Hope Church PCA

Presbyterian Church in Winston-Salem

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Colossians

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New Clothes

July 25, 2021 |

Q. Since we have been delivered from our misery by grace through Christ without any merit of our own, why then should we do good works?

A. Because Christ, having redeemed us by his blood, is also restoring us by his Spirit into his image, so that with our whole lives we may show that we are thankful to God for his benefits, so that he may be praised through us, so that we may be assured of our faith by its fruits, and so that by our godly living our neighbors may be won over to Christ.

Heidelberg Catechism #86

“Well, then, says I, what’s the use you learning to do right when it’s troublesome to do right and ain’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same? I was stuck. I couldn’t answer that. So I reckoned I wouldn’t bother no more about it, but after this always do whichever come handiest at the time.”

Huckleberry Finn

“Sin is a spiritual and moral malignancy. Left unchecked, it can spread throughout our entire inner being and contaminate every area of our lives. Even worse, it often will ‘metastasize’ from us into the lives of other believers around us.”

Jerry Bridges, Respectable Sins

“… [T]rue sanctification is all about growing in humility, dependence, and gratitude. Joy blossoms in our hearts not as we try harder and harder to grow, but as we see more clearly the depths of our sin and understand more fully our utter helplessness. Only then will we take our eyes off ourselves and look to Christ for all that we need in life and in death. Only then will we truly cherish our Savior and believe that we need him every minute of every day, and that without him we can do nothing (John 15:5).”

Barbara Duguid, Extravagant Grace

The Mathematics of Grace

July 18, 2021 |

“I wonder
If there is any image more beautiful
Than the embrace of the one
Who trains, equips, releases you
And when you fail
Still embraces you
And reminds you that your value
Comes from who you are
Not what you did.”

 Sarah Yardley

“The life of grace is not an effort on our part to achieve a goal we set ourselves. It is a continually renewed attempt simply to believe that someone else has done all the achieving that is needed and to live in relationship with that person, whether we achieve or not. If that doesn’t seem like much to you, you’re right: it isn’t. And, as a matter of fact, the life of grace is even less than that. It’s not even our life at all, but the life of that Someone Else rising like a tide in the ruins of our death.”

Robert Capon, Between Noon & Three

“If Christ isn’t really King, then another god with another story of change is needed to get through the day.”

Brian Fikkert and Kelly Kapic, Becoming Whole

Fullness

July 11, 2021 |

“… [E]ven when I am in the middle of a dark time and there are no signs that it will end, I want to be the bird that sings in anticipation of the good things that I trust are coming.”

Jane “Nightbirde” Claudio

“For those united to him, the heart of Jesus is not a rental; it is your new permanent residence. You are not a tenant; you are a child. His heart is not a ticking time bomb; his heart is the green pastures and still waters of endless reassurances of his presence and comfort, whatever our present spiritual accomplishments. It is who he is.”

Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly

“Go back, go back to the ancient paths
Lash your heart to the ancient mast
And hold on, boy, whatever you do
To the hope that’s taken hold of you
And you’ll find your way
You’ll find your way
If love is what you’re looking for
The old roads lead to an open door
And you’ll find your way
You’ll find your way”

Andrew Peterson, “You’ll Find Your Way”

Who’s Writing Your Story?

July 4, 2021 |

“No, 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 throne – everything – to rescue the one he loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life! You see, the best thing about this Story is – it’s true!”

Sally Lloyd-Jones, Introduction to The Jesus Storybook Bible

“For this is the marriage of heaven and earth: Perfect Myth and Perfect Fact: claiming not only our love and our obedience, but also our wonder and delight, addressed to the child and the poet in each of us no less than to the moralist and the philosopher.”

C.S. Lewis, “Myth Became Fact” in God in the Dock

“On the third day He rose from the dead, showed Himself to His disciples for forty days, then ascended into heaven to receive His glory at the Father’s right hand. He sealed His victory over sin and death by sending the Spirit from the throne. Now He is Lord of the universe, and Head of His body, the church. All of history unfolds to complete the story of Jesus, until the day that He comes again.”

Edmund P. Clowney, The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament

A Love Supreme

June 27, 2021 |

“During the year 1957, I experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life. At that time, in gratitude, I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music. I feel this has been granted through His grace. ALL PRAISE TO GOD. … I do perceive and have been duly re-informed of His OMNIPOTENCE, and of our need for, and dependence on Him. At this time I would like to tell you that NO MATTER WHAT … IT IS WITH GOD. HE IS GRACIOUS AND MERCIFUL. HIS WAY IS IN LOVE, THROUGH WHICH WE ALL ARE. IT IS TRULY— A LOVE SUPREME—.”

John Coltrane

“[Faith] is believing the specific promises of God; no longer turning our backs on them, no longer calling God a liar, but raising the empty hands of faith and accepting that finished work of Christ as it was fulfilled in history upon the cross.”

Francis Schaeffer

BUTTERCUP: I fear I’ll never see you again.
WESTLEY: Of course you will.
BUTTERCUP: But what if something happens to you?
WESTLEY: Hear this now: I will come for you.
BUTTERCUP: But how can you be sure?
WESTLEY: This is true love. You think this happens every day?

The Princess Bride

Joining in God’s Song

September 24, 2017 |

“To Christ the Lord let every tongue
Its noblest tribute bring.
When He’s the subject of the song,
Who can refuse to sing?
Survey the beauties of His face
And on His glories dwell.
Think of the wonder of His grace
And all His triumphs tell.

Since from His bounty I receive
Such proofs of love divine,
Had I a thousand hearts to give
Lord, they should all be Thine!
A thousand men could not compose
A worthy song to bring,
Yet Your love is a melody
Our hearts can’t help but sing!”

—Samuel Stennett

 

“Words and music did for me what solid, even rigorous religious argument could never do, they introduced me to God, not belief in God, more an experiential sense of God.”

—Bono

 

“Chant down Babylon with music!”

—Bob Marley

Putting Deadly Sin to Death

September 3, 2017 |

“Greed, gluttony, lust, envy, and pride are no more than sad efforts to fill the empty place where love belongs, and anger and sloth are just two things that may happen when you find that not even all seven of them at their deadliest ever can.”

—Frederick Buechner

 

“I am a riddle to myself; a heap of inconsistencies.”

—John Newton

 

“Come with thy heart hard, dead, cold, full of wickedness; come as a blood-red sinner; this is the way to come to Christ.”

—John Bunyan

 

“Though sin wars, it shall not reign; and though it breaks our peace, it cannot separate 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

Union with Christ: Christ in You!

May 7, 2017 |

“He who dwells in a house, keeps the house in repair; so the Spirit dwelling in a believer, keeps grace in repair. Grace is compared to a river of the water of life (John 7:38). This river can never be dried up because God’s Spirit is the spring that continually feeds it.”

– Thomas Watson

“The movement of God’s Spirit is very gentle, very soft – and hidden. It does not seek attention. But that movement is also very persistent, strong and deep.”

– Henri Nouwen

“For your gift of God the Spirit, power to make our lives anew,
pledge of life and hope of glory, Savior, we would worship you.
Crowning gift of resurrection sent from your ascended throne,
fullness of the very Godhead, come to make your life our own.

Father, grant your Holy Spirit, in our hearts may rule today,
grieved not, quenched not, but unhindered, work in us his sovereign way.
Fill us with your holy fullness, God the Father, Spirit, Son;
in us, through us, then, forever, shall your perfect will be done.”

– Margaret Clarkson

Union with Christ: In Christ!

April 30, 2017 |

“Jesus Christ is not to be relegated, like other religious leaders, to history and the history books.  He is not dead and gone, finished or fossilized.  He is alive and active. He calls us to follow him, and he offers himself to us as our indwelling and transforming Savior . . . Once again this is unique. There is nothing comparable to it in the other religions. The Buddhist does not claim to know the Buddha, nor the Confucianist Confucius, nor the Muslim Muhammad, nor the Marxist Karl Marx. Each reveres the founder of his religion or ideology as a teacher of the past.  To Christians too Jesus is a teacher, but even more he is our living Lord and Savior. Phrases claiming this “recur on page after page of the New Testament, and make it clear that it is this intimate and personal relationship of trust, devotion, and communion, which the very heart of the Christian faith.”

—John Stott

“Union with Christ is strong precisely in those places where we in our secular age tend to be weak. It gives us an ability to speak into the void created by our disenchanted, self-centered world, which has only narrowed our vision and caused us to forget who we are.”

—Rankin Wilbourne

“Made like him, like him we rise; ours the cross, the grave, the skies!”

—Charles Wesley

The King We Need: Wonderful Counselor

November 27, 2016 |

The public seems to think that if you can’t maintain the illusion of mental health, then you are not fit to belong to normal society. You become what the Gospel calls a “leper,” referring not to a physical disease but to a condition of exclusion. You are ostracized because you are not perceived as conventionally normal.—Thomas Moore, “Everyone Should Be in Therapy,” The Huffington Post

All praise to the fighter of the night
Who rides on the light
Whose gun is the grace of the God of the sky

 —Andrew Peterson, “High Noon”

The good news of the kingdom is not freedom from hardship, suffering, and loss. It is the news of a Redeemer who has come to rescue me from myself. His rescue produces change that fundamentally alters my response to these inescapable realities. … And as he changes us, he allows us to be a part of what he is doing in the lives of others. As you respond to the Redeemer’s work in your life, you can learn to be an instrument in his hands.”—Paul Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands