Episodes
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A Hat on a Hat (Romans 13:1-8)
“A hat on a hat” is two good ideas that end up muddling the goodness of each. Churches often feel the pull to be like a hospital, a nonprofit, or a legal system. In Romans 13, Paul calls Christians to be good citizens who pay what they owe and love their neighbors, but he never asks the church to...
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Body of Common Life (Romans 12:3-8)
By the grace of God, we are a new humanity, freed from the need to prove our worth, compete with one another, or climb above each other. In Christ, we are uniquely gifted members of one body, equally needed and given our place by grace. So stop comparing and start serving: discover your gifts by...
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Discipleship in Community (Hebrews 10:19-25)
Discipleship in community means that we grow by gathering together and encouraging each other. We gather together as individuals who draw near to God. We draw near to God because we have a great High Priest who died for us. Our great High Priest has made a way for us to stand in the throne room…
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Rogue Sleepers & Tuned Pianos (2 Corinthians 3:7-18)
Prayer apps, liturgy books, and accountability groups are good gifts, but do they really change us? They are not magic, and Austin Pfeiffer shares how his own post-seminary exhaustion and the Golden Calf at Sinai illustrate our propensity to put practices between us and God. Paul’s answer in 2...
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Stacking Logs (2 Timothy 3:10-17)
Left to our own will, we run the Bible through the filter of our opinions and preferences. Paul says that way leads to a messy, tragic life of selfishness, and he offers one antidote. In 2 Timothy 3:10-17, God's Word instructs the wise, gives objective truth, and shows salvation. Austin Pfeiffer...
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The Gospel (Ephesians 2:1-10)
The gospel is the story of the rightful King, Jesus, who has come, won the victory, and invites us into his kingdom rather than leaving us to make our own stories the center of everything. Apart from God, we are trapped in the “domain of darkness,” shaped by the world’s desires and our...
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The Vision: Becoming an Equipping Church (Ephesians 4:11-16)
What happens after Christ ascends? Paul's answer in Ephesians 4: we live — together, joined like bones by joints, energized like a flashlight with fresh batteries. Ephesians 4 reframes church for us: teaching as coaching, attending as participation, and equipping as skill-building — a body of...
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The Mission Behind the Mission Statement (Matthew 28:16-20)
Why does a church need a mission statement? We don't, but it can help us stay on the trail of Jesus' final words in Matthew's Gospel—the Great Commission. They're a call to "go to the people," wherever you already are. Austin Pfeiffer walks through two of Jesus' commands for the church now: (1)...
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Remembrance (Malachi 3:13–4:6)
Malachi closes with Israel's small view of God and inflated view of themselves exposed. That is until God flips it in their remembering his faithfulness. He promises the joyful coming of the Messiah and his steady faithfulness through all time. This sermon walks through what it means to set down...
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Bring the First Fruits (Malachi 3:6-12)
We are prone to thinking we provide for ourselves, and prone to focusing on what we don't have. In Malachi 3, God calls out his people for robbing him through their withheld tithes, but the deeper issue is a heart that's forgotten his mercy in the past and lost trust in his provision for the...
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Approaching the Sun (Malachi 2:17–3:5)
Humans often inflate our own capacity to fix ourselves while also shrinking God down to a coach we call in when self-help stalls out. Malachi calls that out. And challenges us to identify ourselves on a list of sinners in 3:5 we'd rather not claim. In this sermon Austin Pfeiffer traces how a holy...
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Squatters' Rights (Malachi 2:10–16)
"Have we not all one Father?" Malachi's third dispute isn't really about worship rules or marriage ethics. It's about Israel forgetting who God is and the character of his love — and how that rot shows up in their worship and their marriages. This sermon walks through what it looks like to bring...
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How Have You Loved Us? (Malachi 1:1-5)
Malachi opens with God saying "I have loved you," and Israel firing back, "How have you loved us?" It's the question we ask too. When the evening doesn't go how we pictured it, when scrolling makes everyone else look more loved than us. Austin Pfeiffer looks at our spiritual distress coming from...
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Confession: Letting the Outside In (1 John 1)
The human heart is constantly revising its own narratives for self-preservation. What feels safe, staying inside our own stories, is actually what hides us from the truth. 1 John 1 argues that we cannot diagnose darkness in darkness. John insists God is light: outside us, moving toward us…
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A Feedback Loop of Grace (Galatians 6)
A feedback loop amplifies whatever is fed into it. In Galatians 6, Paul describes a community where the Spirit dwells and grace is produced, ever increasing — but only when the self gets out of the way. Austin Pfeiffer looks at specific ways the self breaks the loop: through self-righteous wish...
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From Concrete Cage to Garden City (Galatians 5:16–26)
Paul tells the Galatians to "walk around in the Spirit" but his point is that the Spirit is more than a means to something better. The Spirit is the source itself. Walking through Galatians 5 we see a life where believers walk about unshackled, out of chaos we receive one fruit, and we are…
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The Road to the Guillotine: The Danger of Adding to Christ (Galatians 5:2-15)
The French Revolutionary Jacques Hébert called for a system of zealous perfection. Eventually that standard consumed everyone, including himself. For us, we follow Christ's teaching on forgiveness until it is personal. We affirm his ethic on generosity until it costs us something real. Whether…
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Children of the Promise (Galatians 4:21-5:1)
Paul the apostle tells two stories in parallel: the children with no future and the children of the promise. Contrasting tales of children of a servant with no future security and children of a covenant promise whose future is secure unfold in the history of Israel. Paul maps these on to the…
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The Promise That Never Changed (Galatians 3:15-29)
Why did God give the law if his plan was always to save by grace through faith? In this sermon on Galatians 3:15-29, Austin Pfeiffer follows Paul as he steps back and re-explains the covenant from the ground up. From Abraham to Moses to now, God has had one unbroken plan: to redeem his people.…
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Oh Please Don't Be Unthinking (Galatians 3:1-14)
In this sermon on Galatians 3:1–14, Austin Pfeiffer brings application Paul's ongoing, urgent plea to the Galatians and to us. That plea is to stop trying to earn our own way, when in Christ we have already received what we really need. Looking at Abraham's story in Genesis 15 and the image of a...
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The Reality of the Gospel (Galatians 1:10-24)
Austin Pfeiffer continues in Galatians 1, posing the question: have you ever tried to describe a place so beautiful that words feel inadequate? That's Paul's challenge in Galatians 1. He's not interested in debating the Gospel. For Paul, it is a reality he is documenting. And more than that, it…
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Freedom in Christ (Galatians 1:1-9)
In this opening sermon of an eleven-week series through Galatians, Austin Pfeiffer unpacks how Paul is fired up! Writing without his usual warm greetings, Paul blurts out his astonishment. The Galatians are making a trade they do not realize is terminal: exchanging the grace of Christ for a...
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Maundy Thursday - John 13:1-20
This homily is a Maundy Thursday meditation on John 13:1-20 by Rev. Austin Pfeiffer. From the outdoor pavilion downtown, we explore whether Jesus knew about empires, about betrayal, about us? The answer—he does. And this makes his act of footwashing so startling. Like Paul writing to the…
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The Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-8)
Rev. Austin Pfeiffer explores the Transfiguration of Jesus in Matthew 17, where Peter's anxious chatter and the disciples' frozen silence reveal how easily we sort Jesus into a manageable category. A good teacher, a moral example, someone worth honoring, but not the God worth falling on our face...
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The Lost Sheep of the Bible Belt (Matthew 10:1-15)
In this sermon Rev. Austin Pfeiffer explores why Jesus sent the disciples to Israel before going to the Gentiles. This section of Matthew, the "Sermon on Mission" shows how and why the disciples go amongst these "lost sheep of Israel" first. And the sermon looks to connect this with the…
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Christ Fulfills the Law (Matthew 5:17-20)
In this sermon, Jackson Cole unpacks Jesus' radical teaching that the law of God isn't a hammer ready to beat you down until you obey, but an invitation into living life as the beloved.
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The Beatitudes: Jesus' Obedience Leads to Our Blessing (Matthew 5:1-12)
In this sermon Rev. Austin Pfeiffer walks through each of the eight Beatitudes as Jesus introduces his Kingdom in the Sermon on the Mount. Rather than presenting a list of spiritual ideals to achieve, the Beatitudes reveal the kinds of people Jesus meets with grace and blessing. As we move…
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Letting Go of Our Nets (Matthew 4:18-25)
Rev. Austin Pfeiffer highlights how the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry confronts our deep instinct toward self-reliance. In calling fishermen to leave their nets, teaching in synagogues, and healing the afflicted, Jesus exposes the ways we cling to work, religion, control, or productivity to...
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The Baptism of Jesus (Matthew 3:13-17)
Rev. Austin Pfeiffer explores our fear that God's love must be earned and how Jesus's baptism answers that fear. Jesus’ baptism reveals both his humility in identifying with sinners and his perfect righteousness given to us through his life, death, and resurrection. Not because of anything we've...
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Angels and Heavenly Hosts (Luke 2:8-14)
In this Christmastide homily, Jackson Cole reflects on angels as created spiritual messengers who worship Jesus and proclaim His supremacy throughout all Creation. The messages they carry often begin with the same refrain, "Fear not," echoing a reality that is only true in union with Christ:...
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Killing our king (Matthew 2:16-18)
Rev. Austin Pfeiffer shows how the Christmas story reveals a deep human power struggle: from Rachel’s tears to Herod’s fear, Matthew is exposing our anxiety-driven desire to control what only God can rule. Herod becomes a mirror of our own hearts, where fear of losing our “little kingdoms” leads…
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Matthew 2:1-6
Rev. Ben Tietje
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Matthew 1:18-25
Rev. Austin Pfeiffer explores how Isaiah’s promise of Immanuel was partially fulfilled in Israel’s history but ultimately completed in the birth of Jesus. By looking closely at Matthew 1, we see that the virgin birth reveals Jesus as truly God with us, not just a sign but the fulfillment itself....
About this show
Sermons from Salem Pres, a PCA church in downtown Winston-Salem.
Hosted by
Salem Presbyterian (Winston-Salem, NC)
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