed as “religious cushion” and me as chief cushioner. I had been a pastor for more than a decade and instructor at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia for four years. I had given it all my best shot. But as a change agent I had bombed out. I was awash with cynicism about the prospects of the Christian church and went around with continual sorrow in my heart over the state of the churches around me. In a mood of dark despair I resigned both from the seminary faculty and from my pastorate . . . I began an intensive study of the promises of God in Scripture. I spent long hours tracing out great themes of grace predicted in Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Joel, Habakkuk, and Zechariah. Sometimes, like a man dying of thirst, I drank in the Gospel of John and the enormous promises presented in it . . . As the weeks passed, my mind also began to be captured by the vastness of God’s promises. I was awed b

Series: JoshuaScripture: Joshua 14:6-15 “Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.”  Hebrews 12:2-3 “Lo! The Incarnate God, ascended; Pleads the merit of His blood. Venture on Him; venture wholly, Let no other trust intrude. None but Jesus, none but Jesus Can do helpless sinners good.”  Joseph Hart “Your God is too small.”  J.B. PhillipsThe post Half Hearts Made Whole first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: JoshuaScripture: Joshua 7:1-26 “Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda secundum verbi Dei” (“the church is Reformed and always [in need of] being reformed according to the Word of God”)  Jodocus van Lodenstein “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 s

Series: JoshuaScripture: Joshua 6:1-11, 15-16, 20-21, 24-25 “How strange it is that a widow with only a handful of meal should be commanded to offer hospitality! It is once again the impossible that is set before us.  It would have been a dull commonplace to have fed the prophet from the overflowing larder of the rich man’s palace.  But to work from an almost empty cupboard – that is the surprising way of the LORD!  He delights to hang great weights on apparently slender wires, to have great events turn on seeming trifles, and to make poverty the minister of the unsearchable riches of Christ.”  J.H. Jowett “The feel of faith is not strength, but dependent weakness.”  Rev. Joe Novenson “In the Christian life, weakness is the way. The way of weakness has two aspects. One is that the watching world sees you as weak in the sense of being limited and inadequate. The second aspect is that you yourself are very conscious of being limited and inadequate.”  J.I. Packer “Nothing makes us more merciful and patient with

Series: JoshuaScripture: Deuteronomy 7:1-11, Deuteronomy 9:1-6 “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”  Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion  “The picture of Jesus as the coming Judge is the central feature of another absolutely vital and nonnegotiable Christian belief: that there will indeed be a judgment in which the creator God will set the world right once and for all. The word judgment carries negative overtones for a good many people in our liberal and postliberal world. We need to remind ourselves that throughout the Bible, not least in the Psalms, God’s coming judgment is a good thing, something to be celebrated, longed for, yearned over. It causes people to shout for joy and the trees of the field

Series: JoshuaScripture: Joshua 5:13-15 “We ask, “Where does God fit into the story of my life?” when the real question is, “Where does my little life fit into the great story of God’s mission?”  Christopher Wright “We must not lag behind the king in some kind of unwarranted pessimism as though his first coming and present reign do not make a difference. We must not run ahead of the king in some kind of unwarranted triumphalism as though we’re going to make utopia here before he comes again. We keep in step with the king.”  David Jones “Who is on the Lord’s side? Who will serve the King? Who will be His helpers, other lives to bring? Who will leave the world’s side? Who will face the foe? Who is on the Lord’s side? Who for Him will go? By Thy call of mercy, by Thy grace divine, We are on the Lord’s side. Savior, we are Thine!” Frances HavergalThe post The Lord Who Takes Over – Not Sides first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: JoshuaScripture: Joshua 3:1-17, 4:21-24 “Resolved: At least once every day I shall look steadily up at the sky and remember that I, a consciousness with a conscience, am on a planet traveling in space with wonderfully mysterious things above and about me.”  Clyde Kilby “The feel of faith is not strength, but dependent weakness.”  Rev. Joe Novenson “The worldling blesses God while he gives him plenty, but the Christian blesses him when he smites him: he believes him to be too wise to err and too good to be unkind; he trusts him where he cannot trace him, looks up to him in the darkest hour, and believes that all is well.”  Charles Spurgeon “When I tread the verge of Jordan, Bid my anxious fears subside; Death of death, and hell’s destruction, Land me safe on Canaan’s side. Songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee; Songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee.” William WilliamsThe post More Than a Box first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: JoshuaScripture: Joshua 2:1-24, 6:25 “I never wanted to follow Jesus. I never wanted to follow Jesus. I never wanted to follow Jesus. He rescued me, He rescued me. No turning back, no turning back.” Red Mountain Music “There’s a direct correlation between the accuracy of our memory and the effectiveness of our mission.  If we’re not teaching people how to be saved, it’s perhaps because we’ve forgotten the tragedy of being lost. If we’re not teaching the message of forgiveness, it may be because we don’t remember what it was like to be guilty. And if we’re not preaching the cross, it could be that we’ve subconsciously decided that—God forbid—somehow we don’t need it.”  Max Lucado “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one can boast.”  Ephesians 2:8-9The post Finding Faith In All the Wrong Places first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: JoshuaScripture: Joshua 1:1-9 “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 every gunshot. After a while the mayhem blends in with the rustle of the trees, the TV, and the children playing in the other room. Fear gradually becomes the background noise of everyday life.”  Ed Welch, Running Scared “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 per

Series: JoshuaScripture: Deuteronomy 34:1-12, Joshua 1: 1-2 “Instead of the accustomed idea of a mindless and endless evolutionary change to which we can neither add nor subtract, I shall suppose the universe guided by an Intelligence which, as Aristotle said of Greek drama, requires a beginning, a middle, and an end. I think this will save me from the cynicism expressed by Bertrand Russell before his death when he said: “There is darkness without, and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendor, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment, and then nothing.”  Clyde Kilby “In this scene set in shadows, Like the night is here to stay, There is evil cast around us But it’s Love that wrote the play. And in this darkness Love will show the way.”  David Wilcox “The church is the model home for the Kingdom of God.”  Harvie ConnThe post God’s Promised People into God’s Promised Land first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: For God So Loved the WorldScripture: Luke 12:32 “Tomorrow can bring us nothing, But He will bear us through: Who gives the lilies clothing Will clothe His people, too: Beneath the spreading heavens No creature but is fed; And He Who feeds the ravens Will give His children bread.” William Cowper, “Sometimes a Light Surprises” “The prodigal son, we are told, went to a far country and there spent all that he had. A far country! It is this unique definition of our human condition that we must assume and make ours as we begin our approach to God. A man who has never had that experience, be it only very briefly, who has never felt that he is exiled from God and from real life, will never understand what Christianity is about. And the one who is perfectly ‘at home’ in this world and its life, who has never been wounded by the nostalgic desire for another Reality, will not understand what is repentance.” Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent “Before the pandemic, we knew we were going to die, but we did not believe

Series: For God So Loved the WorldScripture: 2 Corinthians 4:1-12 “Open wide the window of our spirits, O Lord, and fill us full of light; Open wide the door of our hearts, that we may receive and entertain thee with all our powers of adoration and love. Amen.” Christina G. Rossetti, from Prayers from the Heart by Richard J. Foster “There was a bird who… perched atop the corner of the world and built three nests. One of gold, one of silver and one of clay…. In the nest of gold she cleansed her coat daily, in the nest of silver she brought back her food. In the nest of clay she laid her eggs. On the day the fires came the nests of gold and silver met in a lucid river rushing to the sea while the nest of clay withstood the heat. Amen. The nest of clay was forged for eternity atop the corner of the world, while the ocean floor was covered in gold, silver, and sand.” “Via Rail,” by Kaddisfly “That’s the business of hope: broken things. And days like today make it clear that things are off the rails. We’ve got our

Series: For God So Loved the WorldScripture: Acts 9:10-22; Acts 4:1-22 “Anything you are passionate about, you talk about!  A man who never says a word about the lady that he loves ought to be questioned.  A lady who is too embarrassed to bring up or ever mention the name of the one she says she loves ought to be questioned, because that which you are passionate about you talk about.  There is no greater message and there is no greater person than the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ!  God has invited us to be passionate about the gospel because we are passionate about Him.  We are in desperate need today for passionate Christians who don’t need to apologize.” Dr. Tony Evans “God uses men (and women) who are weak and feeble enough to lean on him.” Hudson Taylor “If a commission by an earthly king is considered an honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?” David Livingston “Oh sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth!  Sing to the LORD, bless his name;

Scripture: James 2:14-26 “A pretty good test of a man’s religion is how it affects his pocketbook.”  Francis J. Grimke “It cannot be denied that too often the weight of the Christian movement has been on the side of the strong and the powerful and against the weak and oppressed—this, despite the gospel.”  Howard Thurman “We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.” Dietrich BonhoefferThe post A Centered Life of Faith and Works first appeared on Hope Church PCA.