Presbyterian Church in Winston-Salem
The latest sermon from our pastors is posted here each week.
Subscribe to our sermons podcast in iTunes.“O Light, that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to Thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in Thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.”
George Matheson
“A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law.”
Isaiah 42:3-4
“O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.”
George Matheson
“Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.”
Psalm 139:7-10
“The most fantastic of all Christian claims is that 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,
the Church will fall . . .
Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.”
John Updike
“Come to your Temple here with liberation
And overturn these tables of exchange,
Restore in me my lost imagination,
Begin in me for good the pure change.”
Malcolm Guite
“Ponder the one truth that no one can reveal to you except God: he loves you just as much while you are sinning as he does while you are praying—probably more. That truth will never free you to sin; it will only free you to worship.”
Larry Crabb
“Almost everything that corrupts us is something we use to fill some kind of ache, some kind of emptiness…. And the joy of the Christian life is that those aches, those needs, that emptiness that we’re going to encounter because we’re human, is ultimately met in Christ, and that everything that we try to fill it with that is not Christ will never really fill it.”
Rich Mullins
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. … There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. … But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”
CS Lewis, The Weight of Glory
“The inner logic of this vision of holistic salvation is that the creator has not given up on creation and is working to salvage and restore the world (human and nonhuman) to the fullness of shalom and flourishing intended from the beginning. And redeemed human beings, renewed in God’s image, are to work toward and embody this vision in their daily lives.”
Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology
“[Niggle] went on looking at the Tree. All the leaves he had ever laboured at were there, as he had imagined them rather than as he had made them; and there were others that had only budded in his mind, and many that might have budded, if only he had had time.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, “Leaf by Niggle”
“Even for God’s children death is a valley of shadows and darkness. But, as Richard Baxter put it, ‘Christ leads me through no darker rooms than he went through before.’ And in that darkness it’s not God but death that comes as a stranger. The one who stands beyond death will be the loving God for whom we have been longing all these years.”
Neil Plantinga
“My present body – ‘brother ass,’ as Fancis of Assisi would have me call it – is like a student’s old jalopy; care for it as I will, it goes precariously and never very well, and often lets me and my Master down (very frustrating!). But my new body will feel and behave like a Rolls-Royce, and then my service will no longer be spoiled.”
J.I. Packer
“In heaven I will be free to jump up, dance, kick, and do aerobics. If possible, somewhere, sometime before the party gets going, sometime before the guests are called to the banquet table at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, the first thing I plan to do on resurrected legs is to drop on grateful, glorified knees. I will quietly kneel at the feet of Jesus. The day is drawing near when I’ll be able to kneel again.”
Joni Erickson Tada
“To be in Christ, is, by definition, to be part of something much bigger, more comprehensive, and more wonderful than you.”
Rankin Wilbourne
“Membership in a local church means joining your imperfect self to many other imperfect selves to form an imperfect community that, through Jesus, embarks on a journey toward a better future . . . together.”
Scott Sauls
“He can no longer have God for his father, who has not the church for his mother.”
Cyprian of Carthage
“Our name has nothing to do with the historical meaning. There is a great quote that says, ‘Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.’ … Every single person walking down the street is fighting a great battle, whether or not you can see it.”
Joy Williams, The Civil Wars
“The life of David is full of incidents like this. Everyone’s life is. Not a palace coup for most of us…, but conflict and failure and fear, love and betrayal, loss and salvation. Every day is a story, a morning beginning and evening ending that are boundaries for people who go about their tasks with more or less purpose, go to war, love others, earn a living, scheme and sin and believe.”
Eugene Peterson, Answering God: The Psalms As Tools For Prayer
“Together we turn to the Psalms and pray through them, word by word, personalizing them for what is on our heart. In the dry, empty place, the Word comes alive. It shapes our lament. Praying this way challenges me at the deepest part of my being. It strips my soul of all supports, because my whole heart and mind bend toward God.”
Paul Miller, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World
“A church can become crowded with legitimate causes, concerns, and needs. And it can be hard to find Jesus.”
Ray Ortlund
“The work of the Holy Spirit is the honoring of Jesus Christ . . . the work of the Holy Spirit is simply to thrill us with Christ.”
Dale Bruner
“Spirit of God, descend upon my heart.
Wean it from earth; through all its pulses move;
Stoop to my weakness, mighty as Thou art;
and make me love Thee as I ought to love.
I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies,
No sudden rending of the veil of clay,
No angel vision, no opening skies;
but take the dimness of my soul away.”
George Croly
“The picture of Jesus as the coming Judge is the central feature of another absolutely vital and non-negotiable 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 to clap their hands. In a world of systematic injustice, bullying, violence, arrogance, and oppression, the thought that there might come a day when the wicked are firmly put in their place and the poor and weak are given their due is the best news there can be. Faced with a world in rebellion, a world full of exploitation and wickedness, a good God must be a God of judgment.”
NT Wright, Surprised By Hope, 137.
“If God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make a final end to violence- that God would not be worthy of worship… If I don’t believe that there is a God who will eventually put all things right, I will take up the sword and will be sucked into the endless vortex of retaliation. Only if I am sure that there’s a God who will right all wrongs and settle all accounts perfectly do I have the power to refrain.”
Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace
“Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.”
1 Peter 2: 21-23
