Open Door Presbyterian Church Podcasts

Series: The Gospel of GodScripture: Romans 1:13-17“I just want to be forgiven. Can’t I be forgiven? I just want to be forgiven.”“Joel Maisel” in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel“A moralistic religion of self-salvation is our default setting as fallen creatures. If we are not explicitly and regularlytaught out of it, we will always turn the message of God’…

Series: The Gospel of GodScripture: Romans 1:8-15“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 teachin…

Series: The Gospel of GodScripture: Romans 1: 1-7“Fundamentally, the gospel is news. It’s good news—the good news about what our triune God has accomplished for His people:the Father’s sending His Son, the incarnate Jesus Christ, to live perfectly, fulfill the law, and die sacrificially, satisfying God’s wrathagainst us that we might not face hell,…

This was a delightful celebration of God’s faithfulness to Hope Church in the 25 years since it began. Enjoy some oldies but goodies, hear from our first two pastors, and reflect on all that God has done!By Clyde Godwin Stuart Stogner

Series: Becoming the Church Jesus Longs ForScripture: John 13: 34-35; Galatians 5:13-15;Galatians 6:2“There has been a long tradition which sees the mission of the Church primarily as obedience to a command. It has been customary to speak of ‘the missionary mandate.’ This way of putting the matter is certainly not without justification, and yet it …

Series: Becoming the Church Jesus Longs ForScripture: John 13: 34-35; Ephesians 4: 1-6“Getting saved is easy; becoming a community is difficult – damnably difficult.”Eugene Peterson“If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even when there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakn…

Series: When You PrayScripture: Colossians 1: 9-14“To be right with God the judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the father is a greater.” J.I. Packer“No matter how little you think you are, in God’s hand you will be used to accomplish his will in eternally significant ways. There are no little people and no big people, only…

Series: When You PrayScripture: Jude 17-25Christianity is not clay in the hands of the world-spirit to be molded by it, but is itself to be the moulder of public sentiment and everything else.Rev. Francis Grimke Contemporary people tend to examine the Bible, looking for things they can’t accept; but Christians should reverse that, allowing the Bibl…

Series: When You PrayScripture: Luke 18: 9-14 “The world is drowning in its efforts at life; it does not need lifeguards who swim to it carrying barbells.” Robert Farrar Capon“The religious see God as useful; gospel-believing Christians see God as beautiful.” Tim Keller“I am throwing all my good works overboard, and lashing myself to the plank of f…

Series: When You PrayScripture: Luke 18: 1-8“To persevere is to succeed.” Thomas Sutcliffe Mort“By the mercy of God, we do not lose heart . . . We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all com…

Series: When You PrayScripture: Matthew 6:5-13“You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says, “Your face, Lord, do I seek.” Psalm 27: 8“All shall work together for good. Everything is needful that he sends; nothing can be needful that he withholds.” John Newton“O Lord, you who own the cattle on a thousand hills, preserve us from living in an economy…

Series: When You PrayScripture: Matthew 6:9-13“I can resist everything except temptation.” Oscar Wilde“O Lord, give me chastity and temperance – but not yet!” St. Augustine“A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you…

Series: When You PrayScripture: Matthew 6: 7-15“A debtor to mercy alone,Of covenant mercy I sing;Nor fear, with Thy righteousness on,My person and offering to bring.The terrors of law and of GodWith me can have nothing to do;My Savior’s obedience and bloodHide all my transgressions from view.”Augustus Toplady“Honestly, I want to be like Christ. But…

Series: When You PrayScripture: Matthew 6:5-13“Believers do not pray with the view of informing God about things unknown to him, or of exciting him to do his duty, or of urging him as though he were reluctant. On the contrary, they pray in order that they may arouse themselves to seek him, that they may exercise their faith in meditating on his pro…

Series: When You PrayScripture: Matthew 6:5-13“When you stop trying to control your life and instead allow your anxieties and problems to bring you to God in prayer, you shift from worry to watching. You watch God weave his patterns in the story of your life. Instead of trying to be out front, designing your life, you realize you are inside God’s d…

Series: When You PrayScripture: Luke 11:1-4“Our natural desire to pray comes from Creation. We are made in the image of God. Our inability to pray comes fromthe Fall. Evil has marred the image. We want to talk to God but can’t. The friction of our desire to pray, combined withour badly damaged antennae, leads to constant frustration. It’s as if we’…

Series: When You PrayScripture: Luke 11:1-4“Prayer is an expression of who we are . . . We are a living incompleteness. We are a gap, an emptiness that calls for fulfillment.” Thomas Merton“Listen to this, you who are often so helpless that you do not know what to do. At times you do not even know how to pray. Your mind seems full of sin and impuri…

Series: The Love of GodScripture: Ephesians 1:3-14“God descended in fire on Sinai to write the Law on tablets of stone; on that day, 3000 died. At Pentecost, God descended in fire on Zion to write his law on the tablets of his people’s hearts, and on that day 3000 were reborn. … God will graciously seal you with his Spirit so that you can know you …

Series: The Love of GodScripture: Ephesians 1:3-14“No one who meets Jesus ever stays the same. I have found that the doubts that afflict me from many sources—from science, from comparative religion, from an innate defect of skepticism, from aversion to the church—take on a new light when I bring those doubts to the man named Jesus.”Philip Yancey, T…

Series: The Love of GodScripture: Ephesians 1:3-14“Christians find it easier to believe that God exists than that God loves them.”Brennan Manning (paraphrasing Basil Hume)“If the love of a father will not make a child delight in him, what will? Put, then, this to the venture: exercise your thoughts upon this very thing, the eternal, free, and fruit…

Series: Life of MosesScripture: Exodus 17:1-7“The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty and disease, he is …

Series: Life of MosesScripture: Exodus 16:1-21“Surrender don’t come natural to me.I’d rather fight You for something I don’t really wantThan to take what You give that I need.And I’ve beat my head against so many walls.Now I’m falling down, I’m falling on my knees” Rich Mullins“Jesus, do you see that wheelchair? You were right when you said that in…

Series: Life of MosesScripture: Exodus 15:1-21“To Christ the Lord let every tongueIts noblest tribute bring.When He’s the subject of the song,Who can refuse to sing?Survey the beauties of His faceAnd on His glories dwell.Think of the wonder of His graceAnd all His triumphs tell.Since from His bounty I receiveSuch proofs of love divine,Had I a thous…

Series: Life of MosesScripture: Exodus 14:1-31“You can survive on your own. You can grow strong on your own. You can even prevail on your own. But you cannot become human on your own. Surely that is why, in Jesus’ sad joke, the rich man has as hard a time getting into Paradise as that camel through the needle’s eye because with his credit card in h…

Scripture: Matthew 28:1-10“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 pow…

Scripture: Matthew 21:1-11“We face the same challenge the Israelites faced long ago. Jesus is king, but we must let him define his kingship. We must receive Jesus as he is, not as we would like him to be. We must let him come on a donkey, not a stallion. We must let him define his reign.”Dan Doriani“Well, I’ve got no answersFor hurt knees and cance…

Series: Life of MosesScripture: Exodus 12:29-51“For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God.” 2 Corinthians 1:20“By April 1970 I had grown sick to death of the church viewed as ‘religious cushion’ and me as chief cushioner. I had been a pastor for more tha…

Series: Life of MosesScripture: Exodus 12:21-30“The language of Christianity is the language of substitution. It is not primarily the language of morals. God is not presented as a mother saying ‘eat all your vegetables.’ Instead, Christianity is about a one-sided rescue—that we didn’t want and certainly didn’t deserve, and he did it anyway.”Rod Ros…

Series: Life of MosesScripture: Exodus 6:28-7:13“Give us faith to be strongFather, we are so weakOur bodies are fragile and wearyAs we stagger and stumble to walk where you leadGive us faith to be strong”Andrew Peterson, “Faith to Be Strong”“The love that is the heartbeat of the Christian story—the Father’s love for the Son, and through the Son, fo…

Series: Life of MosesScripture: Exodus 5:22 - 6:13“Oh! I love God’s ‘shalls’ and ‘wills.’ There is nothing comparable to them. Let a man say ‘shall,’ what is it good for? ‘I will,’ says man, and he never performs; ‘I shall,’ says he, and he breaks his promise. But it is never so with God’s ‘shalls.’ If He says ‘shall,’ it shall be; when He says ‘wi…

Series: Life of MosesScripture: Exodus 5:1-6:1“Hast Thou not bid me seek Thy face,And shall I seek in vain?And can the ear of sovereign grace,Be deaf when I complain?No still the ear of sovereign grace,Attends the mourner’s prayer.Oh may I ever find access,To breathe my sorrows there.” Anne Steele“When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard…

Series: Life of MosesScripture: Exodus 4:1-17“Consider the mighty ways in which God used a dead stick of wood. ‘God so used a stick of wood’ can be a banner cry for each of us. Though we are limited and weak in talent, physical energy and psychological strength, we are not less than a stick of wood. But as the rod of Moses had to become the rod of …

Series: Life of MosesScripture: Exodus 3:1-15“Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and our ourselves . . . it is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutini…

Series: Life of MosesScripture: Exodus 2:11-25“All things on Earth only exist in different stages of becoming garbage.” Jerry Seinfeld“God does not make junk, and we dishonor the Creator if we take a negative view of the work of his hands when he himself takes such a positive view. In fact, so positive a view did he take of what he had created that…

Scripture: Mark 4:1-20“This world has nothing for meAnd this world has everythingAll that I could wantAnd nothing that I need”Caedmon’s Call, “This World”“Our sticky fingers are motivated by desire for control just as much as for power—our tendency is to protect against the unknown future, especially against a future of need or dependence. This is …

Series: Life of MosesScripture: Exodus 1:20, 1:22-2:10Q. What do you understand by the providence of God?A. God’s providence is his almighty and ever present power, whereby, as with his hand, he still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures, and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, hea…

Series: Life of MosesScripture: Exodus 1:1-21“In friendship … we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years’ difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another…the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting–any of these chances might have…

Series: Life of MosesScripture: Exodus 33:11a; Hebrews 11:23-29“The life of Moses presents a series of striking antitheses. He was the child of a slave, and the son of a queen. He was born in a hut, and lived in a palace. He inherited poverty, and enjoyed unlimited wealth. He was the leader of armies, and the keeper of flocks. He was the mightiest …

Scripture: Luke 14:12-24“Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit you would stay out and your dog would go in.” Mark Twain“Blessed are the poor in spirit.” JesusBy Chris Horne

Series: Advent 2022Scripture: Matthew 2:1-12“Thou who art God beyond all praising,All for love’s sake becamest man;Stooping so low but sinners raising,Heavenward by thine eternal plan.Thou who art God beyond all praising,All for love’s sake becamest man.”Frank Houghton“No matter how much we give lip service to the notion of free grace and dying lov…

Series: Advent 2022Scripture: Matthew 1:21-2321 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,and they shall call his name Immanuel”(which means, God with us). Matthew…

Series: Advent 2022Scripture: Matthew 1:1; Genesis 12: 1-3, 22:18“Come, thou long expected Jesus,born to set thy people free;from our fears and sins release us,let us find our rest in thee.Israel’s strength and consolation,hope of all the earth thou art;dear desire of every nation,joy of every longing heart.” Charles Wesley“Oh! I love God’s ‘shalls…

Series: Advent 2022Scripture: Matthew 1:1; Hosea 3:4-5“The early Christians did not say ‘look what the world is coming to!’ but ‘look what has come into the world!’”Carl Henry“So I’ve been waiting for the KingTo come galloping out of the clouds while the angel armies singHe’s gonna gather His people in the shadow of His wingsAnd I’m gonna raise my …

Series: Advent 2022Scripture: Matthew 1:1; 11:2-6; 16:13-16, 21-25“Who is this, so weak and helpless,Child of lowly Hebrew maid,Rudely in a stable sheltered,Coldly in a manger laid?‘Tis the Lord of all creation,Who this wondrous path has trod;He is Lord from everlasting,And to everlasting God” William Washam How“John [the Baptist] saw the mission o…

Series: Advent 2022Scripture: Matthew 1:1-21“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would no…

Series: Revelation: Unveiled HopeScripture: Revelation 5:1-14 “Crown Him the Lord of heav’n,One with the Father known,One with the Spirit through Him giv’nFrom yonder glorious throne,To Thee be endless praiseFor Thou for us hast died;Be Thou, O Lord, through endless daysAdored and magnified.” Matthew Bridges“We wonder, What does worship have to do …

Series: Revelation: Unveiled HopeScripture: Revelation 4:1-11“Worship is the strategy by which we interrupt our preoccupation with ourselves and attend to the presence of God.”Eugene Peterson“Worship is the arena in which God recalibrates our hearts, reforms our desires, and rehabituates our loves. Worship isn’t just something we do; it is where Go…

Series: Revelation: Unveiled HopeScripture: Revelation 3:14-22“It is clear that at the very beginning of Christianity, there must have occurred a vast release of energy, unequaled in the history of the race. Without it, the future course of the faith is inexplicable… Something happened to the men who associated with Jesus. That burst of energy was …

Series: Revelation: Unveiled HopeScripture: Revelation 3:7-13“There are no little people in God’s sight, so there are no little places. To be wholly committed to God in the place where God wants him—this is the creature glorified … This is the way of the Christian: he should choose the lesser place until God extrudes him into a position of more res…

We hit rewind for this special promotional episode of Beyond the Threshold podcast! Threshold editor-in-chief Frances Kang and contributing editor Gene Woo Lee chat with host Joy L. about Threshold Ministry, launching Beyond the Threshold podcast, and ODPC DigiCon 2019.