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Hope Church PCA

Presbyterian Church in Winston-Salem

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Sunday School 9:30 a.m.
Hope Café 10:15 a.m.
Worship 10:30 a.m.

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Sermons

The latest sermon from our pastors is posted here each week.

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Gluttony: Consuming that Leads to Emptiness

August 20, 2017 |

“A glutton is one who raids the icebox for a cure for spiritual malnutrition.”

—Frederick Buechner

 

“Where gluttony is there is no incarnation, no resurrection, no kingship, no humanity, no God, in short—no living Christianity. Instead we have only gnosticism, anarchy, and idolatry. As those of us who struggle with gluttony know, it ultimately leaves us alone, without hope, and bloated with discontent. And we were made for more than this. This is why God calls (and helps) us away from lives of gluttony—because we were made for more. We were made to be whole, embodying the creational proportionality that marks the kingdom of God. We were made to be shepherded, walking the path of beauty laid out for us by our King. And we were made for God, living not by bread alone, but by the fullness found in the One who feeds us with Himself.”

—Greg Thompson

 

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

—Matthew 5:6

Getting, Having, and Giving

August 13, 2017 |

“Considering the full sweep of the Christian tradition, one would have to conclude that the most profane word we can utter is that word: mine.”

—William Willimon

“I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc, is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them.”

―C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity

“The trouble with being rich is that since you can solve with your checkbook virtually all practical problems that bedevil ordinary people, you are left in your leisure with nothing but the great human problems to contend with: how to be happy, how to love and be loved, how to find meaning and purpose in your life. In desperation the rich are continually tempted to believe that they can solve these problems too with their checkbooks, which is presumably what led Jesus to remark one day that for a rich man to get to Heaven is about as easy for a Cadillac to get through a revolving door.”

—Frederick Buechner

Righteous Anger or: The Outrage of Death

August 6, 2017 |

Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.

—Augustine of Hippo

Both meekness and peacemaking are rooted in an appreciation of the infinite value of human life.

—Os Guinness
Steering through Chaos

You can’t understand God’s love if you don’t understand his anger. Because he loves, he’s angry at anything that harms those he loves.

—David Powlison
Good and Angry

Unrighteous Anger or: The Outrage of Powerlessness

July 30, 2017 |

Unrighteous anger condemns any who stand opposed to its pursuit of control. … [It] is a dark energy that demands for the self a more tolerable world now, instead of waiting for God’s redemption according to divine design and timing.

—Allender/Longman
Cry of the Soul

 

Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back–in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.

—Frederick Buechner
Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC

 

Anger: [seeing slices of pizza with only broccoli on top] Congratulations, San Francisco, you’ve ruined pizza! First the Hawaiians, and now YOU!

—Inside Out

A Blessing For Longing

July 23, 2017 |

“The danger is not that the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but that, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry.”

—Simone Weil

“One might eat and eat of the superficial, cotton-candy righteousness vended by the professional religious hucksters and never have his hunger assuaged. Or he might drink and drink of their holy water and never have his thirst quenched. But the kingdom righteousness is meat indeed and drink indeed—rich, nourishing, satisfying.”

—Clarence Jordan

“I do not believe in God, but I miss Him.”

—Julian Barnes

Sloth: A Deadly Sin?

July 16, 2017 |

“Sloth is far more than indolence, physical laziness, or a state of couch-potato lethargy. It is a condition of explicitly spiritual dejection that has given up on the pursuit of God, the true, the good, and the beautiful.”

—Os Guinness

“In the world sloth calls itself tolerance; but in hell it is called despair. It is the accomplice of every other sin and their worst punishment. It is the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing and remains alive only because there is nothing it would die for.”

—Dorothy Sayers

“Sloth is most often evidenced in busyness … in frantic running around, trying to be everything to everyone, and then having no time to listen or pray, no time to become the person who is doing these things.”

—Eugene Peterson

Envy: The Joyless Sin

July 9, 2017 |

“Of all the deadly sins, only envy is no fun at all.”

—Jason Epstein

“An envier resents; a coveter desires. Of course, an envier may begin his career as a coveter. He may begin by hankering for someone else’s goods, just as Cain may have originally wanted the blessing God gave to Abel. But failed covetousness is likely to curdle into envy: the envier is often a disgruntled coveter.  If the envier can come away with another’s goods, so much the better, but this is an incidental advantage. What the envier really wants is to spoil something – or someone.”

—Cornelius Plantinga

“An envier offers a backward intercessory prayer for his rival: ‘Drain his swimming pool, O God, but fill his basement.’”

—Cornelius Plantinga

Disorienting Grace: Out of Unrest and Arrogant Pride

July 2, 2017 |

“We often forget that the heinousness of sin lies not so much in the nature of the sin committed, as in the greatness of the Person sinned against.”

—Diane Langberg

“The sin I once feared to lose became a delight to dismiss. You turned them out and took their place, pleasanter than any pleasure.”

—Augustine

“Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call ‘humble’ nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all . . . If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realise that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least, nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.”

—C.S. Lewis

The Seven Deadly Sins

June 25, 2017 |

“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 sinful; lying is not. The new measure for sin is caloric.”

—Cornelius Plantinga

 

“To be precise and truthful, the critical examination of these famous sins by some of the keenest brains of today has led me to the dreadful conclusion that in fact all these ancient sins . . . are in fact very close to virtues . . . How drab and empty life would be without these sins, and what dull dogs we would all be without a healthy trace of many of them in our makeup!”

—Ian Fleming

 

“My sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!”

—Horatio Spafford

The Father’s Way of Working

June 18, 2017 |

“Your faith will not fail while God sustains it; you are not strong enough to fall away while God is resolved to hold you.”

―J.I. Packer
Knowing God

“Optimism hopes for the best without any guarantee of its arriving and is often no more than whistling in the dark. Christian hope, by contrast, is faith looking ahead to the fulfillment of the promises of God, as when the Anglican burial service inters the corpse ‘in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Optimism is a wish without warrant; Christian hope is a certainty, guaranteed by God himself. Optimism reflects ignorance as to whether good things will ever actually come. Christian hope expresses knowledge that every day of his life, and every moment beyond it, the believer can say with truth, on the basis of God’s own commitment, that the best is yet to come.”

―J.I. Packer
Never Beyond Hope

“Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not ‘How am I to find God?’ but ‘How am I to let myself be found by him?’ The question is not ‘How am I to know God?’ but ‘How am I to let myself be known by God?’ And, finally, the question is not ‘How am I to love God?’ but ‘How am I to let myself be loved by God?’ God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home.”

―Henri J.M. Nouwen
The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming