Grace & Peace PGH

"This address lends a twofold character to the entire prayer. On the one hand it pervades it with a childlike trust ("Our Father"), on the other hand, with reverence and an awareness of distance ("in heaven"). Such a frame of mind grants God the honor that is His due and grants the person praying the certainty that he will be heard."- Herman Ridderboss

"We have good biblical and theological reasons for our fasting and abstinence. Through our fasting we are acting as living sacrifices, living memorial stones, asking God to heal our world, a world that we can surely see is in desperate need of His healing touch."--Tim LeCroy, _And When You Fast_

Encouraging believers to more frequently consider God's holiness and mercy.

“The issue is not the method or frequency of prayer… but the attitude of faith which underlies and inspires it.” – R.T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, 240-241.

“I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time – waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God, it changes me.” – Quote from Shadowlands

“Christians should daily remember their baptism as a seal of the promises God has made to them.” – Rodger M. Crooks, Salvation’s Sign and Seal, 39.

This is a sermon from guest preacher, Derek Bates.

“A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it. People who go blithely through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. A person’s faith can collapse almost overnight if she has failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long consideration. “Believers should acknowledge and wrestle with doubts – not only their own but their friends’ and neighbors’… Only if you struggle long and hard with objections to your faith will you be able to provide grounds for your beliefs to skeptics, including yourself, that are plausible rather than ridiculous and offensive. And, just as important for our current situation, such a process will lead you, even after you come to a position of strong faith, to respect and understand those who doubt. “But even as believers should learn to look for reasons behind their faith, skeptics must learn to look for a type of faith hidden within their reasoning. All doubts, however skeptical and cynical they may seem, are really a set of alternate beliefs. You cannot doubt Belief A except from a position of faith in Belief B… Every doubt, therefore, is based on a leap of faith.” – Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism.

This is a sermon from guest preacher, Joseph Bianco.