Paul David Tripp

The church is not a theological classroom. It is a conversion, confession, repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness and sanctification center, where flawed people place their faith in Christ, gather to know and love him better, and learn to love others as he designed.

When your ears hear and your eyes see the sin, weakness, or failure of your husband or wife, it is never an accident; it is always grace. God loves your spouse, and he is committed to transforming him or her by his grace, and he has chosen you to be one of his regular tools of change.

This is what grace does. It rescues us from our spiritual blindness. It releases us from our bondage to our rationalism and materialism. Grace gives us the faith to be utterly assured of what we cannot see. It frees us from refusing to believe in anything we cannot experience with our physical senses. But grace does more. It connects us to the invisible One in an eternal love relationship that fills us with joy we have never known before and gives us rest of heart that we would have though impossible. And that grace is still rescuing us, because we still tend to forget what is important, real, and true. We still tend to look to the physical world for our comfort. We still fail to remember in given moments that we really do have a heavenly Father. Grace has done a wonderful thing for us and continues to do more and more.

The minute you hear a sermon on materialism, you're glad somebody else is there to hear it.

If your hope disappoints you, it is the wrong kind of hope. You see, hope in God never disappoints, precisely because it is hope *in God.* This means that hope placed in any other thing will always end up disappointing.

Love calls you to be silent when you want to speak, and to speak when you would like to be silent. Love calls you to act when you would really like to wait, and to wait when you would really like to act. Love calls you to stop when you really want to continue and it calls you to continue when you feel like stopping. Love requires you to lead when you really would like to follow, and to follow when you really want to lead. Love again and again calls you away from your instincts and your comfort. Love always requires personal sacrifice. Love calls you to give up your life.

We are hardwired for glory because we are hardwired for God.

Human beings by their very nature are worshipers. Worship is not something we do; it defines who we are. You cannot divide human beings into those who worship and those who don__. Everybody worships; it__ just a matter of what, or whom, we serve.

Your theology won't always work toward your obedience, because your use of theology is dictated by the condition of your heart. If your heart is not submitting to the plan of God, you will actually use your theology to justify things that should not be justified.

Foolishness is more than being stupid, that deadly combination of arrogance and ignorance.

Weakness is not the problem, but my delusion of my strengths is.

It is a sweet thing that we serve a dissatisfied God who has destinations in mind for us that we would never choose for ourselves. It really is a good thing that he will not be satisfied until he has gotten us exactly where he created us and re-created us to be. Most of us would have been satisfied to stay at home, and many of us would have quit the journey long before it was completed. But our heavenly Father won't give up until each one of his children has completed the journey.

But it must be said that maturity is not merely something you do with your mind. No, maturity is about how you live your life. It is possible to be theologically astute in yet very immature. It is possible be biblically literate and in need of significant spiritual growth.

For students who have not been required to confess that it is easier to learn theology then live it, it is tempting to think maturity is more a matter of knowing in a matter of living

The Bible says that our core problem, the fundamental reason we do what we do, is sin.

. . .most people who are angry with God are angry with him for being God. They're not angry because he has failed to deliver what he promised, They're angry because he has failed to deliver what they have craved, expected or demanded.