Hope Church PCA

Presbyterian Church in Winston-Salem

Sunday Schedule:

9:00 a.m. – Outdoor Worship
10:00 a.m. – Sunday School
10:45 a.m. – Hope Café
11:00 a.m. – Indoor Worship

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Habakkuk

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Joyful Prayers in Sorrowful Times

June 20, 2021 |

“Batter my heart, three-personed God, for youAs y
et but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bendY
our force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.”

Excerpt from “Batter My Heart,” John Donne

“The transition from the complaining prophet to the rejoicing prophet surely must be seen as a work of God’s sovereign grace. Nothing else could explain how a person could be joyful and contented in face of the calamities Habakkuk had to undergo. May the Lord himself continue to provide the grace of life to people of this generation by the faith that justifies.”

O. Palmer Robertson

“Contrary to what we expect to be the case, the deeper into weakness and suffering and testing we go, the deeper Christ’s solidarity with us. As we go down into pain and anguish, we are descending ever deeper into Christ’s very heart, not away from it. Look to Christ. He deals gently with you. It’s the only way he knows how to be.”

Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers

God’s ‘Woe’ and Our ‘Whoa!’

June 13, 2021

“The world is bigger than my little box. I’m not going to be playing this game forever. So I can’t be expected to stay in this box. … It’s been billions of people on this earth. We really are small, if you look at it from a universe perspective. There’s a lot of stuff that we get distracted by, or we chasing, to make us feel a certain way.”

Kevin Durant

“Vainglory is the excessive and disordered desire for recognition and approval from others. Whether we are successful in gaining this approval or not, we all know what it is like to desire public acknowledgement and approval of our own person or our accomplishments. There is a deep part of us that longs to be known and approved of, and to have this acknowledged.”

Rebecca DeYoung, Glittering Vices

“I stand here waiting for you to bang the gong
To crash the critic saying, ‘Is it right or is it wrong?’
If only fame had an IV, baby, could I bear
Being away from you? I found the vein, put it in here

I live for the applause, applause, applause
I live for the applause-plause, live for the applause-plause
Live for the way that you cheer and scream for me
The applause, applause, applause”

Lady Gaga, “Applause”

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

June 6, 2021 |

“It seems to me that the older I get the less I think I really understand God. Which is not to say that I don’t love and trust him. On the contrary, as life goes on, my love and trust grow deeper, but my struggle with what God does or allows grows deeper too. … There are things I don’t understand about God, but they flood me with gratitude because I couldn’t live without the reality of their truth, accepted by faith. The supreme example is, of course, the cross itself. Who is bold enough to say they understand exactly how the cross has dealt with our deepest needs? And yet we cling to the fact that, by God’s grace and on the authority of God’s Word, it has.”

Christopher Wright

“Only if your God can say things that outrage you and make you struggle, as in a real friendship or marriage, only then will you know that you have gotten hold of a real God and not a figment of your imagination.”

Tim Keller

“When everything that’s right feels wrong
And all of my belief feels gone
And the darkness in my heart is so strong
Can You reach me here in the silence?
Singing these broken songs
Looking for the light for so long
But the pain goes on and on and on
Can You reach me here in the silence?”

Jon Foreman