Series: The Gospel of GodScripture: Romans 9:30-10:21

“The bar for reaching heaven’s entry is so low that only a few will reach it.”

Scott Sauls

“I often see the most significant self-deception and lack of self knowledge in people and contexts that proclaim a robust doctrine of sin. And I see the most anxiety and control in people and contexts that proclaim God’s omnipotence. Anyone see this too? What do you make of this?”

Chuck Degroat

“In light of the decline in church attendance in America, I am often asked for my thoughts. Here they are (in a nutshell):

The harvest is plentiful.

The workers are many.

We need to stop wringing our hands and get harvesting.”

Rebecca McLaughlinThe post The Gospel of God: Stumbling Over or Collapsing Upon? first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: The Gospel of GodScripture: Romans 9:14-29

“It is at first unsettling to be confronted with God’s absolute sovereignty in our salvation. But ultimately this is our true security, for if there was nothing in us, but only God’s good pleasure, that brought us into grace, then there is nothing in us that can take us out of grace.”

Robert Yarbrough

“The moment of surrender is the moment you choose to lose control of your life, the split second of powerlessness where you trust that some kind of ‘higher power’ better be in charge, because you certainly aren’t.”

Bono

“Behind the history you witness is a History-Maker who can be trusted; beneath the values you violate is the mercy to forgive you; beyond the death you must die is the life he has pioneered: resurrection.”

Glen ScrivenerThe post Have Mercy first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: The Gospel of GodScripture: Romans 9:1-13

“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

“Continue seeking him with seriousness. Unless he wanted you, you would not be wanting him.”

C.S. LewisThe post The Gospel of God: Tragic Unbelief and Miraculous Belief first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Latest SermonScripture: Mark 16:1-8

“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

“Jesus was the only one that ever raised the dead,” The Misfit continued, “and He shouldn’t have done it. If He did what He said, then there’s nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow him, and if He didn’t, then it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left…”

Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find

“How can this strange story of God made flesh, of a crucified savior, of resurrection and new creation become credible for those whose entire mental training has conditioned them to believe that the real world is the world which can be satisfactorily explained and managed without the hypothesis of God? I know of only one clue to the answering of that question, only one real hermeneutic of the gospel: a congregation which believes it.”

Lesslie NewbiginThe post Good Morning People in a Good Night World first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: Latest SermonScripture: Mark 11:1-11

“Now to the gate of my Jerusalem,

The seething holy city of my heart,

The saviour comes. But will I welcome him?

Oh crowds of easy feelings make a start;

They raise their hands, get caught up in the singing,

And think the battle won. Too soon they’ll find

The challenge, the reversal he is bringing

Changes their tune. I know what lies behind

The surface flourish that so quickly fades;

Self-interest, and fearful guardedness,

The hardness of the heart, its barricades,

And at the core, the dreadful emptiness

Of a perverted temple. Jesus come

Break my resistance and make me your home.”

Malcolm Guite, Palm Sunday: A Sonnet

“It is ourselves that we must spread under Christ’s feet, not coats or lifeless branches or shoots of trees, matter which wastes away and delights the eye only for a few brief hours. But we have clothed ourselves with Christ’s grace, with the whole Christ — ‘for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ’ — so let us spread ourselves like coats under his feet.”

Andrew of Crete, 8th CenturyThe post How to Welcome a King (For Dummies) first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: The Gospel of GodScripture: Romans 8:31-37

“What matters supremely therefore is not in the last analysis the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it – the fact that he knows me. I am graven on the palms of his hands. I am never out of his mind. All knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me. I know him because he first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is no moment when his eye is off me, or his attention distracted from me, and no moment therefore when his care falters. This is momentous knowledge… There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love for me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me.”

J. I. Packer, Knowing God

“The work which His goodness began,

The arm of His strength will complete;

His promise is yea and amen,

And never was forfeited yet.

Things future, nor things that are now,

Not all things below nor above

Can make Him His purpose forego,

Or sever my soul from His love.

My name from the palms of His hands

Eternity will not erase;

Impressed on His heart it remains

In marks of indelible grace.

Yes, I to the end shall endure,

As sure as the earnest is given

More happy, but not more secure,

The glorified spirits in heaven.”

Augustus TopladyThe post The Gospel of God: He is For You! first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: The Gospel of GodScripture: Romans 8:18-30

“We shake with joy, we shake with grief.

What a time they have, these two

housed as they are in the same body.” 

Mary Oliver

“Wisdom teaches us that tears, at their best, pay tribute to something lost that was once cherished, and it was wise to cherish it. We lament the loss of a genuine good.” 

Zack Eswine

“The absence of hope is a hellish state of utter despair. In contrast, Christian faith offers hope as a present reality, a foretaste of heaven directing us toward an eternal relationship with Christ. This hope is not a passive waiting at a departure gate but an active journey, empowered by faith in God’s promises, providence, and power. It’s a hope we can hold fast because God has promised to finish what he started in us.”

David CassidyThe post The Gospel of God: Between Groaning and Glory first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: The Gospel of GodScripture: Romans 8:12-17

“A true Christian is one who has not only peace of conscience, but war within. He may be known by his warfare as well as by his peace.”  

J.C. Ryle

“The spiritual world cannot be made suburban. It is always frontier, and if we would live in it, we must accept and even rejoice that it remains untamed.”

Howard R. Macy

“The love of God is not a mild benevolence; it is a consuming fire.” 

Bede Griffiths

“It would be nice and fairly nearly true, to say that ‘from that time forth, Eustace was a different boy.’ To be strictly accurate, he began to be a different boy. He had relapses. There were still many days when he could be very tiresome. But most of those I shall not notice. The cure had begun.”  

C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn TreaderThe post The Gospel of God: War and Peace first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: The Gospel of GodScripture: Romans 8:1-11

“I tell myself that if I serve more, sign up for more, read my Bible more, just be more, then finally, I will be enough to be in a real relationship with God. But that’s all smoke and mirrors. We’re all fatally wanting, and though we try our best, we can’t hide it from the One who made us. And yet, we are found whole and without stain: ‘There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’ (Rom 8:1). He looks to judge us, failing and phony people, and sees instead His perfect, pure and blameless Son. We can breathe. We are free.”

Emily Price

“[The Holy Spirit] internalizes the triumphs of Christ crucified within the depths of the human being, so that our inclinations start changing from evil to good. The law cannot do that. The law tells us to pump harder, but the Holy Spirit makes springs of living water flow from within. The law tells us to pedal faster, but the Holy Spirit fills our sails. And that is the power of real holiness.”

Ray Ortlund, Jr.

“The same Christ who overcame every temptation and was perfectly obedient—that Jesus is in you now. The Jesus who had compassion on the crowds and who healed the sick—that Jesus is in you. The humble Jesus who led as a servant, who washed his disciples’ feet—he’s in you. The Jesus who repeatedly shattered racial barriers with his teachings and in his life—that Jesus is in you. The Jesus who suffered and loved to the end—he dwells in you. And the Jesus who was raised to new life—that Jesus is living in you right now!”

Rankin WilbourneThe post The Fountain of Life first appeared on Hope Church PCA.

Series: The Gospel of GodScripture: Romans 7:13-25

“When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love

and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am

honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for

beer.”

Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

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

John Newton

“I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I

am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am.”

John NewtonThe post The Gospel of God: The Normal Christian Life first appeared on Hope Church PCA.